Revision Archives - Page 7 of 10

Writing Process Relativity

September 26, 2013 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

Last week I wrote about how time is relative. Specifically, I noted that I can accomplish about 4 times as much work in a child-free hour as a child-full hour. I’ve since noticed that the writing process itself is subject to the time-warping effects of relativity. Some parts fly past, some drag–even if they take exactly the same amount of real time.

I don’t do much in the way of outlining and prewriting (although I am trying to do a little more with my latest WIP), so that doesn’t take me too long. I think if I tried detailed outlining I would find the process tedious and draining, which I why I steer clear. While I admire the authors who can write a scene-by-scene outline, I just cannot get the passion for basically writing the book before I write the book. If I tried, that would be a part of the process that would seem to move at a snail’s pace for me.

Some writers say the first draft drags for them. For me, the first draft is fits and starts. Some days the words flow so fast I lose track of time, I am so immersed in the story. Other days the words don’t come and every time I look at the clock it seems the hands haven’t moved. But even though this is one of the physically longer time frames in the process, it does not move slowly for me. I tend to make steady progress, so I feel good about it.

The revision is where time relativity really can come into play. I find large-scale revisions such as moving scenes, deleting scenes, writing new scenes or new parts of scenes to move quickly. I have more of a big-picture brain, so I enjoy this part of the process a great deal. Probably why it seems to go quickly for me.

It’s the small-scale edits that drag for me. The typos and the grammar and the punctuation and the sentence-level structure. Grammar-type issues such as punctuation have never been my strong suit, and, although I am learning, it is still a struggle. The reading the book out loud edit always takes a long time, but it is completely necessary for me. One time I found that my global search-and-replace had failed to change my protagonist’s name in 4 different places. I never would have caught that without reading out loud. My mind, when reading silently, had inserted the correct name all the previous times I had read it–and I was on the 7th major revision at that point!

I don’t know about you, but when I get to the revision stage, I make a list of all the things I need to do. For a while, this list grows instead of shrinks, since often changing one thing will lead to more changes further downstream. Then the list seems to stall, as if I cannot check off anything no matter how hard I work. But then a miracle of relativity happens, and one day I look at my list and there’s only one or two things on it! I experienced that with the non-fiction genealogy project I am working on for my family. Just this weekend I looked at what had been a very long list, and realized I was on the second-to-last thing! What a thrilling moment to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

How about you? Which parts of the writing process fly for you, and which are like pulling teeth?

A Writer’s Thick Skin: Do We Need One?

March 14, 2013 By Kerry Gans 10 Comments

There’s been a lot of talk on the Internet lately about the need to have “a thick skin” if you are going to be a writer. After all, being a writer comes with a ton of rejection and a necessary amount of critique. Nothing you write will ever be perfect, and nothing you write will be loved by everyone who reads it. These facts are part of the job description.

Kristen Lamb tells us we need a thick skin, while Rachelle Gardner makes the case that we don’t. Jody Hedlund ignores the thickness of skin altogether and talks about the unnecessary shame involved in getting feedback.

They all have good points, but I think the key to developing a so-called thick skin isn’t in strengthening your epidermis, but in changing the way we approach criticism and rejection. A thick skin simply means we can take a beating and keep on going—but have we learned anything worthwhile from the beating?

I didn’t always take criticism well. I mean, I never screamed at anyone or anything like that, but it hurt a lot when my work wasn’t up to snuff. The first time my Master’s degree advisor ripped apart my work, I was nearly in tears. I suspect that part of this reaction is that I was a very good student in school. I was used to getting all A’s. To be told that my work was not an A was rather unprecedented, and I had no coping mechanism in place.

So I learned to cope. I turned around the way I looked at the red marks splashed on the page. Instead of seeing them as glaring testaments to my worthlessness, I looked at them as a challenge: every red mark was a place I could improve my story. Once I changed my outlook from a negative (“I suck”) to a positive (“look at how much better my story can be”), the ouch factor of criticism lessened considerably.

This doesn’t mean that when I get a bleeding critique back I do a dance of joy. I get down in the dumps like everyone else. The task can seem monumental. Overwhelming. But in the end it becomes exciting, because each change is an opportunity to learn something new about our craft, and the results of the changes are instantaneous: you can actually feel the story growing stronger.

I admit that revision fits my personality. I love to learn—and honing our writing offers endless opportunities to try something new, to push ourselves higher, or to master a nuance of the craft. I am also by nature a troubleshooter: I love to fix things. When I was a video editor, I was the go-to gal when a system wasn’t working. Tracking down and fixing the problem thrilled me. The same goes for my writing. Figuring out what the problem is, and then finding the solution is an adrenaline rush.

So, back to the thick skin. Do you need one? I don’t think so. Becoming impervious brings with it the risk of becoming immune to the helpful criticism as well as the bad (and there is bad criticism out there that should simply be ignored). I think Jody hit it on the head that our task is not to grow rhino skin, but to change the way we approach criticism altogether.

What do you think? Do we need a thick skin to survive as writers or not?

Senseless Description: When Your Writing Doesn’t Feel Real

February 28, 2013 By Kerry Gans 8 Comments

Many writers I talk to say they are very visual—they can envision every detail of a scene, they know exactly what their characters look like, and they see the action unfold like a movie in their mind. Not long ago, I would have said the same thing about myself. After all, I spent about a decade as a professional video editor—working with pictures was what I had been trained to do. So I must be a visual person, right?

Wrong.

I read this blog post by Patrick Ross, and it opened my eyes (so to speak). I realized that I’m not a “eye-writer,” I’m an “ear-writer.” I process the world through sound. Sure, when I would study for a test in school I would have memorized my notes/texts to the point where I could see the words exactly in my mind. But I cemented them there by reading the notes aloud multiple times. I am much more likely to recognize a voice before I recognize the face (and recognize the face LONG before I remember the name!). I can remember entire swaths of conversations, but not a thing about the surroundings I was in at the time. Music has the power to plunge me into a memory so vividly I can forget where I am.

Turns out, I write by ear.

This revelation explains a lot about my writing. My first drafts are always “short.” They are always sparse on description. I have to go back in and pump it up in later revisions. But I still get feedback from my crit partners that the world is not vivid enough—that they can’t see it and feel it. They are not immersed in it.

Writers are told that we need to engage all the senses when we write. I have a disadvantage from the start because I have no sense of smell. So that is usually missing in my stories—which is unfortunate because smell is one of the strongest associative senses, bringing memories flooding back. I thought I had the visual part down (because I was a “visual” person, right?), but turns out I’m light on that, too. What I think is adequate description is not quite enough to immerse the reader—because I process the world through sound. What is adequate description for me (I can read books with very little physical description and not mind at all) is not enough for most other readers. Certainly not enough to build a world.

So now I know this about myself, and can work on improving it. I need to be very conscious of how much visual description I am giving and the quality of detail in that description. I have to remember to go beyond what I think is enough. I need to play to my strength as well and add more auditory description. And, as always, I need to ask someone what things smell like so I can drop that in where appropriate.

So, if people aren’t connecting to your world, take a close look at your description. What sensory details are missing? And then try to figure out why you write that way.

I love continuing to learn about my craft—because in the process I always learn more about myself.

What’s your strong suit in sensory description? What do you struggle with?

The Revision Exercise Regimen

February 7, 2013 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

Revision is a lot like starting a new exercise program. They both have very distinct stages you have to pass through before arriving at the end.

The hardest stage for a lot of people is getting started. Most of us need to exercise more, and we know it, but getting started is tough. It means finding time to exercise instead of doing all the other, more fun, things I want to spend time on. Revision is the same way, particularly when it’s a large revision. It’s overwhelming and I feel like I’m never going to be able to get to the end of it. So I procrastinate, doing all the “fun” writing things instead.

But finally, I have to take the plunge.

That first week on a new exercise program is tough. Aching muscles. Fatigue. Sweat. I so want to give up during this first week, and the revision process can be equally as painful. Those first few revision sessions are spent planning my attack, marshalling my details so I don’t forget to do something. My brain aches from juggling all the revision details, my eyes are tired from looking at the screen, and I’m sweating because I am positive there is no way I can get this done.

It is so easy to quit at this point. But I can’t—not if I want to reap the rewards.

Slowly my body adjusts to the new normal. The achy, tired muscles go away. My metabolism ramps up and I find myself haunting the kitchen for snacks (which I do not buy for this very reason). The revision program hits this phase, too. When I’m actually doing the revising, checking things off my lists, my brain ramps up—it’s playful, creative, eager to move forward. Ideas flow and connections get made that I didn’t see before.

After a while, I notice a change in my body. I feel stronger. I have more stamina. In revision, I grow in confidence, I am energized by the process. I can see the finish line, glowing like a beacon in the distance.

In the end, if I’ve persevered, I end up with a leaner, stronger, healthier body. The same is true with my novel. After the days of disciplined revision, the book is leaner, the story stronger, the whole healthier than when I began.

For me, sticking to an exercise regimen is really hard, because I find no joy in exercise at all. I’ve never once experienced the “exercise high” others have. Revision, on the other hand, I do enjoy. I love cutting the chaff and strengthening the story. “Writer’s high”? Maybe the difference is that to maintain my body once I reach a goal, I need to keep exercising, while with a manuscript, there’s a finite end point. While you may have to revise multiple times, at some point you stop and call it “done.”

But the key to success, as in so many things in life, is perseverance.

So get started, stick to it, and reach your goal!

Patience Is A Writing Virtue

September 6, 2012 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

After reading my Facebook post on completing my 2^nd round of developmental edits and beginning my polish edits, my best friend (not a writer) commented, “Geez, aren’t you ever allowed to FINISH a book?” I laughed and replied “After agent edits and publisher edits, yes!”

Still, her comment got me thinking. Of course I can finish a book—I have completed drafts of more than 16 novels. So getting from beginning to end of a book is not an issue for me. But finishing a book and completing a book are two different things.

Most of those 16+ novels will never see the light of day. And while I may poach themes and characters from them, even plot points, they will never be completed in their present form. Completing a book—making it shine in all facets—takes a whole slew of skills I didn’t have back then. Some are life experience skills and some are craft skills, including both techniques on the page and story theory, learned from thousands of hours of writing and reading.

But the most important skill I learned is patience.

It takes patience to complete a book. As a new writer, I’d finish a manuscript, give it a couple of proofreads, and it would be “done.” Of course, I was mostly writing for my own amusement back then, so the bar was set much lower. Now, with my sights set higher, that level of “done” would never cut it.

Now, instead of saying, “It’s good enough!” I ask myself, “Why isn’t this good enough?” In other words, I look for ways the novel can be stronger. Yes, I actively seek out ways to make more work for myself! I ask critique partners and beta readers and professional editors to poke all the holes in it they can so that I can fill them, learn from them, and raise my writing to the next level.

And that takes a lot of work. A lot of time. A lot of patience. To go back into your manuscript for 7+ revisions can make your head spin. You can get sick of your own novel. You can lose perspective and wonder if it’s any good at all. You can want to throw it in a drawer and move on to something else.

When I was a new (and young) writer, I never could have done what I am doing with my current WIPs. I never could have approached yet ANOTHER revision with eagerness and excitement. I never could have made myself stay up late, eyes like sandpaper, to edit this for the billionth time.

It takes patience to do that. Patience with my work (understanding that this process is not infinite, it will end), and patience with myself—allowing myself the mistakes I make, and learning from them.

The result? I am more excited about my current WIP (now in revision 7 and headed for query land next week) than I have ever been about any other work. Or rather, I am more realistically excited about it, since I now have also learned what goes into making a marketable book.

I said to my writing buddy Nancy Keim Comley the other day that this is the first manuscript I really feel has reached that professional bar. And it only took 16+ novels and 28 years to get here.

Patience. It’s a writing virtue.

Developmental Edits: Complete!

August 30, 2012 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I’m on vacation this week, but I wanted to update on how my editing on my current WIP is going. When you last tuned in, I had gotten back my developmental edits from fabulous developmental editor Kathryn Craft. After a few hours of despair (“I can’t do this, it’s too hard!”) I buckled down to it and found that it was not as hard as I thought. In fact, it was a challenge that I ended up enjoying!

Put succinctly, my main problem was that some of my scenes were out of focus, not keeping the main underlying idea front and center. Luckily, I was able to keep most of my scenes and just refocus them (explained in more detail in this blog post). I only wrote 2 completely new scenes and a half of another one. The rest were all repurposed with judicious trimming and adding of content. The edits Kathryn suggested helped a great deal–the story really came together.

Working hard, I managed to finish all those edits BEFORE I left for vacation. I’m going to let it sit until I get back, then go through a final polish/tighten edit. With all the cutting, pasting, and adding of words, I only added a new 513 words, but I would like to trim the whole thing down by about 1,000 words to get it to my ideal word count. Shouldn’t be too hard!

Then (drum roll, please!) I start the query process and see if this manuscript has legs!

Enjoy the end of summer, everyone – I am!

Total Control

August 16, 2012 By Kerry Gans 6 Comments

Have you ever thought you were totally in control of something, only to find out you weren’t? I had that happen recently. I thought I had absolutely everything I needed for a meeting at my daughter’s school, only to find I didn’t have the proper immunization records, the registration form they had mailed me, AND that her birth certificate had disappeared.

Sometimes the same thing happens in my manuscripts. I am a partial-pantser (writing friend Marie Lamba calls us “thongers” but that’s just not an image I want burned in my brain), so there’s plenty of space in my manuscripts to go off the rails. Reading over the rough draft, I find things like neglected plot clues, inadvertently changed place names, and minor characters left in the bathroom from chapter 2 until the end of the book.

So what to do when things firmly in hand spiral out of control? The only effective way I’ve found to deal with this is to concentrate on fixing one thing at a time. I called my toddler’s pediatrician and got her records, picked up another registration form at the meeting, and still haven’t found the birth certificate, but I can pick up another copy from the vital records office.

As far as mistakes in the manuscript, the same rule applies: tackle one thing at a time. I always go from big picture to nit-picky because changing big picture items will inevitably change the smaller things. Why waste time fixing commas in sentences you might cut out altogether?

Sometimes I can’t have everything as under control as I’d like. (This is a lesson I am learning over and over as the mom of a toddler.) All I can do is control what I can, not beat myself up for what I can’t, and fix what needs fixing.

Total control is impossible.

Getting to the goal by tackling one issue at a time is not.

Polish Editing and Potty Training

July 19, 2012 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

This month I’ve been neck-deep in revisions, trying to get my manuscript ready for the editor by August 1st. I added about 20,000 words to my middle grade WIP during “big picture” edits, and now am in the process of trying to pull out 12,000 to get my word count back to where it should be. (For the record, I’ve cut a little over 7,500 words so far.)

Some of those cuts have come in large swaths, where I deleted large amounts of words by restructuring a chapter or two. For example, it occurred to me suddenly that my entire first chapter was window-dressing. Aside from about 200 words, I didn’t need any of it. So I cut the entire chapter and moved the 200 words to other places in the book.

Unfortunately, most of my word-pulling has not been so effortless. And since I am a mom as well as a not-yet-published writer, this intense editing is not the only thing on my plate. My two-year-old announced this past weekend that she wanted to wear big girl panties. Great for her! Bad for me.

My productivity drops like a stone when escorting a toddler to the bathroom every 20-30 minutes.

But I found that potty training and this level of intense editing have a lot in common:

1. Both are painstaking processes. Often success seems almost impossible, but each small victory moves us one step closer. Toddler has a Potty Chart. I have an Editing Progress Chart. Hers has flower stickers. Mine has color-coded squares. It’s all good.

2. Both require constant concentration. Toddler has to pay attention to her body. I have to pay attention to every single word and see if it deserves to live.

3. Both are best accomplished by taking them in small increments. We set a timer for 30 minutes for Toddler. For 20 if she’s been drinking a lot. I focus on one chapter at a time. One paragraph if I’ve been drinking a lot. (For the record, I don’t drink.)

4. Both have their share of accidents. Toddler—well, you can guess. As for me—Did I really just delete half a chapter?!? UNDO! UNDO!

5. Both will be successfully accomplished. Toddler will eventually stay dry all day. I will get this manuscript polished and ready for the editor. I will likely reach my goal first, but I will not complain if Toddler beats me to it. 🙂

Working on two very intense yet completely different projects saps my energy, but I am managing to muddle through.

As long as I do not become potty-mouthed in my writing or try to delete my daughter, things will work out fine.

Oops, there’s the timer! (I feel positively Pavlovian.)

Hanging Pictures in Your Story: Putting the finishing touches on your manuscript

July 5, 2012 By Kerry Gans 4 Comments

We’ve been in our new home just under a year, and we have finally gotten around to hanging pictures. That’s usually the last piece of the puzzle—that step that makes you feel like you really live in your house.

Hanging pictures is like the final edits of your manuscript. Just like a picture, you make sure each room (chapter or scene) has something colorful in it. A picture is often more than just decoration—it is either a photo of something important in your life or a painting/print depicting something that stirred you emotionally. Every chapter should contain meaning like that—something that forwards the plot and/or shows character development and emotion.

A picture is often a focus point in the room. Every chapter needs focus—a reason for being in your story in the first place. A fun way of ensuring that there is a point to your chapter is to ask yourself, “If I wanted to take a picture in this chapter, what is the best moment to capture?” If the highest moment of your chapter wouldn’t create a meaningful photograph, maybe you need to rethink your chapter.

Another facet of focus is directing people’s attention. Often, the arrangement of pictures on the wall can control how people view a room—the order in which they see objects, and even the overall feel of the room. In your final revisions, you refine where you want your audience to focus their attention. What do you need them to notice in each chapter? Are you purposefully misdirecting? Decide what’s important for the audience to pay attention to in each chapter, and write your prose accordingly.

So when you’re putting those final touches on your manuscript, pay attention to where you hang your pictures. You want your finished manuscript to be pretty, but you also want the pictures to focus attention and convey the deeper meaning of your story.

Hang your pictures with care, and enjoy finally being moved in!

Old Fashioned: Writing with Pen & Paper

May 17, 2012 By Kerry Gans 15 Comments

I used to write everything longhand. I still have copybooks filled with my young scribbling. But once I got to grad school, I found that between school and working full time, I had no time for the luxury of writing longhand and then typing it in. So I’ve switched to writing everything on the computer.

This year, I attended some writing sessions with Kathryn Craft. These sessions involved writing exercises. Because I don’t like lugging my laptop around, I elected to do this writing on paper. The funny thing was, I loved the experience of returning to paper.

There is something visceral in writing with pen and paper. I feel the words more intensely through my fingers. The smoothness of the paper is soothing. The pen pressing into the pulp lends the words a tangibility that the computer screen lacks. A permanence exists, too—no computer glitch will randomly erase your work!

The visual aspect of writing creates creative energy, too. Not only do the letters themselves have shapes that I am creating, I can deviate from the linear plane by writing in the margins, adding arrows, or writing sideways. This is akin to using another creative outlet such as painting or music to release writing creativity. I find that simple starting to write, even if I don’t have a clear idea where I’m headed, acts like doodling for me—and sometimes I will doodle as well, while I’m thinking.

I have found that writing on paper meshes better with the speed of my brain while doing writing exercises. Certainly, when in the writing flow state, typing is faster than writing. But when I am trying to come up with an idea, trying to create a scene or character on the spot, writing on paper is a good speed. I don’t get frustrated because my writing outpaces my ideas and leaves me staring at a blinking cursor on a blank line.

To my great surprise, I found the writing from these sessions to have a different tone from my usual writing. In many cases it was infused with a humor I struggle to find in my writing. I often felt that the writing was more powerful, even in its unedited state, than what I normally wrote. Perhaps this is a fallacy, perhaps it was because the writing was meant to be experimental and I felt less constrained, or perhaps there was a raw emotional connection facilitated by the physical connection of pen and brain.

I hope I can import this new depth, feel, and humor into my computer writing, but if I cannot, I know I can revert to the pen and paper. And whenever I am stuck, or struggling with a particular scene, I will try this simple change of medium and see what sparks in me.

Writing on pen and paper may seem old-fashioned, and certainly is no longer the norm, but it still has power and uses that should not be overlooked in our pixel-dominated lives. I look forward to incorporating it into my writing process and letting the ink flow!

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