Revision: Part 3 Redux A.K.A. Kill Your Babies

I haven't been hiding; I've been in mourning. You see, I've been revising a novel myself--and one of the conclusions I came to (there were several that rocked my world in a not-so-comfortable way), was that I needed to delete four chapters and eliminate a major subplot. I worked hard on those chapters-they were, in fact, conceived and written before most of the main plot was in place, and I used to think they were critical to the story. They are critical to my understanding of the protagonist and her family, and how the story was set in motion, but the painful truth is that they do not belong in the book. The story is building, building, building to the climax. The tension is growing. Even as the author, I'm on the edge of my seat, half-holding my breath... everything is moving forward, and then BAM! The chapters pull the reader back into the past and detour them through the protagonist's mother's story. They're a giant speed bump in the middle of the road.

I didn't even want to read them when I was working on my revision--not because they weren't good or because I didn't like what I'd written, but because they got in the way of the story. And if that's how I felt, then how could I expect a reader to slog through them? I can't move them earlier, before the delicious momentum builds, because then the reader would know more than the protagonist, and the knowledge would take tension away from the story--and the reader wouldn't share the protagonist's angst in the same way. So, the chapters are gone. It is, after all, the daughter's story and not her mother's, making the chapter more appropriately relegated to "important things that inform the author's knowledge of the character and allow him/her to write better, more vivid, three-dimensional scenes never need to be revealed." A few short sentences here and there is all the reader will get... until after the book comes out, in which case, if I still can't bear not sharing these chapters, I can do as Jennifer Crusie often does and include them as "bonus material" on a book-related web site. Ah, but such is the stuff of dreams. For now, there are more immediate problems to be solved.

The other problem I'm up to my eyeballs addressing? Scenes that aren't singing for me... Over the years, I've learned there are a number of reasons why this can be:

1. The scene isn't really a scene, i.e., there's no conflict.
   
2. I haven't defined for myself the character(s) objective(s) and what's at stake, and so I'm not making it clear to the readers.
   
3. The dialogue isn't working. It's not natural, or it's too honest. By that, I mean it's as if everyone has been given a magical potion whereby they say what they're thinking, instead of what they need to say in order to avoid hurting someone's feelings, be politically correct, or to negotiate their way through an emotionally charged situation. Think about it: How many conversations over the course of the day do you actually say EXACTLY what you mean?
   
4. The wrong character is telling the story.

POV CHOICE IS A BIGGY!!! It can make or break your novel. In my first novel (which is visiting agents right now), changing the POV character for the final chapter turned the ending from "Ho-hum, maybe I'll believe that" to a tear-jerker, "Oh my God, of course!, that makes all the sense in the world!" ending. With the first POV character I used, the ending felt contrived, even though the characters behaved logically based on who they were and the situations leading up to the final scenes; because the reader couldn't know what a critical character was thinking and fully understand his motivation for one key action, it didn't work. Once he became the POV character, reader angst increased, his behavior made sense in terms of who they understood him to be, and everything fell into place without feeling like I'd dropped an answer down from the sky. Simple change... dramatic improvement.

I have a scene at the climax of my novel-in-progress that wasn't working, and I realized I was looking at it from the wrong POV--so I've rewritten it, solving that problem, but creating a new one. This character is present throughout the novel, he's really likable, but it's the only time I've given him the POV. Readers are going to hate me for that! I have, however, given his wife the POV on multiple occasions, and she's OK, but not nearly as interesting or likable. Time to take her POV away and give it to him, I think. It will increase the tension and balance out the perspective, without changing the overall story--though it also means more work. Oh well. The point is writing the best darn book I can, and if that means twenty revisions (I'm only on the 3rd... it just feels like 20), then that's how many I'll do. I just hope I'm done killing babies... I like the scenes I have left.

Revision: Part 3

Readers of my blog who are in the process of revision will understand why I haven't posted for more than a week: I've been on a roll with the revisions of my own novel, and it's hard to pull my attention from it, even to sleep. I'd hoped to be past the early-stage revisions by now, but the story keeps changing as new inspiration strikes and I see new ways to make it more compelling. I'll keep working until I'm certain it's the best it can be... rushing would be my biggest mistake. Just ask Robert McKee, author of Story, who says weak stories is the single biggest problem facing Hollywood today. In writing classes, we're commonly taught how to write scenes, and we're taught conflict. We touch, perhaps, on plot arc and the concept of acts... but what really makes for a good STORY, the common features the great movies, books, etc., possess that allow them to touch us more deeply and remain memorable? That seems to be an art largely forgotten, or else we've convinced ourselves that they're all so unique, they can't possibly share a commonality. A few voices out there, however--like McKee, Campbell and Vogler--share a different opinion.

But back to REVISION!

You, the author, have your story ducks in a row. Each scene's conflict is clear, the characters' motivations and voices have been perfected and reader is grounded. The themes are in place. Now what?

It's time to look at balance.

1. Are chapters divided in the right places? This isn't necessarily according to length, but at the end of a scene or part of a scene (some defining moment) that leaves the reader wanting to turn the page. Think of the books that have kept you reading late into the night: What did they have in common? I'll bet when their chapters ended, you were left dying to know what happened NEXT... so you told yourself you'd read just one more page, and that become another, and then another, and then another--and before you knew it, hours had passed.
   
2. Do the chapters "go somewhere" as Ann Hood says? If they start on a negative, do they end on a positive or vice versa? Is there a purpose to them? If not, do you really need them?
   
3. Is the ending appropriate for the beginning? Conventtionally, in Western literature, we like for our stories to come full circle and for the ending to be a reflection of the beginning altered in some way by the story's events. Eastern literature is more open-ended.
   
4. How many settings have you used? Are they varied enough? Are they appropriate for the emotional tone? Can they be changed to better suit your needs? (One of Ann Hood's examples is to introduce a cold character in a meat locker and warm the setting as the character "thaws.")
   
5. Is sentence structure varied? How is paragraph length?
   
6. Have you avoided what Ann Hood calls the seven deadly words: very, suddenly, so, look, turn, smile and nod? (Note that sometimes you really DO need these words, but often they can be replaced with actions or description that reveal character. I highly recommend reading some of Ann's work, if you want to see what I mean.)
   
7. Has that pesky passive voice crept back in?
   

Note I haven't said anything about grammar, spelling and punctuation yet... I differ from a lot of writers here, probably for several reasons. One is that I'm naturally good with all three. Another is that I still have A LOT of work to do, and I know that for every error I fix, another will arrive to take its place--why fool myself into thinking I have a "clean" manuscript?

I may only need to do one or two reads (probably two) to fix all the problems with this type of revision. (Did I remember to say it takes several read/fix/repeat cycles on the "Part 2" revisions to really do the job well? And now I'm saying another one or two for Part 3.) When I'm satisfied, I move on to Part 4. I did warn you that Revision, done well, is a lot of work, right? It's not for the feint of heart.

Revision How-To: Part 2

PHOTO: My editor, 50Cent, isn't always pleased with the changes.

The scenes are in order, I've decided (tentatively--this may yet change) where my story will begin, and I've made "placeholders" for where new scenes need to be created. It's going to be choppy, some necessary information won't have shown up yet, and there will, of course, be inconsistencies and a lack of transitions because I've moved large blocks of text.

I don't care.

In Scrivener, all I have to do at this point is switch from my virtual index cards to text view. Without Scrivener, I'd have to go into my word processor and move the corresponding scenes around by hand so they'd match my stack of index cards, with notations like "ADD SCENE HERE RE XYZ" where necessary. I have a snippet file where I keep deleted scenes, and I save a snapshot of my entire document at least once a day, so I can go back to a previous version if I want--sometimes, I decide I liked a previous version better, but that's VERY rare.

Now, I print it out. Not everyone does, but I like to, because I focus better when I've got the words on paper. I turn the entire manuscript into a PDF and send it to Kinko's, 150 pages at a time. I have it spiralbound, with blank heavy card stock front and back--it costs a little bit more that way, but the binding keeps the pages in order and the card stock protects the pages.

Then I start the revision process, reading through the manuscript and working scene by scene on what is still a macro-revision. I'm asking myself a lot of questions at once:

• Is the scene's conflict clear?
  
• Are the characters' motivations clear? Are their voices unique?
  
• Are my verbs active? (It's amazing how passive voice creeps into that first draft--I'm convinced evil elves put it in at night while I'm sleeping.)
  
• Have I grounded the reader? Do they know the where and when? Have I properly introduced the characters?
  
• Have I done the reader's work for them (i.e., telling them what to think, instead of showing them)? Have I been redundant? Or assumed too much?
  
• Are there themes to develop here?
  
• Do my metaphors and similes work? I haven't mixed them, have I? Or overdone them?
  

I don't get hung up on word choice at this point. If I know I have the wrong word, I'll asterisk it, because chances are better than 50/50 that I won't need it anyway by the time I get to the final revision: Why agonize over it now? I try to keep my grammar correct, I try to make dialogue flow, and I try to make all the little things work, but that's not my primary focus--yet. I'm still working on the big picture. Until the story is exactly right, there isn't much point in worrying about the details.

I make all my corrections right on the paper copy, sometimes crossing out nearly all of what's written and replacing it with new material (that's what the blank facing page is good for). If it takes me several stabs to get it right, I may staple in the final copy, or I may use a scratch pad to fiddle around with what I'm trying to say until I'm satisfied that I've got it right. It scares me a little to have all my changes on a single hard copy, but unless my house burns down when I'm not home to rescue the manuscript, I think I'm probably okay. I'll transcribe what I've written when I've finished going through the whole manuscript.

And after that? I'll repeat the entire process over and over until I'm satisfied with the STORY--because really, it's all about STORY, isn't it?

Then, and only then, it will be time for Part 3.

Revision How-To: Part I

Everyone has their own approach. I've been to maybe a dozen lectures on revision, and I've read perhaps half-a-dozen books on the subject, and there's one thing I can tell you for sure: No two authors approach it the same way. What works for me will almost certainly not work for you, but it's likely that some portion of what I do will light your "Aha!" bulb for a moment, and you'll learn something that might help you get closer to the perfect manuscript of your dreams.

First, a tip of the hat to my revision mentors: Theodore A. Rees Cheney's GETTING THE WORD'S RIGHT, Ann Hood, Patricia Wood and Jacquelyn Mitchard. My approach is a combination of pearls I've harvested from reading Cheney's book and listening to Ann, Pat and Jackie speak. Oh, and like most authors, I am forever indebted to Ann Lamott for giving me permission to write my "shitty first draft," because without that, I'd likely still be staring, paralyzed, at a blank computer screen.

Here's my approach:

When I've finished that "shitty first draft," which isn't really a "first" draft, because writing for me is a *recursive* process (I'll define that in a moment), I list each scene on an index card with a summary of what happened--phrases, NOT sentences. I mark the POV character on each, and where (roughly) in the timeline each falls. With Scrivener (a Mac program), I can do this virtually. Otherwise, it's real index cards.

Then, I sit down and look at the story's arc. Have I started it in the right place? (Even with short stories, this is often not the case. It's far too easy to begin with back story that could be sprinkled in later, a little at a time, if at all.) Do the characters' emotional journeys make sense? ( THE WRITER'S JOURNEY by Christopher Vogler is helpful for understanding the hero's journey and how this applies even in romance and comedy). How's the balance? Does everything happen all at once, or does it unfold evenly? Where is the excitement?

I rearrange the index cards, eliminating some and adding others, with an eye on my story's through line, and the plot, story, and characters' arcs. This is the biggest of the big pictures. I'm also asking myself if any recurrent themes have cropped up that I'll want to refine in subsequent revisions. Frequently--in fact, because I'm not the genius I'd like to think I am, nearly always--these are themes my characters uncover for me, and not themes I've planned on. My current novel asks "Who are we, really?" The protagonist, who was an actress in high school and college, sees life as a stage, and part of her journey is finding out who she is when she's not playing a role imposed by others. I didn't plan it that way, but having recognized it, I can expand on it and make it even more profound. Because it came from the novel itself and wasn't forced, it's organic and won't appear contrived or heavy-handed (that's the intent, anyway).

When this stage is done, I can get to work on the next step, which I'll save for Part 2.

RECURSIVE: Each day, when I start writing, I look back a scene or two before moving on to fresh material. This helps me get back into my characters and back into my story. (I "become" my POV character when I write, and I have to "see" the scene before I can start typing.) While I'm reviewing, I often revise. Sometimes the changes are minor, but sometimes I completely rewrite the scene. There are also times when an entirely different scene pops into my head. When that happens, I go with the new vision (though I save the old), and I change any other scenes it affects. So far, I've never gone back to the old saved scenes. Parts of my "shitty first draft" may have been rewritten 5 or even 10 times, while others only once. But the draft, as a whole, needs a ton of work before it's fit for anybody's eyes but mine.

Revision--Not Just For Amateurs

I was catching up on NYT Best-selling author Jackie Mitchard's blog today--you remember Jackie Mitchard, don't you? She wrote DEEP END OF THE OCEAN, the first-ever Oprah pick? And her new book, NO TIME TO WAVE GOODBYE, is climbing the NYT's list for good reason--and she lamented having done TWENTY-ONE revisions on this last book before it was published. Yes, TWENTY-ONE!

So why, fellow authors, do we like to think we can get away with two, three or even four? Do we think we're superior to a master storyteller like Jackie? (And if you've ever heard her speak to an audience, you know that storytelling oozes from her pores and that she couldn't NOT tell a story if her life depended on it!) No, I think we're lazy, and we hear the clock ticking, and we have our bucket lists, and the mirror shows us our grey hairs, and there's just so much PRESSURE... We're about to burst if we don't get our stories told YESTERDAY, damn it, so our friends and families can see that we're authors, after all, and they'll know we're not just pretending at something we should have given up years ago, the way we gave up playing with dollies and toy cars, and the other paraphernalia of childhood.

You know what, though? Attend a writers' conference and rub elbows with a dozen best-selling authors (I get to do that every year in Hawaii, thanks to the Tullius' organizational efforts), and every single one of them will tell you the same thing: failure to revise is the kiss of death to your career. It will keep you from getting an agent, it will keep you from getting published (unless you self-publish), or if you somehow do get published, it will stand between you and the success you might have had. Revise, revise, revise, they say, and when you think you're done, revise one more time, maybe even two.

And there's a lot that goes into revising. A LOT! And it never stops, not really. Ann Hood says that when she gives readings, she may change a sentence here and there, because she still finds things she'd like to improve. Why? Because she continues to grow as a writer, and she plans to continue that growth until she's dead, which is as it should be.

How to revise is another post, because right now, I've got to get back to my purple pen. (Yes, that's one of my quirks--when I'm stymied, I experiment with colored ink and colored post-its, and I'm in a purple phase right now. A few weeks ago it was green. Who knows what color my muse will prefer next--it's anybody's guess.)

4 Reasons Exercise Works for Weight Loss

Yes, this is an author blog, but the subject of weight loss is near and dear to my heart... and after listening to yet another friend bemoan how little she accomplished with exercise, I had to sound off. Obesity is epidemic in this country, and I see two culprits: lack of exercise and portion sizes that have gotten way out of control.

I heard it again the other day: “I ran my a** off on the treadmill for thirty minutes, and I only burned 250 calories. There are more than that in a Snickers bar.” Actually, I thought that was pretty good. On the treadmill, in thirty minutes, I’m lucky if I burn 180 calories--but that’s just me.

Recently, Time Magazine reported that exercise wasn’t effective for weight loss. They went on to describe reasoning similar to my friend's. Unfortunately, many other news outlets only picked up the headline, sensationalized it, and gave our already obese population one more reason to console themselves while they sit on the couch.

It’s hard to be overweight. I know--I used to weigh 245 pounds--but I lost 100 pounds through exercise, and I’ve kept it off for 5 years now, and I’m here to tell you that thinking of exercise in terms of how much an activity is worth food-wise sets you up for failure. Sooner or later, life will get in the way, and it will be all too easy to say, “Oh, what the heck, I’ll skip the gym today. I hardly burn any calories anyway...”

Exercise needs to become a permanent lifestyle choice. There are FOUR big reasons I exercise:

1. LEAN BODY MASS COUNTS. Each pound of lean body mass burns an extra 50 calories/day. Weight training maintains my gains in lean body mass, so my resting metabolism is higher than it was when I started. (In December, it was only 0.8 calories per minute; now, I’ve got it up to 1.05 calories per minute! I know this because I have a bodybugg.) I think I’ve probably peaked now, but I have to keep working to stay there. That’s an extra 360 calories a day without me doing a damn thing!
   
2. IT’S ALL IN THE NUMBERS. Losing a pound in a week means eating 3500 calories less than you burn. You can eat less or burn more, or do a combination of both. Thirty minutes on the treadmill, if you didn’t increase what you ate, would result in a half-pound of weight loss per week. Not bad. Slow and steady wins the race.
   
3. MUSCLE LOOKS GREAT IN THE MIRROR! As my weight started to come off and my muscles started to become more defined, I stopped hating my body. I love my shoulders and arms. I love my waist. I don’t even hate my butt anymore (which is a first--I’ve despised it since I was a teen!) When I’m feeling lazy, all I have to do is look in the mirror, and I’ve got newfound motivation.
   
4. I FEEL GREAT! Exercise feels great most of the time. Things that used to be hard aren’t anymore, and things that are still hard are getting easier. I enjoy sports, and I’m getting much better at them. I cross train a lot--besides riding my horses nearly every day (which is a big calorie burner itself), I do weight training, Yoga, Pilates and shadow-boxing. I also water ski and snow ski when I get the chance. I work out 6 days/week in addition to my riding.

If I didn’t exercise, my weight would climb back up where it was. I keep my focus on feeling and being fit, and my calories in balance. I use my bodybugg, but it’s really not necessary. A healthy diet and regular exercise worked fine for years (the bodybugg just lets me fine tune, especially for days where I eat more and/or exercise less, so my week is still in balance).

Life is about the big picture, the total mind-body-spirit connection, and not the calories burned in a single workout. It’s about the commitment I’ve made to me.

3 Surprising Things I Learned in Hawaii

ONE: Hawaiian coffee really is better.

TWO: I like taro. I really really like it.

THREE: Dialogue is the least important part of writing screenplays.

Maybe I should explain.

The last day of my trip, my buddy Brenda dropped me off at my hotel with a bag of goodies. I hardly needed goodbye gifts--she'd already taken me on a scenic tour and cooked dinner for me--but I accepted them because it seemed kinder than letting her get a traffic ticket while we argued. In the bag: two boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts and a vacuum-sealed bag of Hawaiian coffee beans. Now that I'm home, I've been making my lattés with those beans, and I can really taste the difference. Wonderful. Now, I'm thinking I'm going to have to look up the company online and see what it would cost to have an order shipped. Like I needed another addiction.

Brenda also introduced me to taro. Not Hawaiian poi taro, but Chinese taro. Her boyfriend, Tom, makes the most wonderful things from taro to sell at Whole Foods--a hummus-like dip he seasons spicy-hot for dipping tortilla chips, a mayonnaise substitute that is creamy and spreadable, but fat-free, all natural and low calorie to serve as a base for salad dressing and also for sandwiches and the like, and something like potato salad but made from taro instead. Because it's all preservative-free and doesn't freeze, I have to go back to Hawaii to enjoy it again. Sigh. I really do like taro.

And dialogue... This from the mouth of Bobby Moresco, screenwriter for CRASH and MILLION DOLLAR BABY, so I think perhaps he knows what he's talking about. He said that setting, mood and music were the most important ingredients for a screenplay, and only when the story could not be told through those elements did you add dialogue. Even then, you add only as much as necessary, and then only in context of the character's conflict and need. It was an I-could-have-had-a-V8 moment for me. Writing novels, it's easy to clutter the page with excessive dialogue, easy to forget the real purpose of what you're writing. You start thinking about subtext, about helping the reader, about ten other things that aren't important--but when scenes are memorable, whether they're ones you've written or not, they're tight and the dialogue works because the subtext is integral to the character's desires--and there are no more words than necessary to make the point.

That said, I think I'll get back to revising. I've got some dialogue to work on.