Edits, Phase Two

Yay! I finished all my editing goals last week and all it took was a little dedication. My biggest enemy is time, so I made sure I set aside two hours every night to get things done. A few nights I ended up spending more time than that, so when it came to the weekend, I didn't have to spend all day catching up.

So now onto Phase Two - Chapters 7-13. As I move on in the book, the revisions are more voluminous. Mostly because the idea I came up with to better tie in my subplot with my plot will require I rewrite a major chunk of a character's storyline. And that's having a ripple effect on other characters. I imagine by the time I get to PHASE THREE, I'm going to be doing a massive rewrite.

It's all for the good of the story, though!

So what's everyone else working on this week? Good luck with all your goals!

Trimming the Fat: When Good Writing Goes Rogue

Last week I went to my writing group's monthly meeting. This month, the meeting was about keeping your writing trimmed and toned. A lot of good tips and suggestions were shared, and I thought I'd pass some on.

Adverbs and Adjectives
The first thing I do when I finish a draft is search the entire document for the dreaded "ly". Every time I find one, I highlight it in a bright color. Once that's done, the adverbs will stand out as I do my re-read. That's when I axe them if I can.
Sometimes a well placed adverb is okay, just don't use them to excess. One of my biggest problems in this area is dialogue tags. When I draft, I tend you overuse adverbs when people are speaking: "Hey!," she said emphatically. In this case, she could just say it. Get the tone of your dialogue across with actions. Remember, show don't tell.

The same goes for adjectives. A few well placed adjectives will develop the scene enough to let the reader take it away.

Passive Voice
Here's another one that gets me every time I draft. Forms of the verb "to be" are nice, but remember that you are a writer. We have a whole dictionary of words to use, so why use something boring like, "She is pretty."?

This is another instance when showing, not telling, can help. In that sentence above, it gets what I'm trying to say across, but it doesn't paint any kind of picture for the reader. Is the girl pretty to the narrator? To everyone? Something like this would work much better:

When Beatrice entered the room, everything stopped. The waiters looked up from the shrimp cocktail on their trays. Even the piano player paused in the middle of his song. Everything about her took my breath away, from her fiery red hair, to her glossy lips.

Whenever possible, try to make your words do double duty. The passage above not only tells us that the narrator thinks Beatrice is attractive, but it also sets up the scene. There are waiters and a piano player. Without flat out saying it, I've managed to set up an upscale cocktail party.

Crutch Words
Another thing that haunts us all in our first drafts. Sure, saunter is a good word, but if you use it 30 times, your reader will notice. No matter how great it is.

My crutch word isn't a word at all, it's an action. My characters always seem to be smiling after they speak. I try to cut it whenever I see it. Often I find myself replacing the smile with something more appropriate to the scene. In my first draft I think of the smiles as placeholders for something better.

A fun trick to figure out your crutch words (beware, sometimes the word can vary from chapter to chapter) is to paste a piece of your WIP into wordle. It analyzes what you copied in, and spits back a word bubble. The more you use a word, the larger it is.

Here's one I created using the story F.E.A.R Itself.



What about you? Any tips to trim and tone your writing?

No tips? Tell me what your crutch word is instead.

On Sending Your Baby Into the World

So yesterday I did something big. Okay, not just big, it's kind of huge. For the first time ever I sent out two whole chapters to a beta reader for comments. Sure, my story has been polished and (most) of the adverbs removed. The dialogue has been checked, and the punctuation is all in line, but it's still scary.

Right this very minute she could be reading it. Tons of questions swirl through my head: Does she like it? That would be great! Is there red marks all over the page? That would be even better! And worst of all.... Does she hate it? Oh, that would be bad.

In the end, I know it will make my story stronger to be critiqued, but I still get that uneasy feeling when I hit the 'send' button.

Here's to hoping I get lots of insightful comments and I can make my story the best it can be! Until then...I'll just take some of this:



Do you still get that uneasy feeling when you send your writing out for beta?

Writing Progress - 12.6.10

Another new week. Man, the past week went by so quickly, I feel like I didn't get anything done! Let's see how I did:

• Collect my winner goodies on December 2. (Yay, Scrivener!) - I didn't do this yet. Shame on me!
  
• Finish 50 more pages of edits on Nano '09. - I didn't exactly get 50 pages done, but I did get 25. That half counts, right?
  
• Finish The Book Thief and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - Didn't finish The Book Thief, but I did get through The Mockingbirds. Look for a review later this week.
  
• Go to a David Levithan and Rachel Cohn signing! Woot! - Despite getting in a car accident on the way there (I'm okay!), I did go to the signing. Check back on Wednesday for a recap.

Since last week was such a colossal failure, I don't think I'm going to aim as high this week. Here are my goals:

• Edit 25 pages of Twisted Fate. (Currently on page 44)
  
• Finish The Book Thief
  
• Mail our Christmas Cards
  

What are your goals this week?

It's December! Let's Get Revising!

Once I finish a project, I like to let it marinate for awhile before I start revising. Lucky for me, I have two projects going right now so I can switch back and forth. While my NaNo '10 project, tentatively named Searchin' For a Guy Like You, gets pushed to the back burner, I'll return to revising my Nano '09 Project, which I've been calling Twisted Fate for awhile now. It seems to have stuck.

Twisted Fate is currently in its fourth round of self-revisions. With the exception of the first ten pages, no one has seen any part of it yet. I'm hoping once I get through this round, I'll be ready to send it out for beta. *fingers crossed*

This round of revisions seems to be going well. I made one change towards the end of the last round that needs to be updated in the first half of the story, but other than that, I'm moving right along.

Here's my process:

1. Print out entire novel*, two pages to a sheet, and store it in a binder.
   
2. Equip self with highlighter (pink), pen (anything but red!), and note pad.
   
3. Begin reading WIP.
   
4. Highlight all adverbs.
   
5. Cry when you realize you have an intense love of adverbs and the page is riddled with pink highlights.
   
6. Use pen to cross out things that don't belong. Where notes are required, circle the passage and reference it with a number. Write criticisms on note pad.
   
7. When note pad is full after first chapter, get a new note pad and repeat.
   
8. Cry some more when you realize your novel still needs lots of work.
   
9. When you get to the end, go back and make changes electronically.
   

Sounds simple, right?

What is your revision process like?

*When you print your novel, make sure you add page numbers. The first time I printed, I didn't do this and I ended up having to reprint. Total waste of paper.

Writing Progress - August 22, 2010

Here we are again. Another week over and done with. My edits are coming along. When I consulted last week's progress post, I realized I did a lot more than I thought this week. I am on page 47 as far as edits go, but I did delete a whole bunch of stuff and condense it down, so I may have gotten through more than 22 pages.

I also had an epiphany on how to divide the book into chapters. When I first started writing this book, I just wrote the story. I didn't worry about separating it into chapters. There are some natural chapter breaks, but a really awesome idea came to me this week to keep it all coherent and revolving around the subject of the book. It's also helping me trim the fat. Yay!

How did the week go for all of you? Any writing epiphanies out there?

The Geek's Beat Sheet - Spreadsheet Style

Last Sunday I mentioned that I created a beat sheet for my novel. After spending hours trying to figure out how to blur the text so I could actually show you, I gave up. This morning I did some research and figured out I could blur text using the Retouch tool in Picasa, so now I can show you a glimpse of my beat sheet. Yay!



I know the picture is stupid small, but it's the best I can do. Graphics design is NOT my strong suit.

Anyway, you can at least see that I color coded the rows that went together. The rows that are shaded blue all belong to my main plot. The yellow and green are subplots. Red rows indicate where I need to add scenes. The rows that aren't shaded are scenes that I can probably delete. Since I have so many scenes, I want to get rid of the unneeded ones and beef up the important ones.

Since Sunday, I also added a column for "Point of Story", which identifies the key points in my main plot. I got this idea thanks to a post on WriteonCon by Kendra Levin on Questions to Ask Yourself Before a Revision. I wanted to make sure all the elements were there, and strong.

If you want to create a spreadsheet beat sheet of your own, but don't know where to start, please contact me. I'd love to help!