This is the eight installment in the “HOW I WRITE” series I’m participating in every Wednesday with several writers, where we all discuss how we approach writing a book. Every writer has a different process and this project gives us a chance to share and compare ours. Click on the “How I Write” image to find a list of the participating writers and links to their blogs.
Last week we talked about Revision – How To Begin. This week’s topic is Revision – First Pass, Resources and Critique Groups.
This week’s topic is quite timely, as I’m revising a book right now. As I mentioned last week, I’m still refining my revision process, and so the way I’m doing it now may or may not be exactly the way I do it for the next book – who knows. But in the meantime, here’s my process for first pass revisions.
- Revisit the storyboard. As discussed previously.
- Print the manuscript. Double-spaced, with text on just one side of the paper.
- Read the printed manuscript, marking up problem areas on each page with a red pen as I go. I use the margins and the back of the pages to take notes. I suppose sticky notes, index cards or notebooks would work, but I’m prone to either misplacing those of having one of my children steal them when I’m not looking and turn them into Pac-man and Super Mario Brothers cutouts. It takes me about 2 to 5 days to complete this step, and I don’t stop until I’ve made it to the end of the book and noted all the areas I need to change. I’m looking for things like:
- Technical and continuity errors (Did I contradict myself? Mix up character names? Break the rules of my own world?)
- Weak and awkward phrases
- Lacking emotion/description/tension
- Does each scene have a goal, conflict and resolution (or motivation to make a new decision)?
- Unrealistic dialog (when I read it out loud, does it sound realistic? forced? corny?)
- “Telling” (summarizing events and feelings) instead of “Showing” (describing them as they unfold)
- Overuse of words
- Places where the story drags
- Scenes that feel incomplete
- Grammar errors, misspellings and typos
- With my marked-up printed pages and scribbled notes as a guide, I save a new version of my manuscript and type in the revisions. I try not to leave a scene until it is completely revised.
- Give it to my critique partner, hubby and perhaps an honest friend to read and share their opinion. I don’t participate in any critique groups at this time, but I’m finding that I’m getting the feedback I need right now from these two or three folks just fine.
Here’s a few of the resources I use when editing (the ones with an asterisk (*) are free):
- The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great
, by Donald Maass
- Writing the Breakout Novel
and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook
, also by Donald Maass
- Goal, Motivation & Conflict The Building Blocks of Good Fiction, by Debra Dixon
- *Thesaurus.com – a good, thorough online synonym finder (just ignore all the ads)
- *OneLook.com- a reverse dictionary that lets you type in a definition or idea that you’re thinking of, and it comes up with potential words. Nice for when you can’t think of the word that’s on the tip of your tongue!
- *Synonyms.com – oddly enough, I only use the antonym section of this site. Comes in handy sometimes, though
- *Online Etymology Dictionary – a great resource when writing historicals, and you need to verify whether or not a word was around during that time
And that’s how I get through a first pass at revisions. Next week I’ll cover how I know when the story is done, and ready to submit. Don’t forget to visit other participating blogs to see how differently we writers handle revisions!
12 comments… read them below or add one
Hi Tatiana -
Great insights here. Critique partners are extremely valuable when revising. My wife went through my plot outline over the weekend and some of the things she suggested took the story to a whole new level.
I've been enjoying the "How I Write" series from you and other writers. Thanks for sharing your process.
Thanks Steve, and I appreciate you stopping by!
I love reverse dictionaries! I have the FlipBook by writers digest in hardcover. But an online version is awesome! Thanks for the links!
And I'd love to have a physical reverse dictionary in hand. Thanks for mentioning this FlipBook!
The links are fab! And it is really great that your hubby reads for you. I have not breached that. My hubby is not much of a reader and I figure I have one chance with him so I want to wait until it is real good!
I feel very fortunate to have a husband that loves reading. However, he can be quite a harsh critic at times, so I, too, often find myself waiting until i'm past draft 0 at least before I give it to him to read. But if there's a scene he recommends I revise, he will read it again after I've fixed it.
That's great your husband reads for you. My hub can't stay awake longer than 5 min. when reading at night. The most he does is read a first chapter – but I know really it's hopeless. Instead, he just gets to listen to me ramble as I work out plot points.
Well hey, at least he tries!
Hmm, I need to find a couple people to honestly critique my work. I've kind of kept it in a little cocoon. I guess it has got to come out sometime. :-s I love the reverse dictionary! That is me all the way around. I know the definition but can't remember the word. Ugh! Thanks for a new reference tool.
Yeah, that is me all the time – remembering the definition but not the word.
When you're ready for critiques, hit me up. Maybe we can do a trade!
The reverse dictionary and the etymology dictionary are awesome! Thanks for the links.
I've been in school all this time so I've mostly been using Latin websites and other language dictionaries, and I'm glad to have these new sites.
I use the dictionary and thesaurus on my Macbook dashboard constantly. It's great for when I'm somewhere without wifi.
Yeah, MS Word has a built-in thesaurus as well which is pretty decent, but I just don't find it to be as comprehensive as thesaurus.com.