Where Magic Meets Manuscript

In The Plague by Albert Camus, there's a character who is forever writing and rewriting the first sentence of his book. If he can only get that first sentence right, everything else would fall perfectly into place thereafter. Without spoiling the book if you haven't read it, let me just say what you've already guessed. It doesn't quite work out that way. It's also not what any of us want for our stories. I hope.

Revision, to me, is more art  than skill. Certainly, you need a specific set of skills before you can begin to revise - but actual revision, turning the dross into gold, is tough to categorize or list out in ten easy steps. Look through this week's posts. KAK talks GMC. Linda talks show, don't tell. I'm going to come at it from yet a different angle, which I'll get to in a minute.  Revision is an art because every writer has to find his or her own way into (and subsequently back out of) the forest of words and story. You get bonus points if you emerge with your sanity intact. How do you figure out when mucking around in the innards of your novel has accomplished something useful? By having made the twin mistakes of:

1. Sending an MS out before it's time 
2. Revising the life and breath right out of your novel

Once you've done those two things and realized you've done those two things so you can go back and look at them for comparison, you have a much stronger sense of how fine a line you have to walk as you revise. I'll fess up. I had to do these two things twice each before I figured it out. But honestly? I live to revise a book. First drafts stab me repeatedly in the heart. Revisions? Those are easy.

So how do I talk about revision? It's all in the word. Re-vision - looking at a story with fresh eyes. Anytime I finish a draft, I put it away for at least 24-48 hours. During that time, there's no looking at it. No reading. If I think if something I messed up or missed, I make a pen and paper note - a running revision list. And let me tell you, there's something about closing up the first draft of a story that will bring the 'Hey, stupid, you forgot...' voices right out of hiding. The point of taking a break is to give the creative story portion of my brain time to settle down. It's a little like taking a day off from the gym right after you complete a marathon. Give those muscles some time to repair torn, stressed tissue. You story brain needs that, too.

This break also gives the critical-thinking and logic centers of your brain time to wake up. Into the silence of the enforced story blackout, the quiet voices start popping up. "Did you tie up that thread from chapter three?" "Did you remember to put the clue in on that one chapter where. . ." These all get added to the revision list. No opening the document to check.

After the day or two of rest, I pick up my revision list, open my document and I start reading with a set of questions in mind.

1. Do my characters sound and act like themselves?
2. Can I up the stakes or make things worse? (while keeping things believable)
3. Does every scene drive the story forward?
4. Do my hero and heroine have a complete character arc and does the conflict drive each of them into that arc (willing or unwilling)?

Once I have the answers to those questions, I'm still not likely done. I haven't addressed my revision list that I've kept. I address those. My favorite way to address revisions? Deletion. Reason being that if a scene has several revision notes, either it's a key, pivotal scene that needs to be crystal clear or (and more likely, because just how many pivotoal scenes does one novel have?) the scene isn't necessary at all.

This is also my opportunity to go back through the story and rewrite bits of dialog with the brilliant and witty things my characters SHOULD have said to one another. And that only pop into my head after I've given up for the night and crawled into bed for some sleep. I'd like to tell you that I keep a running list of that stuff, too, rather than going back in each day and revising what I'd written the day before with the new dialog bits - but I'd be lying. So I won't.

When I stop getting revision notes from inside my brain and I've read through the story without any further flashes of snappy dialog accosting me when I should be snoozing, that's when I know I'm done.  I'll send the story out at that point. And within an hour of sending the story to an editor somewhere, I'll discover at least four more typos that spellcheck and I somehow missed. That's just the way it goes, I guess.

The hard part is learning to trust your instincts. Not your knee-jerk defensive reaction when someone suggests that perhaps you could cut the backstory dump in chapter one. Your instincts. Those are the voices inside that pause and consider, but then say 'no, that's not going to work for that character because her drive for self-acceptence hinges on that one feature' when an editor asks you to make your brown eyed heroine's eyes blue. Honing instinct is hard work. It takes practice and it takes making mistakes. But once you do, you won't need to ask when you're done revising. You'll know.

WiPs: Now with Wings!

No, no, this post isn't a menstrual diaper commercial. 

How does one know when the beloved Work in Progress (WiP) is ready to grow wings and become a Work on Submission (WoS)?

Note: I did not say, "when the WiP is done." 

As Jeffe mentioned on Sunday, "done" doesn't happen.The best we can do is, "I will not be ashamed to have my face printed next to these words." Oh, for fuckssake, how is anyone to know when that is? There is a test you can use -- one many authors avoid like crotch-rot:

The Query and Synopsis

I know. I didn't think those dreadful things would ever prove to be useful to me. ~visualize the poor put-upon writer pout here~ Lest you think I've started drinking before the ass-crack of dawn, I assure you, I am completely sober. For many writers, our biggest doubts center around structure. A decent spell-check program and a marginally interested critique-partner can catch surface errors. The query and synopsis go deeper by forcing you to distill the essence of your story down its bones. With the road-map exposed, the structural flaws are glaringly obvious -- kind of like neon yoga pants.

You can thank me for the brain-bleach later.

Here are five questions to I ask myself before I consider my WiP a WoS:

1. Can I succinctly name the Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts (GMCs) of my protagonist(s)? If not, the story likely suffers plot and character development issues. 
2. Can I easily write my query and synopsis? If they're a bitch to write, then I need to revisit my GMCs. The overarching GMC of the story is the meat of the query. Per-chapter GMCs go in the synopsis. My mantra: be concise but not bland.
3. Did writing my synopsis reveal weaknesses and/or extraneous scenes in my WiP? Erm, 80% of the time, yes, yes they did. Therefore, I must revise the WiP one. more. time. ~shakes fist at sky~
4. Have I re-read my re-revised story after I've re-written my query and synopsis? Do they match? Hopefully, yes.
5. Does my WiP meet the submission guidelines of my target audience? My audience for a WoS is not the reader; it's agents and/or publishers.  Most agents and publishers (who accept un-agented subs) make their submission guidelines available on their websites. The last thing I want to be is the turd in the slush pile, so I follow the guidelines and re-verify the agent/editor is open for submissions.

After that, I attach the wings to my WiP and hope it flies. 

Do you, dear reader, have a WiP-to-WoS checklist? Care to share?

How to Know When You're Done Revising

The holiday season always reminds me of being a little kid and sitting through those long dinners that seemed to last forever. The adults would talk and talk about boring things. Eventually I would ask "Can I be done now?" And be corrected to ask if I could be excused. But the first question would be more true. Please tell me I can be done now, so I can move on to other things.

That's the good and bad of being a kid - you have to get permission to be done, but it also relieves you of the responsibility of having to decide for yourself. As anyone who gained a Freshman 10, 15 or 20 in college discovered, learning when you're done - and applying the discipline to stop there - is not an easy proposition.

I know a lot of writers who type THE END at the finish of their manuscripts. It gives them a sense of satisfaction and complete. A certain amount of triumph. This has never been a thing for me. Not that I don't enjoy that exhausted elation of finishing the draft, but it never feels like the end to to me.

Because, really - and we all know this, yes? - it's not really done at all.

Even writers who write really clean first drafts are not done at that point. For those rare sparkly unicorns who send it to their editors immediately, they still have at least copy edits to do. Even if a writer is self-publishing and chooses to skip any revision or editing, there's still formatting to do.

But, for most writers, there's a vast and rolling journey that lies between typing that last sentence and seeing the book in the reader's hands. For some it's a fairly straightforward back and forth of a series of revisions and edits - there and back again. For others, it's the equivalent of walking into Mordor.

Some never come back.

Why is this? Because there is no one, absolutely no one in this world who can tell you that you're done with a book.

There's no such thing.

It's never done.

The sooner you accept this, the more Zen you'll be.

There never, ever comes a point where a book or story can't be tweaked just a little more. Proofed once again. Massaged just a titch.

So how do you know when you're done? If there's no one to excuse you from the table, how do you know it's time to stop?

Only you can know.

I apologize if the title of this post was misleading. I'm really not trying to pull a bait and switch here.

The thing is, know when you're done is part of growing  up as an author. It's one of the most difficult parts to learn. Just as we all grow up and learn when enough food is enough, when to stop partying and go home to get some sleep, when a friendship is no longer good for us, a grown-up author has to learn when a story is ready.

This goes both directions. Sometimes we're ready to be done and don't want to hear that a story isn't working. Other times it's scary to let go and let the chips fall where they may, so we kept it for just one more pass. And, yes, you can absolutely revise too much.

As with all these examples, it takes maturity and honesty to decide. It takes that long, hard look in the mirror to examine your motivations.

Somewhere, deep in your heart, you always know.

It's up to you to listen to the answer and act on it.