Revisions
Carol Berg June 21st, 2006
One reason I’ve been fairly quiet in these opening days of Deep Genre is that I’m in the middle of revisions for my next novel Flesh and Spirit (forthcoming from Roc Books in May 2007). Though I’ve put these revisions off until the last minute (while writing myself deeper into the sequel), I really do enjoy editorial revision time. It’s usually been several months since I submitted the manuscript, time in which I’ve not looked at this book, but gone on to other writing. (In this case, the sequel.) By the time I print the whole thing (again) and sit down with my editor’s revision letter and my own “issues listâ€?, I’m fresh and ready to attack. After the hiatus, the structure seems clearer, the complexity controllable–whyever did I think he had to make two visits to the temple?–and the trouble spots better defined. Words that eluded me the first time around show up. Obstreperous characters who refused to reveal their true minds give in and let me see what’s up. Often I’m happier with the writing than I was when I sent it off. (Somewhere around the third quarter of a book, I always hit that “everything I write is crap” moment . Sometimes I get over it before I send it in. Sometimes I don’t.)
OK, back to revisions: I look at revision letters as lists of symptoms. I may not at all agree that “Valen isn’t worried enough about his addiction in between episodes.â€? But clearly I’d better make sure that the reader understands the real reason he doesn’t obsess about it. Oftentimes the spots that bother my editor are places I knew there was trouble, but tried to convince myself no one would notice. (I call that spackling - and a good editor will always tap on the wall until the spackle falls out.) Sometimes the comments are total surprise (that bothered her?) Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I don’t. But every comment causes me to look at the work from a slightly different angle, which leads me in creative paths I might not have explored otherwise. The book always becomes stronger, many times in places that appear on neither my editor’s list nor mine. Now that’s fun.
Carol, I really like that way of putting it, “I look at revision letters as lists of symptoms.” This has happened to me, too, that an editor will make a comment that’s inaccurate in itself, but that points to a deeper problem with that portion of narrative.
One of the hardest things I found when getting reviews for my work was learning that what a reader hiccuped upon was not necessarily the ‘real’ problem.
I find the discipline of editing and re-writing harder than the actual writing, even though it is all part of the package. Mind you, when an agent did ask for a full, the adrenaline flowed enough that I buckled down and worked like stink.
I know several people who like the process of re-writing more than writing the original, and I can easily see why, because you are making the novel shiny.
Thanks for sharing that, Carol. Even though it seems that all our ways of reaching the end are different, it’s good to hear how other folk achieve it.
I much prefer revising to getting out a first draft because I’m never sure if I can really reach the end of a first draft. All of my novels (I’m writing number 16 now, not counting the 2 collaborations) have been leaps of some sort of faith — I compare it to building a bridge by starting at one side of a chasm and hoping the thing doesn’t break or sag in the middle.
It does keep life interesting.
So how do you keep that impetus going? I have found it’s very easy to ‘perfect’ the first three chapters, because those are the ones you initially send out, but then, the further I go through the manuscript the harder I find to keep up that discipline. ‘Oh, that’ll do’, isn’t going to cut it, I realize. As I realize that every single chapter and scene has to be as good as the first ones. I so enjoy the passion of the first draft when the ideas are flowing that it never seems like work but sheer pleasure.
Once I’ve done that first draft I prepare for editing by doing a rough outline of each chapter so I can follow the threads etc, but sometimes I find the ‘whole’ overwhelming.
Yes, it does click into place and epiphanies arrive that so and so should have done this, or I didn’t foreshadow that. Hmm, I think I’m presuming that once one becomes a fully fledged author (if you do) it gets easier. By the sounds of things it doesn’t.
For me, openings are easy. I have a vision of characters and early events and the voice of my narrator. Then, I actually spiral through my story as I develop it. Every day when I begin work, I read through what I wrote the day before (or maybe a little more) to get into the flow. I don’t “perfect” the first three chapters before proceeding, but do a lot of rewording and revising as I go. Every once in a while, I will go back and read from the beginning, reworking with whatever new information I’ve developed. By the time the last chapters are written, the earlier ones are pretty clean. And somehow my ending chapters come out better on their first write - probably because I REALLY know where I’m going by then. It’s that ugly middle that I have to focus on when I’ve finished the book and need to get it ready to ship.
I have two critique groups that I find really helpful. I easily get lulled by my own prose and my own vision, and it’s always useful to have someone say, “This scene just doesn’t work for me. I can’t SEE it.” Or, “What does she FEEL about what she’s describing here?” These people are all writers and all readers, and they don’t try to solve these problems for me. THey just report what they see.
Like Carol, I like re-writing better than writing. Usually.
I’ve just turned in the third manuscript in my four-book YA series, and I still feel like the whole thing stinks. The writing of it was hard, and the rewriting worse. Strange experience. I wasn’t even tempted to renegotiate the deadline, because in the last days before it was due, it felt like anything I fixed broke two more things, and I was just spinning my wheels. Yuck.
So, while embarrassed that this manuscript wasn’t in as good condition as the first two, I also know that my editor will help to isolate what really doesn’t work, as opposed to what I’ve been obsessing over. No, I’m not proud of that, it’s just a reality I’m trying to accept. Maybe it’s copping out, I don’t know.
What I learned in this experience is that once you sell your first book, everything changes. I don’t get three years to perfect a whole book anymore. I have to write faster and rewrite faster than I did before, because someone is actually waiting for the manuscript. Luckily, I’m a tech writer by trade and get paid very well to write fast.
I just have to become as good at doing it in my fiction as in my job.
I wouldn’t say I enjoy revising more than writing. There is nothing like having your words lead you right into discovering what happens next or finding the perfect phrases to describe the vision in your head. Many, perhaps most, of those words and phrases I find in the original draft process. But I can and do find them in the revising process as well. That’s when I feel troublesome scenes settle down into a pattern that is right at last.
Carol
Carol, I may print this out and hang it on the wall next to my computer desk. Hell, I should probably cross-stitch it on a pillow. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better writer’s mantra.
A warning/tip: these days editors are profoundly overworked and mostly underexperienced. Do not rely on finding an editor who will work with you to correct problems in a manuscript. Most will reject it if they think it will take them too much time to get into a publishable form. Not all, notice, but most.
Excellent point.
Kit: do you think it worthwhile to post some stuff from the “What to look for when revising” handout I do when doing kid and first-timer workshops?