Revision at a New Level

It’s time to get may book back out of the drawer where it’s been marinating while I research agents.  So after my critique group passes on their feedback about my manuscript, I’m about to dive back in for some rounds of intense revisions.  Going back to my first post of the year, I’m not going to be satisfied with something that’s acceptably good.  I want my writing to rise to a new level of quality –I want Sara-Zarr-Amazing, Gayle-Forman-Can’t-Get-It-Out-of-My-Head-Fantastic!  As a result, I’ve gotten a little obsessed this week about my favorite authors’ ever so casual references to their fourteenth draft, their twenty-first draft.  It makes me feel really naïve, but okay, I’ll say it.  What are they doing in all those drafts?  And how fast are they working?

(I’m guessing they’re not counting rewriting one scene as a whole draft.  I’m guessing a draft is like one whole pass through the thing working on a particular goal.)

I’ve done two drafts of my current novel.  (I know, Sara and Gayle, you’re shaking your heads.)  I’m over that thing where you think you’re close to finished, and then you realize, shoot, you are nowhere near the end.  And I know every writer and every book will require different kinds of attention.  But, in general, I want to know the kinds of things these stellar authors are tending to, and I Want To Do Them!

My fears.  First, I don’t work well checking off a list of eighty-two items that need to be fixed one by one.  I find by the time I get a few items into the list the remaining items have become moot.  I tend to work better in sweeping goals for each pass, goals that start broad with structure and narrow to character, pacing, and then line editing. 

Second, I sense I’ve got to let go of this fear of tearing the whole thing apart.  I remember how worried I was the last time I sat at my dining room table with one-hundred notecards that might or might not gel into a whole piece.  I have a deep-seeded fear that once I start tearing the thing apart it won’t go back together again.  I know this is kind of ridiculous because it’s all organically related and can certainly reconfigure itself naturally in many ways –the underlying thematic strings alone kind of guarantee that.  I think I’m afraid once I rip out a few chunks, I’ll start tearing it up into such tiny pieces that I’ll be left with a pile of shredded phrases keep me forever guessing, Should she toss her hair in Chapter 3 or Chapter 7?

So here’s my plan… please, tell me what you think.

March:

• Draw a picture (probably a web, like a mobile –see earlier post) of the book’s structure now.

• Analyze the cause-effect movement between the web’s pieces, and revise accordingly.

• Revise the pitch and query.

• Write a one, two, and five page synopsis.

• Write a chapter outline.

• Organize feedback from critique group.

April - May:

• Finish revision of chapter one so that it points right at the white hot center of the story, raises questions, and ensures the reader love the characters.

• Make a pass attending to just the white hot center and revise accordingly.

• Critique partners have pointed to things that need to happen earlier –make it so.

• Do a whole pass attending to just the pace of the two main characters’ relationship.

• During this whole month, start the writing day with free-writing on character issues that need to be deepened.  This includes (playfully) writing scenes that don’t yet appear in the manuscript.

June – July:

• Take a pass through the whole thing for each of the six main characters, each time focusing on BEING that person in that moment.

• Figure out how to revise for pacing.

• Attend to chapter-specific notes.

• This whole time start the writing day with free-writing on the more minor characters.

So am I headed in a productive direction?  What are some things you’ve attended to during later drafts?  And if you’ve gotten past ten drafts, I want to know what you’re doing!

Pitches...Ahhh!

Hands down, the absolute worst question a person can ask me is, “So what is your book about?”  And hey, it’s a fair question!  I mean, it’s what I’d want to know.  And yet for years I have cringed even before the question is asked.  I see it coming, and my brain begins to shut down!  As a writer I should actually have a pretty thought-provoking, articulate way to express what I’m writing about.  Yet this question signals a wad of grey, cotton-flavored gum to materialize in my mouth and grow to enormous size.  I have no words, I have no breath, I fear I look like an idiot.

I did, however, come up with a disclaimer that I’ve used for the last year or so.  I say, “Believe it or not, that is the hardest question for all writers to answer.  I actually don’t talk about what I’m working on until it’s finished because I find that drains the energy out of it.”  That’s all true.  I leave out the part about how most of us are actually writing in order to find out what our story is about.  Feel free to use my disclaimer until you figure it out!

Meanwhile, in private I’ve kept a secret Word document that has grown to 8 single-spaced pages where I practice writing my pitch –that elusive one sentence summary of my story.  It includes clusters of key words, dictionary definitions, lists of descriptors I cannot use because time and politicians have ruined these words for me –words like maverick.  Additionally, in my journal I often write about my story.  After reading Sarah Zarr’s essay Hold on Loosely at Hunger Mountain, I wrote for pages about The Question my first chapter raises about the white hot center of my story.  I made a few discoveries, circled them, and they found their way into my Pitch Document.

The other day, I think I got it!  No kidding!  I think I got my pitch.  (Dance of celebration!)  I wrote it down, and I felt a physical ZING through the marrow of my bones.  Here’s how it happened.  While my manuscript is out to some readers, I was working on a query letter –which necessitates working on a pitch, and I learned two things.

First, in his publication How to Write a Great Query Letter, Noah Lukeman boiled it down to the bare bones for me. 

USE:                                          AVOID:

• SPECIFICS                             • NAMES

• LOCATION                              • SUB-PLOTS

• TIME PERIOD

• COMPARISON to

another book or character

He also suggested writing a one-sentence version, as well as, several other expanded versions –three sentences, five sentences, a paragraph summary, a page summary, all of which have different uses.  But if you can write the one-sentence version it straightens out your priorities, and the expanded versions get easier.  That just helped me focus!  Thank you, Noah!  I needed that.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  I could do those things.  The hardest was sticking to the white hot center and avoiding the subplots.

            The second thing that helped was a trip over to the awesome YA Highway site, where if you click on Agents and Editors you can read published authors’ query letters that worked, as well as, the author and agent’s comment on why!  So I was reading Kirsten Hubbard’s query to Michelle Andelman and Michelle’s analysis.  Right off, the letter broke a lot of Noah Lukeman’s rules, but Kirsten had the bare bones of what Lukeman asked for, and I don’t think the letter would have worked without them.  What sparked my own personal epiphany was reading Kirsten’s letter sentence by sentence, stopping at each period to consider what I would say for my own story.  I read: Grace Carpenter longs to stand out, and it sent me directly into my character’s white hot center.

            Now I don’t think I could have arrived at my pitch without:

1)    practicing pitches even when I was still drafting

2)    writing about my story

3)    focusing on Lukeman’s bare bones

4)    or chasing down the marrow of the story like Kirsten Hubbard.

The biggest benefit?  Honing my pitch has inspired the absolute best revisions of my manuscript –especially chapter one.  I feel like everything I write now has something to aim at!

So what did I finally come up with?  Click on my Works in Progress link to see!  I’d love to know what you think and how your pitches are coming along!  As for me, next time someone asks me what I’m writing about, I’m going to try out my pitch!  (Nervous!)  I’ll let you know how it goes!