Beyond the First Draft: Starting the Revision Process
revise (v.): 1. To prepare a newly edited version of (a text). 2. To reconsider and change or modify.
rewrite (v.): 1. To write again, especially in a different or improved form. 2. To put in a form suitable for publishing.
I use both of these terms when it comes to working on the second (third, fourth, etc.) draft of a manuscript.
To me, “revise” means to take what already exists and edit it—maybe add a few lines here, take away a few lines there. But the revised form still retains much of the content of the first draft.
“Rewrite” means adding entire new scenes or scrapping the original chapters and writing new ones that better tie in with where the story ended up.
For example: When I started the second draft of Stand-In Groom, I had to rewrite the first three or four chapters because the original draft of the chapters didn’t work any more. Almost everything I wrote in those chapters was brand new. When I started the second draft of Ransome’s Honor, I mostly only had to revise the first three chapters because I wanted to keep much of what was in them. I did write two new scenes, but worked them into the already existing chapters, which only needed editing, not a complete overhaul.
When it comes to beginning a second draft, there are two schools of thought: you either sit down with a blank page and begin writing the whole thing over again, or you work from your existing files. Most of the time, you’re going to find yourself doing some of both. Hopefully not as much rewriting as revising, but allow for the possibility of new scenes/chapters.
Last time I was able to post, I listed a bunch of things you want to do to prepare yourself for the revision process. Now that you’ve reread your manuscript and gathered all of your critiques and notes, you’re ready to start your second draft. If you achieved clarity, you should know about how much needs to be changed—if you need to revise or rewrite.
Now here’s where things start getting really subjective: the actual process.
When I write, I save each of my chapters as a separate file in a folder bearing the (working) title of the manuscript. For example:
My Documents
—-Novels
——–Ransome Trilogy
————Book 1: Ransome’s Honor
—————-01.doc
—————-02.doc
—————-03.doc
And so on. (If, in the process of writing, I do go in and make a major change to a chapter, I’ll rename the old version 01a.doc and the new one becomes 01.doc).
When I start the second draft, I create a new folder in the main manuscript folder and move the first draft files into it, so that the tree looks like this:
My Documents
—-Novels
——–Ransome Trilogy
————Book 1: Ransome’s Honor
—————-01-second.doc
—————-02-second.doc
—————-First Draft
——————–01.doc
——————–02.doc
——————–03.doc . . .
——————–RH-First Draft 02-17-07.doc
I never save my second draft chapters over the first draft chapters—that way, in case I change something and then decide I liked it the way it was better the first time, the original is still there. I also always combine all of my chapter files into one document when the first draft is finished, no matter how much revision/rewriting it needs. That way, if one of the chapter files becomes corrupt, I still have it in the full draft document.
When revising chapters, I will open the original from the First Draft folder, then save it into the master manuscript folder (the files with “-second” appended to the names above) with the appropriate new chapter number.
There are two main reasons I save in chapter files in the early draft stages:
First, I find it easier to gauge the length of my chapters when I have only the pages of that chapter in the file. I know I need to write between 12 and 14 pages to hit my average chapter length (between 3,300 and 4,000 words), and can see when I’m getting close to that length so I can start building to the hook. It’s also easier to print a chapter-in-progress to take with me when I might have a few minutes to write—like waiting at the doctor’s office or something.
Second, I find it easier to revise when the first draft is saved chapter-by-chapter. I’m not having to weed through hundreds of pages of text to find what I’m looking for, especially when I get to later chapters. It’s easier to match up critiques, which may have expanded by several pages, when there are only fourteen pages in a chapter document, than when you’re two hundred pages into a full-manuscript file, because in the second draft, there are most likely going to be a lot of changes, revisions, and corrections needed to each chapter.
Now, by the time I get to the third draft, I will start pulling each chapter into a single manuscript file. At this stage, the revisions are fewer and further between and it’s easier just to do a “find” for a specific phrase near what needs to be changed, since I’m probably not going to have chapter-by-chapter changes.
So, that’s how I do it. How do you do it?
Fun Friday–While the Kat’s Away . . .
I’m BACK! (Back–get it? Back–as in it’s all I’ve been able to think about this week. Get it? Huh?) Okay, so the constant pain as well as the prescription Prednisone and muscle relaxers may have weakened my ability to make a joke, but I thought I’d share a few things that make me smile.
Thanks to everyone who’s been praying for me! I’m still not healed, but I have noticed a difference (a lessening) in the pain level today. I might actually be able to make it to the MTCW meeting tomorrow! But not to see Becoming Jane with Ruth tonight :-(.
Oh, and just in case you think the pain mediciation has robbed me of my ability to spell, “Kat” is one of my many nicknames, the one most used by my family.
Now, bring on the smiles . . .
I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO wish I could bend my back that direction right now! The Physical Therapist thinks it’s likely a pinched nerve caused by scar tissue from my previous surgery—since some stretching forward alleviates the pain. Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to get back to my walking and “Back Care Yoga” exercise DVDs!
Back Pain Stinks!
And it affects every part of my life!
For those of my readers who are praying people, I covet your intercession. I’ve been having increasingly worse lower-back pain since last Thursday—in the disc below the ruptured one on which I had surgery four years ago (ironically, on August 5, 2003).
My doctor put me on a strong steriod treatment (six pills today, five tomorrow, four the next day, etc., for six days) and gave me a muscle relaxer to take at night. She also referred me to physical therapy, though they were out to lunch when I just tried to call to set up an appointment.
Needless to say, this is greatly hindering my ability to be able to sit at the computer to blog or write, so I’ll try to get things posted as I start to feel better.
Beyond the First Draft–Clarity
Now that you have everything pulled together and you’re in the mindset to begin revisions—stop! There are a few things you need to clarify before you actually begin the revision process.
1. What publisher(s) are you targeting? As you already know, each publishing house has specific guidelines for submissions—and one of the most important is word count. If your manuscript is a contemporary romance, for example, you should know whether you’re targeting HeartSong Presents (40–45,000 words), Steeple Hill/Love Inspired (60–65,000 words), or Barbour (80–100,000 words). (Word counts are just estimated guesses—check the publishers’ websites for actual standards.) You should also know what they’re looking for story-wise; for example, one of these lines (HeartSong, I think) requires the story end with a wedding and that the hero and heroine be active members of a church. Hopefully, you researched this information before you started writing—but it never hurts to look it all up again before you start revising, because publishing houses are notorious for changing/tweaking their guidelines often.
2. What is your story about? If you’ve ever been to a writing conference, you know you have to clarify this. This is a main topic of conversation around the table at meals, in the halls between workshops, and sitting in the coffee shop late at night. It doesn’t matter if the question comes from another author or from an editor or agent—you need to be able to spit out the main premise of your story with clarity. There are several different pieces to this step—important not only for conference pitches, but for clarifying your story and figuring out even more revisions that need to be made.
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a. You need to be able to explain the gist of your story in twenty seconds or less. This is also known as your one-sentence pitch. Start by figuring out what your main theme and conflict are. You may discover you come up with several sentences that you like. Memorize them all—because that way, you can use whichever one seems most appropriate to the person you’re talking to at the time. (Example: “Falling in love with a client could cost wedding planner Anne Hawthorne her business; learning the true identity of the groom could cost her heart.”)
b. After you’ve got your one-sentence, then you need a one-paragraph summary. What is the main plot of the story? The major conflict? Explain it in four or five sentences. This is your chance to experiment with writing back cover copy. (Example: “In July 1814, Bonaparte has abdicated and the war with France has ended. Julia Witherington swore she would never fall in love—especially with the man who stole her father’s affections. Royal Navy Captain William Ransome believes women are just a distraction. When Julia is forced to forge an arrangement to marry William Ransome, she must set aside her prejudice and learn what love and honor really mean.”)
c. Expand your one-paragraph summary to a one-page (single-spaced) summary. This is your chance to tell your story in about 500–800 words. Focus on your main character(s), the main theme (one or two), the inciting incident, the conflict it causes, the climax, and the resolution. This is about the length of the pitch you want to prepare for a 15 minute appointment with an editor or agent. Make a bulleted list of five to eight other important story elements not included in this summary to take with you, just in case the editor asks for more details.
d. Write or revise the dreaded synopsis. Again, knowing which house you’re targeting will be important in this step: different houses have different requirements for length/type of synopsis. HeartSong Presents, for example, requires a chapter-by-chapter synopsis. Some houses want outlines, not synopses. Some will have a designated length. Typically, if no length is specified, you’re usually going to want to have one synopsis page per 10,000 manuscript words—so a 60,000 word novel would become a 6 page synopsis, a 120,000 word novel would be 12 synopsis pages. (Yes, okay, mine came out to 23 pages. I’m still working on this issue.) If you are a SOTP writer and have trouble with the synopsis process, one of the best things to do is to break your manuscript down into scenes. I did this with scene cards that I did in PowerPoint: one slide for each POV scene with a one- to two-sentence summary of what happens in that scene. This was quite a revelatory experience for me, because it showed me which scenes could be cut because nothing important happens in them.
How many revisions did you discover you need to make during this process? Did you write them all down? Good. But you’re not finished with your pre-work yet.
3. What changes did you make during the writing process? Even if you’re a Reviser, you’ve probably made changes as you wrote without realizing it. Did you make notes as to what changed? Which storylines you’ve killed/added? Which characters need to be introduced earlier/have gone away? What clues you need to plant early on? Scenes that need to be from a different POV? Pull all of your notes together in one document/file/notebook and review all of them—supplementing them with other ideas you think of during this process.
4. What did you actually write? The final, and most important, step you need to take before beginning the revision process is to (a) print out a hard copy of your manuscript (clean, not the versions your critique partners sent back to you), (b) get your legal pad or spiral notebook—whatever you’ve already started making notes in (but if your notes are all typed, don’t worry about printing them out), and (c) set aside as large of a chunk of time as you can to commit to sitting down and just reading your manuscript from beginning to end. What should you be reading for? Check out this post on critiquing for a list of questions to ask/things to look for as you read. Check also for repetitive words, typos, grammar issues, etc. Read the dialogue aloud to make sure it sounds natural. Write down everything you come across that needs to be fixed, tweaked, improved, cut, changed (and be sure to mark the changes on the manuscript itself, too).
What are some other steps you go through to get ready to start revising?
Fun Friday–What I’m Doing Tonight
I haven’t felt well for most of the week (spent most of the day Thursday trying to survive excruciating back pain—almost on par with what I lived with for a year before my back surgery in 2003). So I couldn’t really think of anything fun to expound upon today. Instead, I’ll share a visual aid of what I plan to do as soon as I get off work tonight.
It’s the movie I’ve been most looking forward to all summer. Yes, even more than the fifth Harry Potter movie.
Beyond the First Draft–The Four Secrets
I’m sure you have all heard about the book entitled The Secret. I haven’t read it myself, but I understand the premise of the book’s philosophy is that if you believe in something enough, if you think positively enough, whatever you desire will come to pass.
Well, this doesn’t really have anything to do with that Secret.
Secret number one: It doesn’t matter if you’re a Reviser or a Readjuster—if you revise as you go or if you just readjust and continue writing—when you write The End, you still only have a first draft. Yes, that’s correct. Even those people who scrupulously outline and then make revisions as they go still just have a first draft when they finish writing. They probably won’t have nearly as much revision to do in a second draft as we SOTP/Readjusters will (because for us, our story/characters may have undergone a major change halfway through), but they still need to revise.
Secret number two: If at all possible, set the first draft aside for a while—a few weeks to a few months—before you start the revision process. Move on to something else—prepping a new story, a different non-writing project—so that you clear your mind of what you just did. That way, when you sit down to begin your revisions, the story will seem fresher to you—you’ll have a new perspective on it. And you may find that in the intervening time, you’ve come up with a great idea of how to improve it—whether whole or in part.
Secret number three: Set a daily goal of what you want to accomplish. Thinking about “revising my first draft” can sabotage you into never doing it because it seems like too daunting a task. Remember the old adage, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” You have to look at revisions the same way, whether it’s one page at a time or one chapter at a time. I’m currently working on the second draft of Ransome’s Honor. I have written the dreaded synopsis that is now my roadmap for the changes I need to make. But if I sit down when I get home from work thinking, I have to revise Ransome’s Honor tonight, it’ll never get done. So I set a goal: Tonight I’m going to finish revisions on Chapter Six and get through Chapter Seven. This is a defined amount of pages I know I’ll be able to accomplish during the time I set aside for writing in the evening. And you know what? I usually end up doing more than the amount I’ve predetermined . . . which feels even better than just achieving the original goal.
Secret number four: Get organized before you start revising—both overall and daily. Before you start the revision process, make sure you have all of your original research materials, any notes you’ve made (character style sheets, notes about your setting, notes you’ve made of things you want to change), all of your critiques/contest feedback, your original first draft, and anything you’ve either written and not used or anything you’ve already edited out. (Which reminds me to say: when you cut long passages—paragraphs or longer—save them in another file. You never know when you might be able to use them.) Nothing will frustrate you more or make the revision process harder than not having all of your important information readily at hand. Then, once you start revisions and you set your daily goal, you can pull out just what you might need for that day’s section before you start so you don’t have to search for it.
How do you prepare to enter the revision process? What are some of your secrets for how you plan and organize your materials?
Beyond the First Draft—Reviewing, Revising, Readjusting
Or, Now I’ve received my critiques, what do I do with them?
Having been told by my high school Creative Writing teacher that my cute, sweet, romantic short story was well written and worth an A+ grade, I slightly revised it and turned it in as my first assignment in my first college Creative Writing class, Writing the Short Story. When it came time for my story to be workshopped in class, it was torn to shreds. I was devastated. What I didn’t know then that I understand now is the cut-throat nature of many Creative Writing programs in large universities. It’s every student for him-/herself, and must do whatever possible to impress the professor. The novel writing class didn’t go any better (professor hated historical romances, which is what I was writing at the time). Sure, when I now look at the work I turned in for those writing assignments, I cringe at the quality of the writing. But it was their job to teach me how to become a better writer, not to crush my spirit. This extreme disillusionment, along with other factors, led me to drop out of college—the first person in three generations of my family not to finish.
When I returned to college seven years later, I had a wonderful experience with the Creative Writing courses I took, because I had a very supportive professor who believed in my skills. Not being a fiction writer herself, there wasn’t much guidance she could give me on improving my craft—but that wasn’t important. She rebuilt my confidence with her continual encouragement. Because of Dr. Stevens, I gained enough courage to go to my first professional writing conference—and my whole world changed.
Entering my first writing contest was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. It was only a few months before that deadline that I’d ever let anyone (my mom and grandmother) read anything I’d written, and here I was going to let total strangers read it. I’d only been learning craft for about a year. And when I got my feedback . . . All I can say is that the judges for that first ACRW Noble Theme contest were some of the most wonderful, positive, encouraging people who’ve ever judged a writing contest.
While the feedback I got the first time in college made me withdraw, made me keep my writing to myself, the feedback I got from that encouraging professor and the judges of that first contest made me want to go back, to put their advice into action, to make myself a better writer, to put out quality work.
I had a choice . . . I was already writing another manuscript by the time I received the contest feedback. Having taken a seminar at that first conference in which T. Davis Bunn preached the importance (for beginning writers) to write our stories from beginning to end without stopping to go back and revise—and to work on only one project at a time—I decided not to make any revisions of that original manuscript. But I did read and reread those comments and figured out how to apply them to the story I was then writing.
In this post, you can read about my first experience with a crit group—how I struggled to move forward and rewrote the first ten chapters three times before forced by grad school deadlines to make forward progress with the story and finish it.
In Critiquing Step 4: Putting the Crits to Work, I wrote that there are two approaches to using critiques: go back and fix everything or forge ahead. Or, in other words, REVISE or READJUST.
Once you have REVIEWED the feedback on your writing, you have two choices of what to do with it (well, three, really, but completely rejecting it is not something I recommend):
REVISE. If you are an outliner, if you know your story backward and forward before you even start writing it, if you can go back and make revisions to earlier chapters without losing your forward momentum, then you can do this. When you get your feedback, you can stop what you’re doing and go back in and make the revisions without taking the risk that you’ll completely alter your story. Because you know your story so well, you’ll know which critique comments to implement and which to lay aside because they don’t fit in with the direction of your story (remember—critiques are more than just finding grammatical/spelling errors; you may receive comments on characters, setting, point of view, and plot).
READJUST. If you’re like me, you have a general idea of where your story is headed when you start writing, but half the fun of writing is discovering what’s going to happen as it comes out on the page in front of you. The danger for us with critiques is wanting to go back and revise and then completely changing the structure, characters, or plot and being back at square one. I’ve fallen into this trap. It’s so easy to get new ideas of what I could do with the story when I receive the crits that the temptation is there to go back and completely rewrite the portion of my first draft that’s already written. I’ve learned that while it’s important to read and understand the comments, I need to apply them to what I have not yet written and hold off revising what I’ve already written until the entire first draft is finished. I do this even with my own changes that crop up halfway through the story. I write down the idea/needed change, save the document in the file along with my chapter files, and continue writing forward—and I’ll also make a note at the top of the next submission I send to my crit partners informing them of the change that I’ve made.
How do you implement the feedback you receive on your writing? Do you revise or readjust?
And what are your questions about/problems with moving BEYOND THE FIRST DRAFT? Let’s get some discussion going so that we can all learn from each other!
The Down-and-Dirty Guide to Critiquing
For a more comprehensive discussion of critiquing—from how-to, to working with crit partners—go to the Critiquing Series page.
I always hated math classes. I was good at math—great at math. But I hated sitting there for an hour (or longer) listening to someone drone on about the concepts. Aside from Geometry in 9th grade (where I finished the year with a 108% A grade—you know, all that visually oriented stuff), the only time I ever really enjoyed using “higher” math (consciously—I know I use it subconsciously every day) was when I took Astronomy and the accompanying labs in college. It was taking all of the concepts of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry I’d memorized over the past five or six years and applying it to stuff that actually had applications in the real world—figuring out distances from the earth to other planets and stars, planet sizes, the angle of the earth to the sun by measuring the shadow of a flag pole at different times during the day/semester, and so on. Math stopped being “conceptual” and became “concrete.”
Critiquing makes everything we’ve ever heard about what “good writing” is concrete instead of conceptual.
Becoming a good critiquer is part and parcel with becoming a good writer. Until you learn how to critique others’ writing, you’ll never be able to look at your own objectively. I have learned more about the craft of writing through the critiquing/mentoring process than I did in all of the seminars I took in two years of graduate school in a genre fiction writing program. That’s not to say I didn’t learn stuff from the seminars—just that to me, it was like sitting in those math classes . . . just memorizing concepts. What I learned through the process of critiquing others and understanding and internalizing the critiques given to me on my own writing made it all concrete.
So here’s the down-and-dirty recap of the Critiquing series:
Critiquing Step 1: Becoming a Pot-Bellied Pig
1. Be tough but sensitive. Be tough-skinned enough that you don’t take critiques personally, but sensitive enough to take in the comments so you can improve your writing.
2. Be a good listener. Whether literally (in face-to-face situations) or figuratively (written critiques), listen first. Do not respond until you have heard/read everything the critiquer has to say. It’s so easy to become defensive, whether it’s the first or the hundredth time we’ve gotten feedback on our writing. No, not all advice/comments will be valid or applicable. But if you shut down at the first comment you don’t agree with, you might not find the pearl of wisdom that will mean the difference between a rejection and a request for a full.
3. Be loyal to your “herd.” Your critique group is your herd. You have a role to perform within the group as well as outside of it. Don’t betray confidences, do give support and encouragement. Let your “herd” help you figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are so you can work on them.
4. Be an individual. You cannot be so bound by the critiques you receive that you alter your voice, style, or story to fit what someone else thinks is best. You must remain true to your inner voice and to your story.
Critiquing Step 2: Be a Reader First, Writer Second
The First Read-Through: When you sit down to read the latest novel from your favorite published author, do you do it with red pen in hand just waiting to start marking up the pages? Of course not. The first time you sit down with your crit partners’ work, do so as if you were reading a published novel. Just read it. Keep a pen and notepad nearby to make notes of things to comment on later, but not on the first read-through.
The Second Read-Through: Now is your chance to put everything you know about writing into practice. With your notes from the first reading at hand, read through the manuscript again, this time, marking/commenting on the details. (See the original post for a list of things to read for.)
Critiquing Step 3: Remember the Golden Rule
You’ve completed the two read-throughs and you have your rough notes. Great. Now, set it aside for at least one day, a couple of days if possible. Then, come back to your notes with fresh eyes. As you read each criticism, try to word it in your mind to make it as positive as possible—word it the way you would want to read it if someone were writing the comment about your writing. In other words, “critique others as you would wish to be critiqued yourself.”
Critiquing Step 4: Putting the Crits to Work
You must carefully consider each comment before deciding whether to implement it or not. If you can (if it’s not feedback from a contest or the like where you cannot contact the critiquer), ask clarifying questions. If you find yourself getting bogged down in the critique comments and losing heart, step back and consider the bigger picture. And set specific goals of what you are trying to achieve.
Now that we’ve looked at the critiquing process, we’ll start breaking this down into how to take what you’re given as feedback/critiques and apply it to your writing—either as you write your first draft or as you move into the revision stage after your first draft is finished.
Don’t forget, there’s a $5 Barnes & Noble (or Borders, if the winner prefers) gift certificate up for grabs to whoever comes up with a name for the new series . . . but I’ll need to choose by 10:00 a.m. Central Time, Wednesday, August 1—so get your suggestions in!
New Series–Need a Title . . .
Okay, so I’ve figured out what the next series is, but my brain is fuzzy (have an infection and I’m running a low-grade fever tonight—and it’s miserably hot outside and I had to run in and out of a couple of stores to pick some stuff up on the way home. Fun times.) so I need help coming up with a catchy title for it. Come on, all you writers out there—put on your creativity-caps and help me come up with a title for the new series on:
How to apply the comments and critiques you’ve received on your manuscript (from contests, crit partners, mentors, etc.), and how to revise your manuscript without wanting to spill blood—yours or someone else’s. We might even get into writing the dreaded synopsis and proposals.
(Little bit long for a series title, ain’t it?)
Tomorrow, for those who don’t want to go back and re-read the entire series I did on critiquing (see the Fiction Writing Series page for links), I’ll discuss critiquing a bit—both from the point of view of a critiquer/contest judge as well as the point of view of a writer receiving crits.
I’ll also really want y’all to chime in with your knowledge, advice, and experiences as this is a process that is unique for each person—I’ll be trying to speak in generalities, while also giving my personal experiences. Yours are just as important. Let’s make this a real discussion—treat it like a forum instead of a blog!
So come on, now–let’s see some names!
Okay, so you think you deserve something if you come up with the winning name? How about . . . a $5 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble?
Writing Meme
Pulled from Georgiana’s blog . . .
1. What’s the one book or writing project you haven’t yet written but still hope to?
I have so many “ideas” sitting in a folder in my computer . . . but usually the book I “hope” to write is the one I’m currently working on or getting ready to write. In this case, there are two, and they’re both sequels: A Major Event Inc and Ransome’s Crossing.
2. If you had one entire day in which to do nothing but read, what book would you start with?
Uh . . . I just did this last weekend–I read Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows last Saturday.
3. What was your first writing “instrument” (besides pen and paper)?
A TRS-80 computer with WordStar word processing software. The files were saved to a cassette tape (in other words, this was before the floppy disk was in common usage).
4. What’s your best guess as to how many books you read in a month?
I have started making myself make use of my library card—checking out books from the “Recommended for You” list at Amazon instead of buying books that I end up never reading. I am almost always listening to audio books, so I’ll count that as reading. In the past 30 days, between audio books, reading Harry Potter in one day, and new titles I’ve read, I think I’ve read 5 books.
5. What’s your most favorite writing “machine” you’ve ever owned?
The computer I currently have at home—large flat-panel monitor, super-fast processor and a hard drive so huge it’s segmented as if it’s actually two hard drives, cable internet access for quick research/access to thesaurus.com, brand-new black Microsoft Natural keyboard, a laser printer and a color ink-jet printer, a flatbed scanner, and 30+ hours of music ripped to Windows Media Player.
6. Think historical fiction: what’s your favorite time period in which to read? (And if you don’t read historical fiction–shame on you.)
Though I write in the Regency period, I think my favorite historical time period to read is still medieval: knights and ladies, castles and moors, tournaments and highlanders.
7. What’s the one book you remember most clearly from your youth (childhood or teens)?
See my post on the Most Dog-Eared Books on My Shelves.
If you want to participate, please leave a comment to let me know when your list is up so I can come read it!
KayeDacus.com 