I’m working on: Editing Treasure Hunter Tales: Dark Matter, book 2 in trilogy. It is quite refreshing to work on a new story (spent lots of time on book 1).
I’m listening to: Hans Zimmer-Road to Ruin from the King Arthur Soundtrack.
I’m happy because: July looks like a good writing month. Lofty goals.
The devil on my shoulder says: Just eat the Cheetos. They are crunchy and delicious.
I’m finally back to goal setting. This WIP will be ready to send to my readers in three weeks. Yes, three weeks!
I’m working on: Editing Treasure Hunter Tales: The Family Legend.
I’m listening to: Ramin Djawadi: Iron Man Soundtrack
I’m happy because: I worked through two problematic chapters that flow much better now. Nearly twenty pages edited and 1000 words added.
The devil on my shoulder says: Skip sleeping this week and we will be ready to polish edit soon 🙂
I’m working on: I am still editing Treasure Hunter Tales: The Family Legend (Book 1 in the trilogy). This was a fruitful weekend with 24 pages edited. This edit is a mix of things to fix from a read aloud and critique group comments.
I’m listening to: Sarah Brightman: Deliver Me
I’m happy because: It’s spring and my muse seems rejuvenated.
The devil on my shoulder says: You don’t need sleep, just keep writing! A part of me thinks that one late night a week might be something to look forward to. I am the type that has to be forced to go to sleep. My write brain just doesn’t want to shut down.
What I’m working on: Still editing Treasure Hunter Tales: The Family Legend, the first book in my trilogy. My critique groups have been extremely helpful in this process. I pinpointed several scenes to focus on in a recent read aloud. Hopefully it will be ready to submit again before summer.
What I’m listening to: Broken- Seether with Amy Lee
The devil on my shoulder says: Forget about the graduate research paper and work on your fiction.
Finally, I think I’m refreshed and ready for the fine tuning of Treasure Hunter Tales: The Family Legend. I felt such relief when I finished the 3 month manuscript overhaul and now, having read a few books, I’m ready for another rewrite. This time, however, I’m going to have a different focus:
1) I’m starting with the pinnacle scenes. They will come alive without a single word misplaced.
2) I’m checking every question posed to the reader and then mapping out how long I took to answer it in an effort to enhance pace and suspense.
3) Last, I’ll conduct a final polish that questions every word, sentence, paragraph, and scene. They will all hold their water in the end (oops…I cliched).
The major manuscript overhaul is complete (cheers fill the air) and with my data from the rewrite, I’ll make some important resolutions for the New Year.
1. Kill the adverb: I eliminated over 250 ly adverbs.
2. Don’t overwrite: My manuscript is 10,700 words lighter with several useless scenes taken out. Watch out for phrases like nodded his head. He nodded is appropriate (what else can you nod?).
3. Replace the junk: Whether it’s a scene or a sentence, if it’s not your best, fix it. I rewrote more than 11,000 words. No more began to look or was looking. Make it looked.
4. Write from your main character(s) to your audience: With a thirteen-year-old male protagonist in a fantasy novel, my story will be marketed as middle grade when it sells (yes, when). I wrote the novel with the YA market in mind and without fully understanding point of view; therefore, I have a list of deleted words that wouldn’t come out of my characters mouth or enter his thoughts. Please laugh at me….
Contempt, rationalized, loathsome, nostalgia, magnitude, pronounced, zeal, subsided, dismay, subsequent, contemplated, commence, confiscating, assimilated, epiphany, improbabilities, feverishly, aggravating, periodically, reluctance, anomaly, impulsiveness, utterly, reassuringly
Stop laughing now!
5. Show, don’t tell: Exhibit A for beginning-writer-extraordinaire…Me. Yes I was telling emotion, and character qualities, and bashing my reader over the head with over-telling. I even told my reader something was a frightening phenomenon and something else unbelievably terrible. If I haven’t tickled my reader’s spine through action, emotion, and description, then I haven’t done my job as a writer. I could write a book on how bad I was at this, but I think you get the idea.
In the end, I changed thirty-three percent of the manuscript in this overhaul through deleting and rewriting and now have a 56,073 word story (from 66,798) that sounds better, flows better, and hopefully keeps readers turning pages into the night.
More to come after I recieve reader feedback and complete a final polish.
Ah…finally a chance to finish my latest edit. Two weeks off school means two weeks of full-time writing.
I’m working on: A major overhaul of my first novel Treasure Hunter Tales: The Family Legend. Only 40 pages to go for the initial word slashing (then a polish edit).
I’m listening to: LOTR Two Towers soundtrack.
My Main Character: Is inches away from being eaten at the moment.
The devil on my shoulder says: Just have him lose a finger (this time… moo hoo haa haa).
And I thought I knew how to edit (laughs at self). The truth is that I had no idea. I was afraid to cut words and rewrite and instead focused on being grammatically correct and proper word choice (which I still wasn’t too good at). Now I know better.
Ten chapters into my latest edit (two months of work) I have cut and rewritten at least 1000 words per chapter. If this trend continues I will have rewritten about thirty-seven percent of the novel. Add in a reader edit and a final polish and I could easily rewrite forty percent of a story I thought was complete a few months ago. A few tips if you are interested:
1. Read a good book on editing or fiction writing in general. Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell is a good resource (his book on plot and structure is also recommended). Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us by Jessica Page Morrell is also a fun and enlightening read which explains the major reasons for rejection.
2. Read your favorite book(s) in the same genre and compare your amount of description, dialogue, internalization, and action. Notice the flow, the emotion, and how quickly it reads and compare it to your story. (I read The Lightning Thief and The Sorcerer’s Stone again)
3. Take the reader with you by SHOWING them the scenes and connecting them through the characters and all five senses.
4. DON”T be afraid to cut the extra words and unnecessary information. You’re scared of harming your baby, I know, so save your original story as is and then start a new file with your cut story. This was my biggest stumbling block, but I took the plunge and so far my story is the better for it.
Good luck and take your time.
I’m working on: A major overhaul of my first novel, Treasure Hunter Tales: The Family Legend. I will end up cutting and rewriting 50-75 percent of the original.
I’m listening to: Celtic Thunder: Heartland
I’m happy because: I’m finally learning how to write fiction.
The devil on my shoulder says: Murder every word, sentence, paragraph, and scene that isn’t 100 percent necessary. That’s right, I said murder.
Writing is the fun and creative part, while editing is the crucial step in the craft. One must consider every word, sentance, paragraph, and line of dialogue while editing, and they all have to be polished if anyone is ever going to consider publishing the novel.
After the first edit, one will have readers make suggestions and then edit again. Then, one might have a critique group help and thus we have another edit. Finally a professional edit takes place and the novel is rewritten again. Now a story might be ready to send to editors and agents (and they will probably have you edit it at least once more). The amazing part is that as one improves his/her writing, the last edit that felt so good might seem amaturish a year later. That’s when you know you’re working and improving.
I’m 66 pages into the first edit of my second novel. I will be done editing hopefully by next summer. Then I’ll have the third book finished and begin a first edit on it. If writing is your passion, editing had better be too.
Author J.R. Roper 