How to Revise a Novel--Step 2

Last time, in Step 1, I took you through the process of shrinking down a novel and looking at it in three acts.

I had mixed feelings about this because I already felt I had a good idea that my draft disintegrated into a hodge-podge of random scenes in the third act. This was solidly upheld in the shrunken three-act process. It was useful in some ways, but I wanted it to be more useful.

I wanted an epiphany.
I wanted a miracle.
I wanted the secret to fixing a novel.

Logically, I know there isn't a magic pill that will solve my novel's problems, but it doesn't stop me from searching. I want to know something I don't already know.

So this is the next thing I did with my shrunken novel.

Okay. I didn't shrink it this small.   Image: "The Worlds Smallest Dictionary" (CC BY-NC 2.0) by practicalowl

7 Reasons to Learn to Love Revising

I meet lots of writers who say they hate revising. Others have told me they just write a draft and give it to an editor. Done.

I don't understand. Revising is writing. Therefore, if you love writing, you also love revising. Yes, it's a complex and difficult love, but it's just that which brings the greatest reward.

Love takes care. Image "banksy - peaceful hearts doctor - 3" (CC BY 2.0) by Eva Blue

And because I don't want you to miss out on this amazing love, I think we should talk about the reasons a writer needs to buckle down and commit his heart and soul to revising his novel.

How to Revise a Novel—Step 1

If you're anything like me, your first draft is a giant mess.

Chapters? Who needs chapters? No. I don't have chapters yet. Image: "Adventures of Captain Greenland (table o" (CC BY 2.0) by earlynovelsdatabase

Before I began the revision process in mid-June, I knew I had out-of-order scenes. I didn't even have chapters. I knew that, as I pushed characters through a plot, they changed. No amount of planning prepared me for how my characters changed―even though I go through various revisions of character building and multiple character exercises throughout the process of writing so that I can understand them better. I just don't know what will come up. I knew my plot got messy and I became disjointed as a writer near the end. I knew I was not even close to committed to the end; it was mechanical, to get there and say, This draft is done.

I knew there were so many issues... so so many.

8 Reasons Why Good Books Are Rejected

Your novel is brilliant. You know it is.

So why aren't any agents picking it up?

This is not a post about delusions of the quality of one's writing. It's about why you send your book out to 10 agents and another 10, and then 10 more, and you still haven't gotten a nibble.

It takes sending a book out to more agents than you would imagine before you find the right one. And that's what it's about: finding the right person, the one who will be as committed to your book as you are.

You're not represented ...yet. Persevere. Image "rejected" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by ☻☺

5 Ways Your Dialogue Tags Suck: Dialogue Diatribe #2

Dialogue tags shouldn't be difficult. Trust me. As an editor who reads the work of new writers, dialogue tags can get really screwed up and entirely disrupt the flow of a story.

Don't take this lightly.

In my last post on dialogue, I explained the mechanics of dialogue. Today I want to talk about the tags themselves.

Make your tags invisible. Image "Memorias de un hombre invisible" 
(CC BY-NC 2.0) by 'J' Jose Maria Perez Nuñez

The thing with dialogue tags is that when people begin writing fiction, they often begin to see that they are writing he said and she said and it feels like a lot of repetition. As writers, we're taught to avoid using the same words too often, so we want to fix this problem. Unfortunately, in attempting to fix dialogue tags, many writers wind up with bad ones.

The Courage to be Average Before Brilliant

I'm writing to you today from the Pima Writers' Conference in Tucson,Arizona. The ice broke on the Santa Cruz River on Friday. There is no water in the river; it just means the temperature reached over 100 degrees for the first time this year. It's been that way for two days now and it'll be that way today, too. Ugh. Take me to a writing oasis!

Refresh the writing soul. Image "Oasis and Wonderland" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Dean Terry