Picking up the threads of a story is difficult after a holiday. Here’s four suggestions for making it easier:

Read. Read through a couple of chapters just before where you’ll start. Read slowly, letting the characters, the voice, the tone overtake you again. Remember what you were thinking or doing when you wrote the chapters.

Mark up. While you’re reading mark up the chapters for line editing. For me, line editing is a way to make myself pay even closer attention to the writing, which helps me get back into it.

Free write. Another method I’ve used is to free write something from the point of view of the narrator. Write about a memory of a holiday, or of a sports game or of a song once heard that lingers on. Be specific, grounding the scene in specific sensory details. It doesn’t matter if you eventually use this scene, the point is to get back into the story’s voice with something that may or may not get used.

Type. Retype a chapter. Again, this is a simple technique to force you to read every word in the story, and not skim. You need this kind of in-depth re-immersion into the story in order to pick up the same voice.

How do you get back into a story after a break?

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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While we were traveling last week, I didn’t get any new scenes revised, but I did do some line editing.

3 Line Editing Strategies

When I line edit, I’m trying to balance three things:

1. Smooth, easy to read. First, I want the text to be smooth and easy to read. I try to read aloud or at least move my lips, so I can see/hear places where sounds collide, words are difficult to get out, or where I stumble for any reason whatsoever. Then, I either rewrite, or at least flag it for attention later.
   
   Often, these are places where my fingers were typing so fast that I left out a word that’s needs to smooth it out. Or places where I did some major editing and it just hasn’t had enough passes through it to be smooth yet.
2. Cut unnecessary words. I’m also watching for awkward repetitions, unnecessary prepositional phrases, unnecessary adjectives or adverbs, “nothing” words – those words which add no new information, such as good, happy, wonderful, etc., and places where I can leave out speech tags and the reader won’t wonder who is speaking. Sometimes, I realize a whole paragraph could be left out because I said the same thing in the last chapter. For repetitions like that, it’s essential to get the long view to do this editing, to read large chunks at a time.
3. Fine-tune the voice. Finally, I’m fine-tuning the voice, and really, this can override the other two concerns. Would this character really say THIS? And say it in THIS WAY? I’m writing in first person, so it’s particularly hard. I know that I would say something a certain way, but would this character say that? It’s hard because I think I have a tin ear, not good at catching these slip-ups. I have to focus hard and when my attention wanders, I have to go back and repeat it for that section.

   Overall, I’m liking the voice of this story and I think it’s working well. It’s just the small things, the word choices that matter here.

   I saw the sun was getting low.
   I realized it was getting late.
   When Sam turned on a lamp, it jerked me away from the game. I glanced at my watch. We were late.

   Any of these would work in my story. It’s not just a matter of Show-Don’t-Tell here, but how would this character, in the first person, perceive and record what is happening. Would he notice the sun out the window? Would he just get a general feeling of being late in the afternoon? Would he be oblivious until someone turned on a light? It’s the voice and character that matter.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Simplify Your Picture Book Story

I’m currently revising a picture book and my major goal is to simplify the story.

Simple Steps to Revision

• Why simplify the story? At 1200 words, the picture book text is way too long. I needed to cut it about in half. Why? Sue Edwards has just been reading 50 picture books in a short amount of time – something you should do at least once a year if you write picture books – and she reports that “. . .short sells. I ran into very few longer books.” Simplified = Sales. Good enough reason.
• Omit Major Character. In fact, this version of the story had already simplified by leaving out a major character. It meant a total reworking of the story, but it flowed much smoother.
• Cut the conflict in half and expand what’s left. Given that 600 words is a worthy goal, what could I do? I took the first half of the story and expanded it into the whole story, thus simplifying it by leaving out the conflict in the last half of the original. It sounds drastic and it was. But after it was done. I wondered how I could ever have thought we needed that last half.
• Planning for interactivity. In the next revision, I plan to strengthen the interactivity of the story. I already have one section where kids can anticipate and chime in. I”m looking for a couple more places.
• Planning for stronger language. The cuts I’ve done so far are playing up the fun language of the story. But I think it needs more tightening, so the fun phrases will shine.
• Planning for unique characters. A friend reminded me that my characters are too stereotypical. But with minor edits, I can remove the stereotypical references and leave the characters stronger.
• Planning to connect the beginning and end. The motivation at the beginning and the resolution at the end are still not matching up exactly. It’s close – but not right. I’m searching for alternative ways of setting it up. Because I like the new ending, which means the beginning has to set up that ending.

Not much to revise, huh? And people think writing a picture book is easy?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Introduced first in 2007, authors debuting children’s books have formed a cooperative effort to market their novels. Last year, I featured many of the stories of how the 2k8 Novels Were Revised. This is part of the ongoing stories from the Class of 2k9 authors and how they went about revising their novels.

by

Deborah Lytton

Final Edit on Novel the Hardest

My revision process was actually fairly smooth–no major structural
changes, really good communication with my editor at Dutton, Julie
Strauss-Gabel, and I was able to meet every deadline without a
hiccup. Until I got to the final line edit, that is. Last April, I
learned that the final line edit is where your editor makes notes on
the manuscript for suggested stylistic changes. I also learned that
the final line edit can be hard for some writers because the editor is
making specific suggestions rather than the more general thematic
suggestions made in edit letters. And sometimes the writer doesn’t
agree with the stylistic changes.

So when I received my line edit from Julie, and saw that the changes were all ones I agreed with, I was so relieved. There were some
suggestions that were substantive, such as considering whether a
passage made sense in the context of a new section and if not, how to make it work, or to cut out a section that was perhaps too long, but all of these made sense to me, and I was in agreement with Julie about the need to revise them. The remainder of the changes were simple, or so it seemed. Italicizing a thought, using initial capitals for Happy Birthday, things like that. I agreed to a two week deadline, because I was sure I could get it done without a problem.

How wrong I was. The substantive changes were not a problem at all. It was the smaller revisions, like changing a lower case “a.m.” to a capital “A.M.”; putting an apostrophe next to “A’s” and “B’s”, or
switching out a word like “silver” because it was duplicated in the
paragraph that took forever to complete. Mostly, I think this was
because there was at least one change like this on each page of the
manuscript. Scrolling through every page, every line and making these small changes was technical, but there were hundreds of them—and I had totally underestimated the amount of time it would take.

I worked every day of the two weeks and still had to pull an all-
nighter to finish the revision by my deadline. In the end, I got it
done, by 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time. I was so proud of myself—I emailed it to Julie right away, and copied my agent (Stacey Glick of Dystel &
Goderich Literary Management) on it as well.

The next morning, Julie sent me an email asking when she would receive the manuscript. Yes, that’s right. She never received it. It seems that Dutton bounced my email. It turned out to be a company-wide problem, and I was not the only one who had this experience. But that didn’t make me, a first-time-author-trying-to-impress-her-editor, feel any better. So, Stacey had to send the manuscript to Julie, and although she knew I had delivered timely, it was a really good lesson for me. I want to share what I learned.

• Number One: Line edits may look easy, but they aren’t easy at all. Those little changes are very time consuming. Don’t underestimate the power of initial caps.
• Number Two: When submitting revisions to your editor via email, send a follow up asking for confirmation of receipt.
• Number Three: Remember to copy your agent or yourself on the email just to be sure it delivers properly.
• And Number Four: When agreeing to writer’s deadlines, give yourself more time than you think you need. And always expect the unexpected.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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I seem to be thinking a lot about critiques these days, probably because I’m getting critiques from a couple different sources.

The Strengths and Weaknesses of a Critiquers

In critique groups, I find that writers/readers have different styles of critiquing.

Grammar Witches: This person always finds the punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes; I’m grateful for them, because fixing what they notice is easy.

Line Editors: This person rewrites lines by omitting words, moving things around, or just rewriting a sentence here or there. I appreciate the efforts of this person, but I don’t always do what they suggest. I CONSIDER everything they suggest. But I also take into consideration the voice of the piece and sometimes, what the Line Editor has done is put the sentence into their voice, destroying the rhythms of my voice. Sometimes, their suggestion to omit a word is right on. Or, they’ve noticed that I’ve repeated “whirl” ten times in this chapter and they are right that I should drag out a thesaurus. Overall, my attitude towards them is one of caution.

Big Picture Critiquers: The hardest critiquers to find are those who can look at the shape of the overall story and see where there are holes in the story logic, where the pacing is off, where the characters are flat, where dialogue is boring, etc. But, for me, these are the most valued critiquers. This is why I always want my critiquers to read the entire story at one time, even if it’s a rather long novel.

Sometimes, this type critiquer is the quietest in the bunch and you have to listen carefully. For example, once a group went over my WIP with enthusiasm, but as I was leaving, one person said casually as we were walking out the door, “Really, though, I don’t think you’ll get it published until you resolve the parent-child relationship.”

Whoa! That was a great Big Picture Comment, but it was made casually, almost apologetically. Fortunately, I realized the importance of that comment–the most valuable comment of the hour’s critique. So–listen for the small voices.

Under-Confident Critiquer: This person looks at a published writer and says to themselves, “Oh, gee, I can’t say anything to them because they are published and they know everything.” Sorry, but publication of one book doesn’t mean you write the next one perfectly. Even writers with 100 books out need honest feedback from honest readers. I avoid these critiquers.

How to Respond When the Editor asks for Changes

When you get that editorial revision letter–instead of the phone call you really wanted, be careful. Probably 90% or more of revision letters like this never go anywhere. Why? Because you do exactly what the editor asked for.

In my experience, if you do exactly what the editor asked for, you’ll still get rejected.

Instead, you need to go to the heart of what the editor said and go deeper than the surface of what the editor has suggested. You will do what the editor didn’t know they wanted. For example, in my first picture book, The River Dragon, I had described the dragon’s voice as “the clink of copper coins.” And each time the dragon appeared, we heard him clinking along. The editor suggested a progression of sounds going from copper to silver to gold–with appropriate phrasing, of course.

I tried that and it didn’t work. Instead, I went toward baser metals: voice like the clink of copper coins, voice like the sound of a brass gong, voice ringing like a hammer on an iron anvil. This worked well because each step was a baser metal, a louder voice, and eventually, we wound up with the iron anvil, which harkened back to the main character’s job as a blacksmith.

I could have tried to force it into the more precious metals. The editor didn’t care about that, though. She was pointing out that a progression of sounds for the dragon’s voice had the potential to strengthen the story. I went to the heart of that comment and did a progression, and it pleased her.

That’s a very simple example of going to the heart of an editor’s comments, but it demonstrates how important it is to understand exactly what the editor is concerned about with their comments. Don’t hesitate to call and clarify the issues. If the editor took the time to write that letter, they won’t mind a call.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win