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I’m at the point in my WIP when I need to reread with a critical eye. Where did I leave that thing? I’m out of town on family business, stealing a few hours here and there to work. Because of this, I can’t print the thing out, which is what I really need to do. [...]
When writing a novel, picture book or other story, there are sentence constructions you should avoid and revise out when you copyedit. Here’s my top 5 list of the Worst Sentence Constructions. Would Example: We would take walks daily. We would start at our house and we would go toward the lake and then we [...]
Debut Novel: Spreadsheets Used for Plotting and Revising a Novel Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. I featured Revision Stories from the Classes of 2k8 and 2k9 and this feature returns this year with the Class of 2k11. Class of 2008 Class of 2009 MORE [...]
Writing is rewriting Guest post by Anastasia Suen For years I have been saying that writing is rewriting, and now I have a book that shows it quite clearly, my new picture book, Road Work Ahead (Viking 2011). This picture book is short, like most of my books. It’s only 120 words, but those words [...]
Do things get worse in your story? Then you are using some sort of progression: good, worse, worst. That’s excellent, because you want the story characters to increasingly feel the conflict and tension of the story. But are you using the BEST progression possible? In my current revision, I am checking my progressions to make [...]
Using the 3-Act Structure: Adjusting Expectations Most writers use a 3-act structure and for good reason. It works. Act 1: 25% of the length, sets up the story conflict and ends when the main character (MC) commits to doing something about the conflict. Act 2: 50% of the length, develops and deepens the conflict and [...]
OK, so I have this revision to do and one key element of it is to deepen characterization and relationships. Uh, oh. My weakness! How did the editor know that it was my weak area? Even after spending agonizing hours on characterization, I’m still not hitting the mark. Which left me stumped on this revision. [...]
Working on a novel revision, I realize that I need to refocus the relationship between two characters. The question is where to start. Grand Entrance for Your Character I once heard the late Sid Fleischman talk about the importance of giving a character a Grand Entrance. Think about a stage play, where a character sweeps [...]
So What? That’s the question you must get past in your fiction. Why should a reader care? Keep Reader’s Interest: Make Everything Matter More The best way to make a reader care about your story, your novel is to make things matter more, put more at risk, up the stakes. Personal Stakes This can be [...]
My Novel Revision Retreats rely heavily upon the Shrunken Manuscript technique. Basically, you use the magic of word processors to shrink the font of the mss until you can see the big picture of the story. Uma Krishnaswami used a variation of the technique in revising her new novel. Here’s a look at Uma’s writing [...]
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