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 process for The Grand Plan to Fix Everything (Atheneum).

Uma Krishnaswami’s Shrunken Manuscript

The Grand Plan Book Trailer

Uma Talks about The Grand Plan Book

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Carole Estby Dagg debuts with THE YEAR WE WERE FAMOUS

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 2k11

Guest post by Carole Estby Dagg

Big Picture Revision

The Year We Were Famous came out on April 4, 2011, fifteen years after my first rejection on it. The publishing world calls it my debut novel, but it is not my first book. I have written the same story at least a dozen different ways over those fifteen years: as non-fiction, fiction, daughter’s point of view, mother’s point of view, in third person, first person, sassy voice, restrained voice, as an episodic adventure story, as a mother-daughter story, and in various combinations of all of the preceding.

I thought I had an adventure story. After all, my main characters, Clara Estby and her mother, Helga, had walked from Washington State to New York City back in 1896. They had been caught in snow-storms, lost in the Snake River Lava Fields without food or water; they had been assaulted by a highwayman, camped out with Indians, visited president-elect William McKinley and his wife in their home…wasn’t that a tale of adventure?

Two-Page Rejection

Nine years into writing and rejections, one editor took the time to write a two-page rejection letter. She told me I didn’t just have an adventure story, I had a coming-of-age story. I flailed around with it for a year and got nowhere. I still had a book that was edging toward 400 pages and had no focus. Understandably, that editor rejected my resubmission.

My acquiring editor at Clarion suggested making a worksheet listing each major scene and providing columns for the external journey (where my characters were in space and time, and what happened to them) major plot points (where my characters were in the narrative arc), and the interior journey (how events affected them). If a scene didn’t advance the plot or character as well as describing what was happening to my characters, the scene had to go.

Looking at one page at a time, though, I had a hard time applying my editor’s advice. Luckily, it was during this process that I took Darcy Pattison’s novel revision class and applied a combination of her shrunken manuscript and novel inventory techniques. (See her book for details.)

On my shrunken manuscript, I marked passages with strong emotion, conflict, and action in different colors and circled passages that were the most essential for the narrative and emotional arcs. Looking at my hundreds of pages spread out on the floor, I didn’t even have to read the words; I just looked for color. Where there was only black and white, I had nothing but expendable external action. Those passages had to be ramped up to include emotion and conflict or deleted.

It still wasn’t easy. But once I’d pruned 250 pages of deadwood I had more than an episodic adventure story; I had the story of a young woman coming into her own.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Shrunken Manuscript Technique Helps Visualize Problems

Following my directions for shrinking, marking and evaluating a novel, here are some recent examples:

• MJ Diems shrank her Precious and says, “Color coding a single spaced 8pt draft by setting and character is hard work, people! All that capping and uncapping. But it means I get to spend quality time with My Precious.”
• Joyce Ray spots weaknesses in her novel. Hurrah! No sagging middle.
• Ann Finkelstein Shrank, Vacuumed, Colored, Laid out and Evaluated with a creative key that includes an emotional scale of Yawn, Squirm, Bite Nails and Heart Pounds.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

How do you find fresh eyes to read through a manuscript?

• Don’t claim it. One trick I’ve heard is to put another writer’s name on it and print it out. For example, “Goldilocks by Eve Bunting”. Then read it and see if it lives up to Bunting’s reputation.



• Reimagine it. One thing I’ve done lately is to imagine multiple ways to revise it before I read it, not really writing anything down, but making the story fluid in my own mind. Then, when I read it, the story has to really gel exactly as is, or I’m off trying one of the new ideas.
• Physical form. If it’s a children’s picture book, make a dummy. If it’s a novel, do a shrunken manuscript. Change the physical form in some way – make it big or little or change font or print on colored paper or print on lined paper. Make it novel in some way, so you focus on the words again.

What do you do to come to a story with fresh eyes?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

How I Shrunk my Picture Book Manuscript – and Why I’ll Do It Again!

by Lee Wind

At a schmooze of the SCBWI Tri-Regions of Southern California, discussion ranged far and wide, pulling info and tips from many sources. Lee Wind showed a shrunken manuscript of a picture book, complete with glitter, colors and stickers. The report says, “It helped him look at pacing, consistency, internal and external arcs…”

I originally developed the Shrunken Manuscript Technique to help writers see the overall structure of a novel. Here, it shrinks a picture book to a couple pages. I wondered how this is different from using a thumbnail layout, so I asked Lee to explain.

–

Shrink a 530 word picture book manuscript? But it’s already so short!

I wondered if I would actually learn anything at all from the exercise.

I decided to try it anyway, so I could discuss it at the schmooze on revision that I was co-coordinating, having read about the idea, among other places, here at Darcy’s amazing blog!

I made the font size 6pt, changed the margins so all the text would be in a two inch wide column down the left side, and sat down with the printout like an enthusiastic kindergartner with stickers,
highlighters, and glitter dots.

It came out to three pages long. I taped them together, took a ruler and drew a black line where I imagined page breaks.

Shrunken Picture Books, Photo by Rita Crayon Huang

And then I got out the pink highlighter. I drew a square around the
scenes I thought were really GREAT. As you can see, I had three in the beginning, and six at the end, and NOTHING but NOTHING in the middle. (the very bottom was a “key” for myself to explain what all my symbols meant.)

Then I got out these cool pink glitter dots. I put those on scenes
where I got “goosebumps” – scenes that really packed an emotional punch. I had two in the beginning. A big stretch of NOTHING in the middle. And then three scattered at the end.

I was starting to see a pattern.

Then I took out my “tiger” stickers (you know those return address
labels you get for free with nonprofit mailings – the ones with the
photos of wildlife by your name? They’re the perfect size to cut out
and use for this!)

And I put tiger stickers on every scene my antagonist (bad guys)
showed up. There they were, in the beginning and in the end.

I did more stickers, and quickly discovered that the part of my story
that was “working” was actually NOT the part of the story I wanted to emphasize. My “real” main character, in my mind, didn’t even show up in dialog until, um… page 4. See in the photo, that scene that starts off the middle, with absolutely NO pink box, or glitter dot, or tiger sticker? That’s where my “real” main character took center
stage.

Yikes! I was telling the WRONG character’s story.

I also put in stuff about locations, to make sure there were varied
enough possibilities for the illustrator, but really, once I figured out that I needed to re-do the story so it really was the story of my
younger character, I was itching to do a complete re-write.

I think if I had just done a list of my scenes (like an outline) and
worked from that, without shrinking the actual manuscript, I could
have missed this entirely, because my main character – in my mind- was present in the first three scenes, but as an observer. Having the actual manuscript with dialog and everything right there made me
realize she wasn’t really the focus of the beginning of the book, and
that’s a problem I might not have seen so clearly without shrinking
the manuscript.

So, was it useful? Absolutely.

Would I do it again? I’m getting my highlighter and stickers out
right now. Time to shrink the next draft!

Thanks for coming along with me on this virtual shrunken manuscript
journey. And Darcy, thank you for the opportunity to share my
experience with your readers!

Namaste,
Lee

ps- Appreciation to Rita Crayon Huang for the awesome photo of me
holding up my shrunken picture book manuscript at our schmooze on
revision!

Lee Wind is a writer who blogs about Gay Teen Books, Culture and
Politics at “I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell do I Read?“

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Shrunken Manuscript at Illinois Novel Revision Retreat

Take Time to Revise

Jim Danielson, who attended last weekend’s Illinois retreat, has also posted a picture of a shrunken manuscript.

Here are other links for the Shrunken Manuscript technique:

• Instructions for the Shrunken Manuscript Technique
• Shrunken manuscript v. Spreadsheet plotting

Intensive feedback, like you get in a weekend retreat, can be overwhelming and after a while, I know I would tend to shut down and just nod and not understand what someone was saying. It’s important to take time later to rethink all the comments you wrote down.

Jim is planning to use the shrunken manuscript to check several issues in his story. Likewise, I know other participants are rereading their manuscripts and hearing the voices of their critique partners in their heads.

Revisions take time: time to give up something you clung to even though it wasn’t working, time to re-envision your story, time to work out the details of the changes needed, time to fall in love with your characters again, time to do the work needed.

Writing is a Business

I also heard from a participant in last month’s Oklahoma picture book retreat. The last session there was about the career of writing. We discussed the realities of submission, contracts, and the fate of midlist books. I suggested the writers read, The Good Girl’s Guide to Negotiations. (Only two participants were men!)

Too many times, I see women writers play tea party in negotiations, to their own detriment.

So – one writer wrote to say that an agent had given her a personal rejection letter. Not the first time this has happened. But it’s the first time the writer immediately sent a second manuscript, which addressed the concerns of the letter in fresh ways.

Yes! Stand up for yourself and your career! No one cares about it as much as you do and if you don’t push for acceptance of your stories, why should anyone else?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Western Washington SCBWI Retreat: Voice

The retreat was great. There were about 40-45 people there and they were split into two groups. Group A came to me, while Group B went to Patti Gauch, then we swapped for the same presentation again. I sorta knew how Patti would approach voice (and I might have done many of the same things if she hadn’t been there), so I deliberately took a different tack and I think it enriched the experience for the participants. Then, I did a short intro to writing with scenes, more a reminder that this is an option than an indepth study.

The Alderbrook Resort was a great venue, right on the Hood Canal. From the restaurant, you could see a small stream feeding into the canal and we watched salmon swimming up the stream to spawn. Wow! Amazing to this land-locked Arkansan!

Thanks to Jolie Steckly and Sara Easterly for a fabulous job putting this together. (And to Sara’s new daughter, Violet Grace, for giving great cuddles.) And of course, thanks to Jamie Temairik, their assistant and fabulous illustrator.

And Thanks to all those who attended and inspired me with their energy, love of words and attention to detail!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

NaNoWriMo is in full swing! That means over 50,000 writers are slugging out 50,000 words, working on the first draft of a novel, in the 30 days of November. But I’m thinking ahead to December when that first rough draft needs revision. Here are 3 things to keep in mind as you’re writing that first draft, so you make your life easier later.

• Character bible. Either open a new file, or keep a notebook beside your computer to keep track of character particulars. Does the character have blue eyes and red hair in the first chapter? You’ll make life easier if you jot this down, so you can keep track of it. Of course, you may want to totally change that in revisions, but a character “bible,” will help you know what you’ve got.
• Timeline. Every time you type a time word, make it bold. This will help later as you scan for bold (or red or underlined or whatever you want) to see if you can straighten up the time line.
• Voice. Take the liberty of writing different chapters in different voices. No revisions allowed until December, so this is a time where you can play as you get the story line down on paper. You could try three or four different voices as you write, and by December, one will emerge as the strongest, most interesting. Word count is important, yes, but so is the spirit of exploration.

And when you’re ready to revise, come back for more tips!
Good luck! Write fast!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I’m working on the first draft of a novel and I’m about 2/3 of the way through the plot, when something interesting happened.

Embrace Exploration

I’m at a point where the E, the main character, is house bound for a couple days and suddenly M, his friend, becomes the legs of the story, the only character who is moving around. I’ve been telling the story in E’s POV, 3rd person. But this section seemed to need M’s POV and to my surprise, it came out 1st person.

But then, I’m teaching in Seattle in two weeks on the topic of voice. I decided to try to rewrite M’s chapter with an edgier voice. In other words, I gave myself permission to explore the story in new ways. Wow, I like this new voice.

First drafts v. revision

First drafts are for 1) finding out what story you want to tell, and 2) exploring the story in various ways.

Revisions are for finding out what is the best way to tell that story.

First drafts should be full of surprises and serendipity.

Revisions should be full of satisfaction as all the elements start to fit into a whole.

First drafts are for roaming around and defining boundaries of the story.

Revisions are for reinforcing those boundaries and building within them.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

When I’m writing or revising a novel, one of the fun games I like to play is the search for an apt phrase.

An Apt Phrase

Lately, I’ve been listening to recorded books of Rex Stout’s classic detective series about Nero Wolfe, the overweight, orchid enthusiast. His sidekick, Archie Goodwin, tells the story and does all the legwork for Wolfe. In Some Bury Caesar, Goodwin is smitten by a femme fatale and calls her “Trifle.” At one point, he mocks himself and says that he’ll gladly buy her “a string of cellophane pearls.”

“A string of cellophane pearls.”

Wow! What a phrase. It captures the playfulness of the relationship, how Goodwin tries to downplay her effect on him, her love of jewelry. In fact, as most apt phrases do, it says more than you can say by dissecting it.

Metaphors, simlies, descriptions, great verbs — where ever I can work it in, I try to have at least one apt phrase in every story. Sometimes, the phrase just happens; other times, I have to work at it. But I make it one of my revision goals to search for the perfect apt phrase.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win