by guest poster Mackenzie Minnick
This post is the third of three dealing with approaching the problem of sizeable revisions. The first post offered some straightforward methods to help you tackle the problem. The second took a more whimsical approach. Here, the final post in the series, is writer and freelance editor Mackenzie Minnick’s opinion on handling developmental problems. All three posts will go up the same day.
This material also appears, with a slightly different introduction, on my substack: “Do you know where YOUR story is?”
You’ve taken the big step of completing your first draft. Maybe you even have a couple readers who have taken a look and provided some feedback. But now, you’re tasked with revision, and you don’t know how or where to start. The feedback doesn’t directly tell you anything, and the suggestions the readers had don’t work for what’s in your head. What do you do?
You need to treat your draft like you are a doctor and the book is your patient. A patient doesn’t visit the GP and have the doctor immediately schedule a gallbladder surgery. Instead, ask your book questions. Diagnose the exact problem, and work out a treatment plan.
Start out with your feedback. Where do the problems appear to reside? What are the symptoms? Even vague responses of “I didn’t get this” can be helpful. I often discard my reader’s direct suggestions of “What if your character did this instead” in favor of “I’m confused as to why your character didn’t perform this action.” This means either I did not characterize my protagonist correctly, or that I didn’t build the surrounding events to make that choice realistic.
Once I have the problem diagnosed, fixing it should seem relatively straightforward. “I need to build up my character’s flaw so that this inaction seems reasonable” “I need to change the response my character has” “This scene needs to be removed”. As with all aspects of writing, remain flexible. You may hit upon a solution that is messy to implement, but strengthens the piece overall.
Here’s a short list of questions to ask yourself as you go through.
- What does this scene do narratively?
- Is my character behaving how I want them to, or am I forcing them to act out of character?
- Does this scene move my plot forward?
- What would happen if this character didn’t exist?
- Could this scene occur in another setting, at another time, or can it only happen here?
- How does this scene serve my dramatic question?
Finding Robin's Story 