Tag Archives: #betterwriting

Treating Your Manuscript

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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?

Be sure to read the two previous posts for more on dealing with Major revisions.

Dealing with Major Revisions

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The next three posts will deal with approaching the problem of sizeable revisions. This post will offer some straightforward methods to help you tackle the problem. For the more whimsical approach, continue on to the next post. And for the professional’s opinion on handling developmental problems, please check out the post after that. All three posts will go up on the same day.

This material also appears, with a slightly different introduction, on my substack:: “Do you know where YOUR story is?”

It happened again…my critique group found some grievous issues that need to be un-grievous-ated. And it will mean digging and pulling and scraping and twisting around to carry that out. So….

After crying and tearing my hair out and downing a glass or two of motor-oil strength iced tea, here’s how I did it…and how I will do it again, when I have to.

Revision is difficult. No writer will dispute that. It is, however, a completely necessary evil. Our writing suffers, even dies without it.

Handling things like grammar, spelling, punctuation, the occasional awkward word or sentence is easy. Deciding to eliminate words you’ve already labored over is difficult. And doing wholesale re-writes, changes, and adjustments feels absolutely impossible. It isn’t.

Once you have reached the conclusion that segments need to be either reworded or replaced, you need to stop and identify both what the actual problems with the current words are and how they need to be replaced. (See my guest’s upcoming post on how to analyze and develop your story revisions.)

When you have done the analysis and at least some of your new material is ready, it’s time to face the page and dig in. This is where it breaks down for so many writers and results in so many days of hiding in bed, taking long walks, cleaning the garage or simply drinking the comforting beverage of your choice by the gallon. I have faced this same paralysis, and while I don’t have a perfect remedy, I’ve figured out a few things that help in getting–and keeping– going on this task.

Step #1: Getting your words ready.

Whether you do this as a standalone task or tackle it by working within your manuscript, start with fixing the obvious. What will replace the words you/your editor/your reader/critique group have decided need to go? Everything else will depend on getting this set. It may be improving a description, changing dialogue, even laying out a new plotline with all that entails.

Take your time. Plot carefully so as to disrupt as few other passages as possible–but make sure you are happy with the new material. The point is to improve your manuscript, and skimping on new material to save time… won’t. It won’t save agony either. Put as much in print as you can, and make sure there’s a special storage place in your brain for the potential things you’ll need to add/change.

Step #2: Locating relevant scenes and passages.

Check your manuscript carefully for anything related to the offending passage(s). This is where search functions are so handy. Look for words that ONLY go with the material to be changed. An easy example is a name change, which can usually be accomplished entirely with FIND AND REPLACE. If you’re not changing a name, searching out a character’s name can still help you find much of the related material, especially if the action centers around that character. Using DOCUMENT MAP (MSWord) when you write helps, as that can track chapters and other headlines.

Changes have repercussions, so any succeeding passages that relate will need to be adjusted based on the new material. This also applies to ‘set-up’ sections that precede the segment that is being revised. Highlight them, underline them, copy them out–use whatever organizational process works for you, but make sure you don’t miss any.

Step #3: Take-down and build-up.

This next step is somewhat personal. For some writers, seeing the words written on the page makes them immutable. Others like to leave them on the page as a sort of reference. Personally, most of the time I’m in the first group. So when I’m having to replace content, I completely remove it, but I copy it over to another document–just in case. With open space, my brain is free to focus on the new material and where it will lead me. You may choose to write differently, keeping the old material on the page so you can cannibalize it as you write.

The joy of doing this hard work is that as you tackle it, new ideas arise and come together like puzzle pieces. You see the improvements as they hit the page. Something clicks when you get the right words in place.  And the new ideas that sprout up will make your manuscript even better.   

Now the related material needs to be coordinated with what was just written. I tend to start by backing up to preceding material, the set-up scenes. When a change is made there, it will create its own ripples that will need follow-up. It may affect more things than just what you’ve re-written. Taking care of these makes this step more complicated than dealing with the material that comes after your big change. When you go on to deal with the ramifications that cascade from the changes, working through them will be a little more straightforward. Granted, things can all get a little gnarled up, but working through them makes the writing stronger.

This is not the only way to deal with large revisions. Every writer develops their own preferred technique, often accompanied by pretzels or chips, beer or tea, or even a huge bowl of grapes. Some do yoga between rewrites, or take a break for a walk in the yard. You get the idea. The important thing is to find a technique that works for you. You don’t want to be held from crossing the finish line because you are overwhelmed by revision work. Knowing you have a method that lets you face the task with relative comfort sets you up to deal with the writing with confidence.

Be sure to read the next two posts for more on dealing with Major revisions.

Time Sure Flies When You’re Having Fun…

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…or when you’re supposed to be writing!
4–6 minutes

When I started this blog, my intent was to share knowledge about the noveling process with my readers. I work on multiple projects at a time, so progress in any one can seem to plod. The pandemic slowed me down, particularly as I had to devote much of my personal bandwidth to my part-time job. Towards the end of the pandemic, I was also preparing to leave said job, and I wanted to leave the office in good shape.

Add to that time spent worrying over family and working on our home, and I discovered that not only was I not making much progress on writing my novels, but I was also ignoring that facet of my blog. While I’ve kept up with sharing advice and good ideas, and I’ve continued to work in INKAS, advice specifically geared towards novel-writing has been missing. What has especially been missing are posts about finding my story.

This is partly due to a reluctance on my part to share too much of the book’s content publicly, but I think it is time to do a little of that. After all, I’ve been working on this novel for nearly 15 years!

To dive right in, let me show you the ‘cover’ I created for the work-in-progress. This is not a suggestion for the real cover, but a piece of inspiration and a cover for any hardcopy draft I might maintain.

I sometimes make up book covers as inspiration to keep me writing. When I am planning on self-publishing a book, the ‘inspiration piece’ contributes to the final cover design. Since in this case I am aiming for traditional publishing, this cover won’t make it to the bookstore, but it does keep me working.

When I write, I often have a title first. It may last, it may not; it depends on how they came about. For my MackenzieWilder/ClassicBoat mysteries, I’ve tended towards titles that have a rhythmic pattern and are reminiscent of existing songs. Something no knows is that Where the Bodies Lie Buried came to me in sing-song fashion, patterned after “Home on the Range”.

C’mon, sing it to yourself, just once….
“Where the Bodies Lie Buried all day”…..

I’ll let you figure out where Sweet Corn, Fields, Forever came from; Flying Purple People Seater is obvious.

Finding Shelley’s Shoes began life as “Who’s Gonna Die?”, a reference to a group exercise Shelley uses to block out the mysteries she writes. While a recurring scene, this title didn’t have a lot to do with the overall story. As my writing progressed, the subject of where Shelley leaves her shoes becomes a sort of running theme, symbolic of the problems she faces. So the story became “Finding *insert name here*’s Shoes”. My problem was that I couldn’t decide on her name! For reasons of the story, I was locked in on certain styles of names. I made list after list of qualifying candidates before I hit on Shelley. Hedy was one, and Vivian–although I called her Vivvie. There were several others.

All of these things may feel like window dressing, and to an extent, they are. However, titles and character names should be thought out carefully, just as carefully as baby names. A lot can be conveyed by the sound of a person’s name. You want to plant the right image in your reader’s mind so that–regardless of differences in our imagining of physical characteristics–they have a feel for the character you created. Names can affect that. While a Francis might resemble a Seymour, or a John might pinch hit for a Jim, you would likely never equate a Larry with a Benedict.

By the same token, War and Peace is not the equivalent of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, nor is it The Hunger Games. [ I’ll be posting a more focused column on creating titles in “Do You Know Where YOUR Story Is?” Please stop by and check it out.]

Writing Finding Shelley’s Shoes was well underway when I attended a workshop that featured Larry Brooks, author of Story Engineering (Writer’s Digest Books, 2011). One of the items he brought up in his presentation that day was: “What is your book’s premise?”

I was flummoxed. I needed a premise? I thought I just had to write the danged thing!

Larry explained how the premise targets what the book is about in a succinct sentence or two. Its purpose is to help you pitch and discuss your manuscript in a meaningful way with other writers and publishing professionals. It also keeps your writing focused.

I devised a tentative premise and with great trepidation shared it with the group. So, here’s my first Sally Fields moment–Brooks liked it; he really liked it! Furthermore, it really worked to serve both the purposes mentioned above.

Premise for “Finding Shelley’s Shoes“

Five sisters set out on what may be their last road trip; one of them shares that she may have a serious disease, and the resultant furor unleashes a lifetime of secrets and emotion that could upend their relationships.

As my story and my characters evolved, I’ve had to struggle with keeping it all under control. Even five fictional sisters can be hard to handle at times. My critique group has caught me out at being over-descriptive, over-enthusiastic about sharing backstories, and completely confused over the proper use of en-dashes, em-dashes, and the occasional hyphen. Like everyone else, I’m learning.

At this juncture, Finding Shelley’s Shoes has been done once, then undone, and is now being redone. I have finally solved my biggest plot problem and am incorporating new scenes into the old and handling the repercussions. There is now a deadline for completion.

In future posts, I will deal with individual problems I encountered while writing this novel, and how I handled them. I’ll also post about the grant I received and how it enabled me to recreate the road trip the sisters took. The trip was an eye-opener, and it greatly affected the writing of Finding Shelley’s Shoes.