What about Rick's anti-heroism in Casablanca? If he goes his own way and keeps Ilsa, it will harm the efforts of Lazlo, the war hero. The world itself will be harmed. Talk about stakes!
Trim
Sometimes sag is caused by being overweight. There's simply too much flab. You can do some trimming here and there, and then strengthen the good stuff that remains. Try the following:
Combine or Cut Characters
If a character is in your plot for no apparent purpose, shove him off the stage. Maybe this is a character who you thought was colorful enough to be carried along on charm alone.
Not. Each character must serve a purpose.
If it's a major character, ask what her stakes are in the story. How does she relate to the Lead character and the main area of conflict? If she wasn't in the story, and the plot would pretty much be the same, she doesn't need to be there.
Supporting characters should also be there as allies or irritants. If they aren't helping or hindering the Lead, they have no purpose.
Walk-on characters—those very minor characters—should appear only to make something happen that has to happen. Like a cab driver when a cab is taken, or the waiter when your Lead is in a restaurant.
It's also possible to combine two or more characters. Think about how all the characters relate to one another. Make a web diagram, like this:
Then see if you can combine two or more characters to fulfill the same function. For example, a grandmother and crazy aunt might be combined to provide the same pressure on the Lead as they might individually.
Absorb a Subplot
Did you begin a subplot strand that ran out of steam? Or takes off on a tangent that's too wild?
Take what's good and let the main plot absorb it. Take what's good in the subplot—maybe a character or incident—and instead of giving it more attention, give it less.
Add Research
Some writers like to do extensive research before they start writing. This seems advisable for writers of historical novels. It would be a fine how-do-you-do to finish a manuscript and find that several key plot devices couldn't possibly happen because of the time frame.
Other writers, like Stephen King, prefer to get a first draft down on paper and only then go back and fill in the holes.
Research done after the fact can only help you during the revision process. It not only plugs up some gaps, it can offer new plot insights that deepen the novel.
Ask an Expert
Ridley Pearson has a good method. He does enough before-you-write research to be able to start his writing. Then he writes and makes the best guess as to how characters will react as issues arise.
Then he checks it with experts. That way, he knows what questions to ask, thus following the first rule of expert interviews: Don't waste their time.
• But before going to a great resource, who is busy, do your homework—don't waste his time. Know what you want to ask! Decide what specific material you need, the specifics, before you contact him. Do as much on your own as you can, then go to the expert for the telling details.
• Pick up the phone! Most experts will talk to you at first.
• When visiting offices of public relations of police departments, etc., make sure they know you're not an investigative reporter! Ask them stuff like, "Can you put me in touch with someone who will spend time with me talking about X?" Tell them how much time you'll need. Thirty minutes is about the limit for a first-time interview.
• Use open-ended questions, as well as specifics. Allow for the serendipity of the talker. Encourage stories. But get to your key questions before you leave!
• Take classes (e.g., gun classes).
• Participate in ride alongs (police, paramedics—if cops won't let you).
Be on the lookout for sights, sounds, how people talk, etc. Note the catch-phrases they use.
Or Just Go Find It
A young Dean Koontz wrote a novel called The Key to Midnight under the pseudonym Leigh Nichols. It begins in Kyoto, Japan.
At four o'clock in the morning, the city of Kyoto was quiet, even here in Gion, the entertainment quarter with its nightclubs and geisha houses. An incredible city, she thought... a fascinating hodgepodge of neon signs and ancient temples, plastic gimcrackery and beautiful hand-carved stone, the worst of glossy modern architecture thrusting up next to palaces and ornate shrines that were weathered by centuries of hot, damp summers and cold, damp winters.
A little later, the characters enter a restaurant:
Mizutani was an o-zashiki restaurant, which meant that it was divided by rice-paper partitions into many private dining rooms where meals were served strictly Japanese-style. The ceiling was not high, less than eighteen inches above Alex's head, and the floor was of brilliantly polished pine that seemed transparent and as deep as a sea. In the vestibule, Alex and Joanna exchanged their street shoes for soft slippers, then followed a petite young hostess to a room where they sat on the floor, side by side on thin but comfortable cushions.
A writer friend who knew Kyoto well called Koontz to congratulate him, thinking Koontz must have been there. "I've never even been in the Pacific Ocean up to my neck," Koontz said.
So how did he accomplish this illusion of being there? Through travel books, photo guides, tourist tomes, language primers, maps, memoirs of those who'd been to Kyoto, restaurant guides, and anything else he could get his hands on. He absorbed a thousand facts, even down to the name of the largest taxicab company in Kyoto. Koontz also read cultural books, including the novel Shogun, to get a sense of the Japanese mindset.
He had to do all this since he was setting a novel there and didn't want to get wet in the Pacific Ocean.
ENDINGS KEY QUESTIONS ABOUT ENDINGS
• Are there loose threads left dangling? You must either resolve these in a way that doesn't distract from the main plotline, or go back and snip them out. Readers have long memories.
• Do I give a feeling of resonance? The best endings leave a sense of something beyond the confines of the book covers.
• Will the readers feel the way I want them to feel?
COMMON FIXES Pull Threads Together
Go back through the manuscript and read only those portions relating to the particular thread.
You know where they are.
Read only these parts, skipping the rest.
Make notes on your observations. Make a list of all possible solutions, no matter how off the wall.
Brood about it for a day or two. Add any ideas that occur to you after sleeping on it.
Choose the solution that suits you best.
Another idea is to utilize a minor character to explain or embody a solution. It used to be a staple of mystery fiction that the detective would gather everyone in a room at the end and explain what happened. We're more subtle now, but it can still be done in small chunks.
In general, try to tie up your loose ends in the reverse order of their introduction.
The following chart may help:
The solutions come this way:
Note that the introductory problem is not the big issue of the book. It's usually an opening disturbance of some kind. So at the end, to keep from anticlimax, make sure you wrap it up in one scene.
In Midnight by Dean Koontz, we learn that Sam Booker has a personal problem with his teenage son. The book unfolds from there. In the end, Booker has one scene with his son, where reconciliation begins.
Create Resonance
The perfect last page, last paragraph, and last line are crucial. There is no one way to accomplish this, as every novel is unique.
You can, however, approach it this way: Write several last pages. Try different lines and rhythms.
Look for a line of dialogue in the novel that could be repeated at the end. For example, I once wrote a novel where the male Lead, a bounty hunter, was asked by the female Lead (whom he was helping) what he expected them to do in the midst of trouble. "Improvise," he said.
At
the end of the novel, when the two of them were about to become romantically involved, he was the one who asked what they should do next. "Improvise," she said.
That was the last line.
Or, come up with a line of dialogue that just sounds good. Create several of them. Pick the best one and find a way to plant a hint of that line earlier in the novel.
Final Twist
Come up with several alternative endings. If one of them seems better than what you've got, consider plugging it in.
But don't get rid of your old one. Consider using it as a twist ending. You'll have to tweak the details, but you might be able to use it. Or use one of the other alternative endings you came up with. The final twist should be short, to avoid anti-climax.
SCENES
KEY QUESTIONS ABOUT SCENES
• Is there conflict or tension in every scene?
• Do you establish a viewpoint character?
• If the scene is action, is the objective clear?
• If the scene is reaction, is the emotion clear?
COMMON FIXES Relive Your Scenes
Not rewrite. Relive.
Have you ever imagined yourself to be the characters? Tried to feel what they're feeling?
Then try it now. It's not hard. Be an actor.
Often, after I've written a scene, I'll go back and try to live the emotions. I'll act out the parts I've created. Almost always what I feel "in character" will make me add to or change the scene.
You can also vividly imagine the scene, step-by-step, in your mind. Let it play like a movie. But instead of watching the movie from a seat in the theater, be in the scene. The other characters can't see you, but you can see and hear them.
Intensify the proceedings. Let things happen. Let the characters impro- vise. If you don't like what they come up with, rewind the scene and allow them do something else.
Look at the beginnings of your scenes. What do you do to grab the reader at the start? Have you spent too much time with description of setting? Often the better course is to start in medias res (in the middle of things) and drop in description a little later.
Examine scene endings. What have you provided that will make the reader want to read on? Some great places to stop a scene are:
• at the moment a major decision is to be made
• just as a terrible thing happens
• with a portent of something bad about to happen
• with a strong display of emotion
• raising a question that has no immediate answer
Keep improving your scenes and your novel will soon develop that can't-put-it-down feel.
Heat Up the Core
Ask yourself what the core of your scene is. What's the purpose? Why does it exist? How does it meet one of the four purposes of a scene?
If the core is weak or unclear, strengthen it.
Think of it as the "hot spot" and find ways to turn up the heat.
Adjust Your Pace
If you need to speed up a scene, dialogue is one way to do it. Short exchanges with few beats leave a lot of white space on the page and give a feeling of movement. In the Lawrence Block story "A Candle for the Bag Lady," a waitress tells P.I. Matt Scudder someone was looking for him, ending her descriptions by saying he looked "underslung."
"Perfectly good word."
"I said you'd probably get here sooner or later."
"I always do. Sooner or later."
"Uh-huh. You okay, Matt?"
"The Mets lost a close one."
"I heard it was thirteen to four."
"That's close for them these days. Did he say what it was about?"
To slow the pace of a scene, you can add action beats, thoughts, and description as well as elongating speeches. In the Block story, a killer confesses to Scudder about killing a bag lady. Scudder asks why he did it.
"Same as the bourbon and coffee. Had to see. Had to taste it and find out what it was like." His eyes met mine. His were very large, hollow, empty. I fancied I could see right through them to the blackness at the back of his skull. "I couldn't get my mind away from murder," he said. His voice was more sober now, the mocking playful quality gone from it. "I tried. I just couldn't do it. It was on my mind all the time and I was afraid of what I might do. I couldn't function, I couldn't think, I just saw blood and death all the time. I was afraid to close my eyes for fear of what I might see. I would just stay up, days it seemed, and then
I'd be tired enough to pass out the minute I closed my eyes. I stopped eating. I used to be fairly heavy and the weight just fell off of me."
Stretch the Tension
Don't waste any good tension beats. Stretch them. Make your prose the equivalent of slow motion in a movie.
Show every beat, using all the tools at your disposal: thoughts, actions, dialogue, description. Mix these up.
In a famous early scene in Whispers, Dean Koontz takes seventeen pages to describe the attempted rape of the Lead character. It all takes place in a house. Read it and learn.
AVOID MUDDY VIEWPOINTS
Each scene needs to have a clear point-of-view character. The rule is one POV per scene. No "head hopping."
The exception is when you're using omniscient POV, which has its own challenges.
Otherwise, stick with one.
Go over your scenes and see if, within the first couple of paragraphs, you have made the viewpoint clear. You can quickly remedy the situation. Instead of starting a scene this way:
The room was stuffy and packed with people.
Do it like this:
Steve walked into the stuffy room and tried to get past the mass of people.
Throughout the scene, you may need to remind us whose head we're in. You can do this with little clues, like Steve knew that he had to... or Steve felt the sweat under his arms ...
Cut or Strengthen Weak Scenes
Identify the ten weakest scenes in your novel. You should have an idea of what these are. Use your gut instinct. When you read through the manuscript, you sensed a certain letdown in some of the scenes, or even outright disappointment.
To help you further, look for scenes where:
• Characters do a lot of talking to each other, without much conflict.
• The scene feels like a setup for some other scene.
• The character motivations seem undeveloped.
• There is too much introspection going on.
• There is not enough introspection, which would explain motivations in action.
• There is little tension or conflict between characters.
• There is little tension or conflict inside the character.
Make yourself identify ten weak scenes. Even if you think only five are really weak, rate another five.
List the scenes in order of their relative weakness. The weakest scene is number one, the next weakest number two, and so on.
Write these numbers on sticky notes and mark each weak scene in the manuscript.
Now you're ready to go to work. Follow these steps:
A] Cut scene number one from the manuscript. It's gone. It is the weakest link. Good-bye.
B] Move to scene number two. Answer the Three O Questions:
• What is the OBJECTIVE in the scene and who holds it? In other words, who is the POV character and what is he after in the scene? If he's not after anything, give him something to go after or cut the scene. You must be able to state the character's objective clearly and unambiguously. You must also make this objective clear to the reader at the beginning of the scene. The character must either state it or show in action what he's after.
• Next, what is the OBSTACLE to his known objective? Why can't he have it? There are three primary obstacles you can use:
a] Another character who opposes him, either consciously or unconsciously.
b] The character himself is fighting an inner battle or lack that gets in his way.
c] A physical circumstance makes it hard or impossible for him to gai
n his objective.
• Finally, what is the OUTCOME of the scene? A character can gain his objective or not. For the greatest tension, which do you think it should be? Not. Why? Because trouble is your game, and trouble is tension for the character, and that's what keeps readers reading. Most of the time, let the outcome be a negative, or at least an unrealized, objective.
C] Once you've answered the Three O Questions for a scene, go deeper.
For instance, consider your answers for scene number two:
1] Objective
• Brainstorm ways you can make the objective stronger, more intense, more important to the POV character. Rewrite the scene showing us this new intensity. OR—
• Brainstorm other possible objectives. Make a list of at least five others. Which one is the most original, yet still consistent with the character? Consider rewriting the scene with that as the new objective, made as intense as you can.
2] Obstacle
• Brainstorm how you can make the opposition to the objective stronger, more intense, more important to the opposition character.
• Brainstorm ways to intensify the character's inner battle, and show us through thought and action just what that is in the scene.
• If it applies, make the physical obstacle more real and immediate and dangerous.
3] Outcome
• Brainstorm the worst possible outcome for this scene. Not merely that the character doesn't gain his objective, but that the loss makes his situation worse. Much worse. Consider making this the outcome.
that arises and causes even greater trouble. You have now taken your second weakest scene and strengthened it considerably.
D] Repeat the above process. You should do this for the other eight scenes on your list.
E] Get a little extra credit. Do a quick take on ALL your scenes with the Three Os in mind. Sometimes just a line or two is all you need to ratchet things up.
My first draft is not even recognizable by the time I get to the last draft. I change everything. I consider myself at Square Zero when I finish the first draft. It's almost like I use that draft to think through my plot. My hard copy of each draft will be dripping with ink by the time I finish, and I'll do that several times.
Revision And Self-Editing Page 24