A caveat, from my personal experience: Using cut-and-paste on the computer as a revision strategy is a lazy and dangerous method. It means that you don’t really process the text; the manuscript loses its organic integrity. Making the words go through your brain and fingers again coheres the manuscript, even if all you are doing is copying from a printed-out page. Buy ink and reams of paper, and watch your story go through its stages physically.
How to use the book
So now you are thinking: I need to revise my book. What does that mean? How do I get started?
A writer in one of my workshops recently wrote me to say:
I realize that before the workshop I thought I would learn a few things that would show me how to magically rewrite my manuscript. Instead I learned that it isn’t magic and it isn’t all intuitive, either.
It’s a new combination of thinking about and thinking up my story.
Be sure revision is what you want to do now. Sometimes you need to put a manuscript away and do something entirely different, something physical, perhaps. Something that engages a different part of your psyche. I work with a novelist who is also a competitive swimmer; he feels his training regimen keeps him alert for his writing as much as for his swimming.
Write down why you want to revise. Is there a mystery you haven’t quite solved about the protagonist? (This can be a good sign! You don’t want paper dolls, flat in front with no other dimensions. Seize the challenge of your character’s mystery.) Are there places that drag? Or does it go too fast?
You don’t have to know what’s wrong now; that’s why you are going to analyze your manuscript.
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STAY WITH ME as I make my first recommendation. Get away from the computer. Print out your manuscript, and as you write new material for revision, print it, too. Handle your manuscript as a real object with weight and a smell, a size, and a color. You might want to reformat the text—set line spacing to 1.5 lines, just so you don’t have so many pages to handle. (But don’t go overboard: Single spacing is too hard to work with.) The first thing to do is to print out a copy and bind it with coils or rings so that you can turn pages and lay them flat. That is your mother copy, to which you will often refer. Use one side only, so that you can make notes on the blank opposite page. Make a second copy and keep the pages loose, because you will be using part of it at a time, perhaps sorting it in separate sections. (I use big clips to organize chapters; it’s easier to flip through thirty sets than a couple hundred single pages.) Use cheap recycled paper. I like to use a color and to have a ream of a second color on hand for new writing as I work through the draft. (You can staple old and new together as you progress, to eliminate a lot of shuffling.) You will need pens and index cards in a few colors. You might want a bulletin board and tacks, or a whiteboard and pens. I used to roll out butcher paper and tape it to the wall and write on it or tape up index cards. The point is, it helps, down the line, to have a way to create maps or charts or lists that are right in front of you. It helps to introduce physicality to the process—the opportunity to get out of the chair, to step back and see a representation of the story on the wall, to sort a stack of cards.
I’ve worked with writers who use Microsoft Excel or another software program to create a visual of their plot and character relationships, and they swear by it, so if you are handier than I am with the computer, you may already be onto this strategy. You can print out a spreadsheet and post it somewhere. But you still need to print out pages.
You are going to be making piles, so think about how you will manage them. If you are lucky enough to have designated space and a nice big table, piles will do fine. I have almost always worked in my kitchen, so I have several plastic dish buckets, like you get at Target or Ace Hardware. As I get going, I label them (“Draft 2,” “Notes,” etc.). It’s easy to sort my work, to stack it neatly, bucket in bucket, and then to take it all out again the next day. And hey, there’s always a little frisson of excitement, looking at all those pages.
I suggest that you keep a revision journal. Take a little time at the end of a session to write down your feelings about the day’s work. List questions you don’t want to forget. Summarize what you accomplished that day. Use the journal in any way that helps you remember and reflect. The act of reflecting—in writing—is an invaluable tool in revision. You are, after all, holding an awful lot in your head.
A journal helps you clarify your thinking. It is a record of your journey as a novelist: a diary, a map, an examination of conscience, a place to whine and cheer and ask questions you might answer years from now. And when you look at it a year from now—a week from now, for that matter—you’ll be surprised to see what you thought, and realize that you had already forgotten it.
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WORK STYLES ARE idiosyncratic, of course; take my suggestions as a model and work out your own system. But think like an architect, a carpenter, a designer, all of whom impossibly manage to do two things at the same time—grasp the whole and see the parts. Give your ideas space and someplace to land.
And one more thought: In the digital age, a lot of manuscripts become mysteries that give up their final versions but eliminate or obscure the journey of the writing. You are a serious writer; value your work and save it. On paper. The notes, the cards, the outlines. When you’re done it will probably all fit in a nice manuscript box or two. (There’s that cupboard space above the refrigerator!) You might want to look at it again someday. And maybe someone else will want to see it, too. That’s why we have archives, so start your own.
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TO REVISE A manuscript, you have to see the story in a new way. You could read it over and over until your eyes are wobbly and it would seem to be the only way you can imagine it. But if you look at it from back there, like a photographer with a long lens, you’ll see the shape of it—the composition—and the effect. If you look at it askance, you’ll notice things that seem to be there by accident, or are missing. If you take it apart you start to understand that the novel is indeed a constructed object and that you can reimagine how it is put together. What I’m doing here is giving you dozens of ways to see the novel anew. As a mature writer, you need to know how to talk to yourself about your work; if you have an editor’s feedback to consider, you have to hold it against what you meant to do and what you actually accomplished. You are the expert here. Every widget is your widget.
The process of describing and analyzing a manuscript moves it away from your initial impulses so that you can decide what you like and what you don’t. It raises a valuable question: What if? (I killed Arthur. There was a tornado. I changed the tense, point of view, or setting. I let the problem be solved earlier. I made it all happen on one day.)
Begin with description. It’s a way of taking pictures of what you’ve built. New ideas will pop up. After that, you will find that some of my questions and exercises mean more to you than others. You’ll work your way along and choose what you want to concentrate on. Your specific vision trumps my generic one: I’m talking about any novel; you are thinking about this novel. You’ll soon recognize where you need to put your attention. The first part of the revision process, “A Close Look,” is devoted to helping you describe your novel. Start with that. Don’t try to fix everything in the beginning; just make notes. You are, in effect, compiling a study of your manuscript.
I suggest you read through all the sections of this book consecutively, even if you don’t want to do the exercises right away. You will probably want to read some of the discussions of model novels in the Resources sections early on; choose what appeals to you. You may want to take the time to storyboard a book, a process that can be immensely valuable, especially if this is your first novel. (See Resources.)
Be patient and methodical, like a seamstress or a boat builder. You are over the hurdle of wondering if you have a story at all. You have pages you can handle. Revision has always been what I loved bes
t in writing a novel. I hope you will, too.
Looking for help
Should you hire an editor? My response: Not yet. A first draft almost by definition is a mess of false turns and underdeveloped story. It is riddled with glitches and blank spaces. But it goes from beginning to end. It has a shape, however rough. You have the feel of the story now; you have something to work with. Begin the second draft! Clear out the weediness of your first effort, and deepen the story. You may want to do a second draft before you launch a full-scale revision. If you feel truly lost, look for a coach who can give you support step by step. Take a workshop. Join a group. Summer programs are motivating and convivial. In the graduate program where I teach, our writers stay in touch and act as readers for each other. If you can find someone like that, it can help a lot. But be wary of asking for feedback from friends who aren’t writers, and of significant others. It’s asking too much of them: Tell me what you think! Tell me it’s good! Tell me how to fix it! I can say from experience that when a friend says the wrong thing (you don’t agree; it hurts your feelings; you think she was a careless reader; what was she thinking?), it is hard to stave off resentment. It’s even worse with spouses.
If you want to work with an editor, wait until you have done all you can to make the manuscript viable; the more you have accomplished on your own, the more you can get from a professional evaluation (which isn’t cheap), and the less likely you are to lose your original vision. You can analyze your manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses for yourself. You can take it to the next level. After you have pushed yourself as far as you can, look for professional feedback, if you are inclined. Many first-time novelists do, and so do many experienced ones. You have to be tough-skinned and open-minded; it does you little good to ask for an evaluation if you can’t stand criticism, or if you aren’t prepared to tackle your manuscript again.
Finding an editor isn’t difficult, but you want to do all you can to find one who suits your needs and temperament. Start by defining what you want: A critique and suggestions for revision? Hand-holding as you make your way through chapters? You want an editor to spell out precisely what you can expect to receive. Editors advertise in writers’ magazines and online. Jane Friedman (https://janefriedman.com) offers good advice about asking questions and talking to other clients of editors. The Editorial Freelancers Association also has useful information on its website. Always begin with a trial review—ask for a response to a scene or chapter before making a commitment to a novel. Ask for references to prior clients. And if the expense is an obstacle, consider asking for an editor’s review of a portion of your manuscript—perhaps fifty pages. You should be able to learn from that what kinds of problems you are having with story and technique.
Here’s the thing: If you have a story and you love writing, you can learn all the rest. You can hire a copy editor to take care of your homonym errors, your subject-predicate disagreements. But only you can think of what has to happen in your story, and only you can write it. Don’t look for feedback too early, when you are vulnerable to doubt. Don’t want to waste time making mistakes and hitting dead ends? Bake or garden instead.
Writing a novel is laborious. You have to have tremendous patience and commitment. I think that the reward is great. You grow as a person when you write a novel. You learn something you could discover no other way. You fulfill an inner yearning that can’t be explained to anyone who hasn’t had it. A dear friend of mine has written two novels, with no effort to publish either one, even though the manuscripts are good. For her, the writing was the reward, and she was happy to share it with her family and friends. I see it as an admirable demonstration of intellectual and emotional self-nourishment, as well as an avoidance of disappointment she didn’t need or want to face. And I mention it as a way of saying that you can’t know whether you will be published or, if you are, whether your book will sell. You can want those things to happen—so keep the reader in mind—but what will keep you going is affection for the process and your crazy mad love affair with a story.
I’m this way about painting. I do what I want because I have a vision of what I might eventually achieve and I love everything about the process. I don’t ask anyone’s permission or praise. I feel as if this pursuit, taken up late in my life, is unfolding and I am merely following it where it goes.
What’s on offer
There is no one way to revise, no set sequence for the process. Even the same writer will find the process changes, depending on the story. There are fundamental questions, however, and there are recurring issues. My priorities in writing or evaluating a novel are: (1) clarify and deepen the vision and (2) test and strengthen the structure. In other words, the novel must have a strong, well-organized story.
In the pages that follow, I’ll present vocabulary for talking about a novel. I’ll talk about the process of moving from first draft to revision.
Read the sections, compile notes, write new passages, choose questions to answer and exercises to complete. I’ve illustrated issues with references to readily available novels that are useful models. I’ve chosen these books for quality and for inspiration, for staying power, for variety, and for my own feeling that what they demonstrate will help you. Though we don’t know how a particular writer does what he does, we can learn a lot with close reading: What is the effect achieved? What is the demonstrated craft? You should choose other novels to study, too, ones that you especially admire for qualities you want to emulate, because you’ll know how to read them in ways that will instruct you in your own writing. (I have used passages from my own novels, too, to illustrate points. One, because I can. Two, because I had the experience of writing them, whereas I can only guess what other writers thought when they wrote their novels. I do, however, look at novels and talk about apparent strategies, without presuming to second-guess the writers’ processes.) I refer to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and I urge you to read or reread it. You probably read it in high school or college; I promise you that reading it now, as a writer and a mature reader, is a whole new experience. And you should be aware that the book changed a lot in revision; indeed, Fitzgerald made changes when the novel was in proofs. The protagonist changed; the structure changed; a truer vision emerged. Any good contemporary edition of the novel should have an introduction that discusses Fitzgerald’s process.
I recommend to my students that they start out by studying a good novel written for young readers, because it will teach them a lot about structure and theme. (I discuss Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars in the Resources section.) Check awards lists, or ask a children’s librarian for suggestions if you have a particular theme or age level in mind.
Read a book and then give yourself two to three hours to look at its structure: the order of events in the plot; the organization of chapters, the balance of show and tell, the openings of chapters, and the transitions. It’s a low-cost self-help course that will pay off.
If you find this exercise helpful, consider doing it twice. Amass. Analyze. Learn to see the shapes of novels.
Wherever you are with your novel, if you want to assess its qualities and consider next steps, you are ready to revise.
How is this book unique?
It is grounded in ideas about story that allow for ambiguity and complexity, the meat of novels.
It isn’t prescriptive, which is to say I won’t make you feel you have to follow a regimen. You will find a lot of questions and ideas to make you consider what you are writing, but you will decide which issues matter most to you. You can come back to sections more than once.
It doesn’t view revision as cutting-and-pasting and fixing, but as phases of contemplation and analysis: preparation for a new telling.
It assumes that you are patient and fervent, not frenzied. It assumes that you want to finish a novel and win readers, but you aren’t fixated on writing a best seller that will be made into a movie. You want to find your way to tell you
r kind of story in the best possible way.
It can guide you through more than one novel—and you can adapt your process.
And maybe this is the point where I say something about myself, as in: Who are you to tell me how to write a novel? I have devoted a big chunk of my life not just to writing novels, but to studying them. As for teaching, I am by nature analytical, and I am trained in curriculum and instruction. I love teaching and my reputation is that I am practical, generous, tough, and encouraging.
I’ve never had a book with large sales. All my books, however, received warm critical praise, including a nomination for the National Book Award and state prizes. Believe me, I have wasted hours wondering why I didn’t get a wider audience. This was before social media platforms, remember. Publishers did things to promote the books, but I remember a powerful publisher-editor blithely saying to me, “You just have to get your mojo going. Nobody knows how it happens.” And I remember being very annoyed. Money was spent on tours, but there were never any ads, and I wished they would do more. Now I don’t think that. I believe the editor was right: The book has to get mojo and nobody knows how that happens. I think of it like this: In every season there is a book about something nobody thought of before, or there’s a star that shines on someone who didn’t expect it. One writer gets a million dollars and sells poorly; another one gets a so-so contract and Oprah anoints her. The only thing we know for sure is the magic star doesn’t shine on people who were thinking about writing a book.
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