The Last Draft

by Sandra Scofield

—

  LOOK FOR EVERY extraneous word and take it out. And here’s a challenge for you: Circle all your adverbs. Then decide if you really want them to remain. Mark all sentences that start with -ing phrases: “Crying out in pain, she stumbled to the chair.” “Hating him with all her heart, she stomped away.” “Putting the laundry away, they made sandwiches and watched TV.” (That last one’s from a real manuscript!)

  Look at every place you have replaced “said” with alternatives like “stuttered,” “whispered,” “shouted,” and change most if not all back to “said.”

  How much of this work do you do? As much as you can.

  Problems with diction, sentence structure, dialogue, and other fine points of style and correctness are outside the scope of this guide. You may need to work with another book to improve your sentences. You may need to review grammar. In the Resources section I’ve listed some excellent books to help you. Ultimately, you may need a copy editor, too.

  Maybe a writer friend will read your manuscript, looking for any infelicities. Mostly, take the time, yourself, to look again. If you have some sort of writing glitch, name it and do something about it. If you are in some way dyslexic, to take another example, plan to have someone review the manuscript before you give it to someone who will evaluate it. (I have a friend—a good writer—who cannot master homophones. She doesn’t see her inevitable errors: mane for main; shear for sheer; great for grate, etc. It is a form of dyslexia. So I read her final manuscript and correct them all. She has published five mysteries.)

  Read through the manuscript by reading only the first page of each chapter. Do you feel excited by the pages? Or do you hear yourself repeating strategies, or taking too long to get things going? Rework what is slow, boring, confusing, or overly familiar. Make the first paragraph of each chapter a jewel.

  Approach your revised manuscript with great respect and affection and the desire for every line to say what you mean for it to say, as nicely as possible. I have one special piece of advice: Read every sentence aloud. Move it around in your mouth. Don’t let your sentences get tangled; when in doubt, break them up. Strive for utmost clarity. Transparency is underrated: If you aren’t calling attention to yourself, you are calling attention to the story. I don’t know any better way to raise a writer’s consciousness than to read aloud.

  Line to line. Paragraph to paragraph. Page to page.

  All the way to the end.

  —

  THERE ARE NO rules for novels, save this: Engage the reader. From that flows everything else—all our considerations of subject and style, sufficiency and shape. For direction, go to your heart. For instruction, go to novels themselves. The work of describing texts builds a repertoire of strategies for writing. Think next of process, map out possible strategies. Consider the mountain you would climb.

  I wish you well.

  P.S. Save everything for your archives.

  Resources

  Recommended Books on Craft

  Douglas Bauer. The Stuff of Fiction: Advice on Craft. This isn’t nuts and bolts. It’s a deep reflection on essential elements of fiction: dialogue, dramatic events, closings, etc. Readable, practical, thoughtful.

  Charles Baxter. The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot. Not for the faint of heart, but Baxter is a joy to read, and his discussion of the hidden overtones and undertones in fiction will raise the bar for your writing.

  Renni Browne and Dave King. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print. Practical, down-to-earth, basic. If you’re still shaky about things like point of view, interior monologue, and dialogue mechanics, this is the book for you.

  William Cane. Fiction Writing Master Class: Emulating the Work of Great Novelists to Master the Fundamentals of Craft. If you like the idea of learning from the likes of Hemingway, Wharton, Melville, and Margaret Mitchell, this book is fun and smart. How did Faulkner use mystery? How did Ian Fleming exploit details? How did Philip K. Dick write such good dialogue?

  Claire Kehrwald Cook. Line by Line: How to Edit Your Own Writing. An MLA editor, Cook knows where the glitches are, the ones you might miss, especially with sentence craft. A very smart book.

  Constance Hale. Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose. Readable, jazzy, and practical. Don’t underestimate the power of your diction. Don’t underestimate the challenge of rising to it.

  John Hough, Jr. The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Dialogue: A Fresh Look at an Essential Ingredient of the Craft. You’ll know if you need this. The book is an outstanding guide to the basics of constructing dialogue as well as issues of integrating dialogue into plot. I like the high quality of choices of models. Hough has helpful things to say about the uses of vernacular and indirect discourse. Dialogue is a great big elephant when you don’t have control of it. Be sure you do. The visual artist learns perspective and values; the musician practices scales; you conquer punctuation and dialogue.

  David Jauss. “From Long Shots to X-Rays: Distance and Point of View in Fiction,” in Alone with All That Could Happen: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom about the Craft of Fiction Writing. An excellent discussion of point-of-view options and how your choice affects your story. The book is a collection of Jauss’s craft essays, and all of them are excellent.

  Alice Kaplan. Looking for the Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic. Like a million other college students, I had to translate The Stranger from the French. I fell in love, and I’ve read the book many times. What’s exciting and informative about Kaplan’s book is that she gives us a kind of biography of the novel itself: how it was born and grew. She shows how Camus got ideas, and sometimes specific utterances, from his work as a crime reporter, for example. She finds the seeds of the novel in early writings. She draws on his diaries and letters. She makes a reader understand how Camus found his character’s unforgettable first-person voice. She illustrates how a novel must come into meaning and form for the writer.

  Stephen Koch. The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction. The author, former chair of Columbia University’s graduate creative writing program, is the ultimate mentor. If you read only one book, make it this one, and in any case, read it first. Koch’s advice about drafts and revision is so right on I am always tempted to sit and read the chapters aloud to my students. It’s a process. It takes time. He also says great things about character.

  Alice LaPlante. The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing. This is a book to start with if you feel the least bit shaky about creative writing. LaPlante explains what’s what and the how and the why of all the basics, from the role of concrete details to show and tell, point of view, and so on. She presents information, examples, and exercises. This is a big, smart, friendly book that wraps you up in creative prose craft. It isn’t about novel writing, it’s about writing story, with lots of models and analyses and straight talk. It’s worth the time it takes to study it.

  Priscilla Long. The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life. Whatever you write, this is bound to feel like a friend. More sentence strategies; some interesting ideas about structure; friendly advice about the writing life.

  Noah Lukeman. A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation. This little book is a terrific overview of important basic aspects of structure in fiction, with advice about punctuating sentences, dialogue, and, in effect, paragraphs. I require my students to read it and they are always glad they did.

  Elizabeth Lyon. Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore. There is so much good advice in this book, you can’t use it all. If you are aiming for a broad general audience, or writing a genre novel, it is especially helpful. Lyon covers a lot of ground. She is also helpful in practical matters: writing synopses and queries, for example.

  Donald Maass. Writing 21st Century Fiction: High-Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling. This is
a great big dunk into contemporary popular novels, with very smart ideas about why readers love them. I’d be derelict not to send you to at least one of Maass’s books (any will do, really) for smart advice and a boost of energy. He also has workbooks available; you may find him helpful as you write a first draft or rewrite it before undertaking a revision.

  Thomas McCormack. The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist: A Book for Writers, Teachers, Publishers, and Anyone Else Devoted to Fiction. This is a book for writing geeks. McCormack has a kooky, slightly arrogant way of discussing the role of the editor—and therefore, what needs editing—and he has invented a whole vocabulary for talking about novels. But it’s worth it to learn his concepts of “circuitry” and the “master-effect.” I found the first edition of this book very early in my career and I felt lights go on when I read it. Besides, it’s fun to read him destroy the whole idea of theme.

  Robert C. Meredith and John D. Fitzgerald. Structuring Your Novel: From Basic Idea to Finished Manuscript. Structure, structure, structure. Fourteen ways. I insist that all my students use this book because it makes them think about where the story comes from, about why they are the right writers to tell it, and because it acts as a benevolent organizer. In a world of razzle-dazzle, Structuring Your Novel is old-fashioned common sense. And a treasure. Be careful, there’s more than one book of this title, so get the right authors.

  Jessica Page Morrell. Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing. This is a veritable toolbox of skills to help you create coherence and layers in your novel. Excellent discussions of subplots, transitions, flashbacks.

  Paula Munier. Plot Perfect: Building Unforgettable Stories Scene by Scene. We are in the same corner, urging writers to create story structure scene by scene. Lots of plotting templates and examples, a good backup. Good advice about sustaining tension.

  George Plimpton. Writers at Work: 6th Series. Here you will find reflections on craft by Bernard Malamud, Nadine Gordimer, John Gardner, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and others. The whole series is mind-bending.

  Sandra Scofield. The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer. I poured everything I thought mattered about writing scenes into it, taking great care to create a basic, solid vocabulary and scheme for analysis. There are dozens of models, closely read, and exercises to set the ideas firmly. There are also templates you can use to study writers you admire and to evaluate your own scenes.

  Joan Silber. The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long As It Takes. “One of the main tasks a writer faces is defining the duration of a plot.” Amen. Silber is a brisk, direct, insightful teacher; and she’s a wonderful writer, too—read her fiction soon.

  Francis Steegmuller. Flaubert and Madame Bovary: A Double Portrait. I learned about this biography from reading Stephen Koch’s book, and it was worth the whole price. I can’t think of any writer who has so meticulously (agonizingly) recorded his steps in writing a novel. I love that it was so important to him to see what was happening in the story.

  Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren. Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers. This isn’t a book for beginners, although its discussions of point of view and of the revision process are gold, and you may want to study it. It’s meant for intermediate writers, and it’s focused on short stories. When I started teaching in MFA programs I spent almost a year working through Stone and Nyren’s exercises for myself; it was time well spent.

  Lessons from Model Novels

  Context and structure in Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

  This novel for middle grade readers was published in 1989 and has never been out of print. It’s a lovely book to read (a good story told well) and a good book to study (with a clean, clear structure). It takes place in 1943 Copenhagen, when the Germans have decided to “relocate” the Jews of Denmark. Only the Danes aren’t having it. There is a fierce and effective underground campaign to move the country’s Jews, a population of nearly seven thousand people, across the sea to Sweden. This was a long time ago, and most Americans don’t know the story, so it’s dramatic and powerful for a child—or an adult, for that matter—to read.

  Initially, Annemarie Johansen’s family has taken in her best friend, Ellen Rosen, whose family lives in the same building. The girls pretend to be sisters—which poses some problems in blond Denmark. Eventually everyone realizes that hiding in plain sight isn’t enough, and the Johansens help Ellen’s family escape the Germans entirely.

  The novel is written in seventeen titled chapters. Each one is a short scene sequence. The passage of time is taken care of in efficient summaries, such as this one at the beginning of chapter 3:

  “The days of September passed, one after the other, much the same. Annemarie and Ellen walked to school together, and home again, always now taking the longer way, avoiding the tall soldier and his partner.”

  Winter has come and there’s no fuel. Times are hard for everyone. But the real fear is getting caught, such as when soldiers come to the apartment and ask who the dark-haired sister really is. Meanwhile, Annemarie’s brother is helping families get away, across the sea, using a relative’s farmhouse as a base of operations. As things become more dangerous, the family realizes that Ellen is in danger, too, and the girls are taken to the countryside, where Ellen is reunited with her family and eventually taken with them by boat to Sweden. Of course there are threats from the Germans, who are always on the lookout for just such schemes.

  There is no need for backstory as the story is all about present danger. There is subtext: the pride and courage of the Danish Resistance; the courage of the Jews; the rabid invasion of the German soldiers; the bonds of friendship, loyalty, family, and citizenship. Because the story is told from the girls’ viewpoints, much of what is going on can be kept subtle and not frightening, though it is obviously dangerous.

  It would be a valuable exercise to take a few of the motifs (named in the paragraph above) and list the references that develop them, chapter to chapter.

  The chapters are vivid and engaging. The story moves quickly without high emotion; it is carried by what happens, what people are doing and saying. For this reason, it is a good lesson for a novelist, a reminder that a good story has a strong pulse thumping through every chapter, and characters we care about.

  This would be an easy book to storyboard as an introduction to structure.

  Chapter openings in Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

  There’s so much to admire about Mantel’s writing: its liveliness, richness of detail, conciseness, wit, convincing dialogue, respect for the intelligence of the reader. I liked what Wendy Lesser said in Bookforum (www.bookforum.com): All her novels “contain the essential Mantel element, which is a style—of writing and of thinking—that combines steely-eyed intelligence with intense yet wide-ranging sympathy.”

  Wolf Hall is set in 1520s England, when Henry VIII is desperate for a male heir. He is ready to cast off Anne Boleyn and try another wife, but it’s not so easy to fire a queen. Here comes Thomas Cromwell, and Mantel’s brilliant portrait of a complicated, implacable man. It’s one of my all-time favorite novels.

  But what I want to point out just now is how delightfully Mantel varies her chapter openings. She uses an omniscient point of view—her narration sees everything, knows everything. I’m simply going to give the first paragraph of each of several early chapters to demonstrate how handily she pulls the reader in, how much she accomplishes quickly, and how various is her strategy.

  Part One

  I. Across the Narrow Sea

  “So now get up.”

  Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned toward the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.

  II. Paternity

  So: Stephen Gardiner. Going out, as he’s coming in. It’s wet, and for a night in
April, unseasonably warm, but Gardiner wears furs, which look like oily and dense black feathers; he stands now, ruffling them, gathering his clothes about his tall straight person like black angel’s wings.

  III. At Austin Friars

  Lizzie is still up. When she hears the servants let him in, she comes out with his little dog under her arm, fighting and squealing. “Forget where you lived?”

  Part Two

  I. Visitation

  They are taking apart the cardinal’s house. Room by room, the king’s men are stripping York Place of its owner. They are bundling up parchments and scrolls, missals and memoranda and the volumes of his personal accounts; they are taking even the ink and the quills. They are prizing from the walls the boards on which the cardinal’s coat of arms is painted.

  II. An Occult History of Britain

  Once, in ten days of time immemorial, there was a king of Greece who had thirty-three daughters. Each of these daughters rose up in revolt and murdered her husband. Perplexed as to how he had bred such rebels, but not wanting to kill his own flesh and blood, their princely father exiled them and set them adrift in a rudderless ship.

  Structural cues in chapter 1 of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

  Murakami is very clear about what he is doing in his text: using scene, exposition, commentary. You can see his approach by looking at the first chapter. He uses a dot to shift from one narrative component to another. I’m just going to observe what each section, dot to dot, is made up of in this chapter. My notes comprise a very short scenario.

  Scene: The chapter opens with a scene—the narrator is cooking when the phone rings. It continues for some pages in a sequence of activities ending with his resolve to go look for a lost cat.

  Exposition: After the dot, the narrator tells about quitting his job, why he did so, his wife’s reaction, and so on. He ends with the sentence: “And so I quit my job.”