Mid-Willamette Valley RWA

Mid-Willamette Valley RWA

Rewriting/Revision: A writer's best friend

This is my first blog, so bear with me! I don't know about you guys, but I have always had an easier time writing fiction than fact. In one critique group I belonged to a long time ago, a survey was distributed. It asked for answers to basic questions. We were attempting to figure out how each member felt about rules and such, in the hopes we could create a kind of "Bible" for our group (you do things like this when you get a particularly destructive member who creates a situation where you end up drawing straws to see who gets the unpleasant task of asking her to go away.)

Anyway, that survey was impossible for me. I hate answering questions. So I wrote a little seduction scene instead, using a young woman and an older man. He posed questions, she answered them. Suddenly, it was easy! It was dialogue. I could throw in little racy tidbits or whacky things like, "Now, cupcake, don't worry, sit on my lap and tell me how long you think a trial membership should last," or, "Oh, baby, please, you're squeezing me too tight. I can hardly breath…ooh, this is how I feel when a member of my group sabotages my work!"

The woman who correlated the surveys ran my silliness throughout the results. Of course, the rest of the information was so dry and boring, everyone just read the seduction story. What does this have to do with blogging? Nothing. This is free association. Now I'll get to the meat of the matter: rewriting.

All of us do it. From my experience, people tend to write in one of two ways. They either write without ever stopping, without ever going back or rewriting until the end when they go through it again, rewriting everything in one long sweep, perhaps several times.

The other way, my way, is to write and rewrite at the same time, either as something occurs to you or when you happen to see something you don't like or when forward progress is slowed because your little brain is trying to figure out a plot point, etc. For me, writing and rewriting are so closely related I can't separate one from another.

As I was rewriting the other day (I tend to interchange rewriting and revision), I tried to make mental notes of what kind of things I look for. When it comes to telling other writers what to do, I feel like a flopping fish, very uneasy and unsure of myself. So I'll just share what I do.

These things occur no matter if you rewrite all at once or piecemeal:

1. Weed out words (descriptions) that fight your meaning. For instance, a very weak old man would not have icy blue eyes. The images collide and confuse. A frightened child wouldn't skip along a sidewalk. Of course, sometimes you want jarring images. You might want the incongruity or be using those icy blue eyes as a hint that the old man isn't as feeble as he's pretending to be. Just make sure your decision is a conscious one.

2. Remove redundant clauses or sentences or paragraphs! I'm not as bad at this as I used to be, but I still do it. What do I mean? Let's see. You write, "Using the dark shade of the huge trees for cover, they skirted the clearing, getting back unnoticed." You don't need that last clause. (English alert! Is this a clause? Maybe it's a phrase. I'm not sure. Hope you get the meaning.) Some of this amounts to just cleaning things up, but look for ways to tighten, to eliminate unnecessary words that muddle things. I think we stick this stuff in an attempt to make sure we get our point across.

3. Tighten language. (Caveat: Try not to browse the thesaurus unless you know the word you want but can't think of it. Don't go word shopping, throwing in fancy words just because you can. They stand out.) Rework long convoluted sentences until they are as taut as a violin string. Up the wattage. Change "some bushes" to "a smattering of bushes." Change "moved across the floor" to "fidgeted his way across the floor" or "slunk across the floor." The verb will tell your reader about the floor crosser's personality, state of mind or character. Look for ways to make your choice of a particular word or phrase do double duty. For instance, if your heroine is an artist, she might see a cerulean sky. And remember the more specific your sentence, the better. "The boy pulled a wagon," isn't as good as "The boy pulled a red wagon," which gets beefed up more with "The boy pulled a beaten-up red wagon." Throw in a wobbling rear tire and you've hit nirvana!

Falling into this category as well is the weeding out of clichés. Also, look for clever metaphors, look for snappier descriptions, review all your words, always keeping an eye open for a better way to say what you want to say.

4. Make sure your POV is one hundred percent correct. As Elisabeth said last week, don't mix up your point of views until you know how. I have a friend who used to call it "talking heads." A reader should never have to consciously think about who is talking. It throws him/her right out of the book. Also look for instances when you are in one character's viewpoint but acknowledging another character's thoughts. You can't have the hero think, "She looks beautiful in that light," when you are in the heroine's viewpoint. She might notice the way he stared at her, the way his eyes searched her face, she might hope he thought she was beautiful, but we can't be in her head and his at the same time.

5. Dialogue. Stay true to your character. Don't have people saying words people never really say. Use dialogue to further the plot, to enrich the story, to offer insight. Make it strong. The dialogue of a character helps define that person, so keep it true. A strong character needs to talk strong. There's a lot of difference between, "Listen, Poletier, I've had enough of your equivocating," and "I think you're beating around the bush, Poletier. I need you to explain this to me. I'm depending on you." The first one, to me, is strong. Since I want my hero to be a no nonsense kind of guy, this works. The second one looses steam because it's too long. It also uses words like "think" and "need" and "depending". Hey, he's my hero! He doesn't need anybody but the heroine!

Warning: dialogue can get away from you. Those pesky characters can go off on a tangent, and damn, it's entertaining. Pretty soon, you're off on a wild romp. Trouble is, sometimes, it's the wrong romp. A conversation gone awry can throw a writer off. Take charge of your characters. You're bigger than they are. You know how to type. And you're real!

6. Take out as many qualifiers as you can! "He was almost sure she was pretty angry with him," goes to "Man, was she pissed." Or something. But every time you a word like almost and kind of, etc…it waters down your story.

7. Obviously, look for grammar, punctuation and spelling. Remember the computer won't tell you if you mean to type bass and instead typed ass but it will probably change your meaning and it certainly looks sloppy. You can only catch these things with your eye. That's part of rereading, rewriting. Also pay attention to that ugly list of words you aren't supposed to use and try to rephrase. I was so intimidated by the list that I decided to forget it so I can't tell you what it is. I can find out though if anyone wants it. Also, weed out passive voice, stuff like that. Good luck on that one, too. Grammar, not my friend!

8. Of course, the biggie is revising a plot. Taking out a character or story line and pulling the threads throughout your book. Sacrificing something you love because it doesn't belong. Eliminating an unnecessary character, adding a character, rewriting a new ending, a tighter beginning. Once I had an editor tell me she needed a mystery to fill a slot and the book of mine she had just bought would be perfect if I just killed someone. Okay. I had that one day to murder someone. That meant I had to create the victim, interact with him, murder him, lament his death, and find his killer all in a few hours and in as few pages as possible since the book was already long and the additional material would have to be faxed. This was pre internet everything. What a day! It was my eighth or ninth book, but it was the one that made me feel like a real writer! And it was a decent book!


I hope some of this was useful. I have a feeling I left out a lot of points. Anyway, every time I read a page in my WIP I change something. I tweak. Eventually, you have to let it go, but hopefully not until the words that tell your story are strong words, convincing words, words that say more than it appears. That's the goal and I imagine we all reach it on occasion and fall short on others. For me, rewriting is fine tuning. It provides the nuances that bring it to life. I hope you enjoy this process as much as I do.