Letting go, letting prose fall by the wayside

I'm working on a massive series (9 books in the first 3 trilogies for the first generation, 3 books in the next generation, 3 in the next). I've wanted to write this series for a decade or more and in fact, I have written this series, multiple times. I did several drafts of the first generation and 2 drafts each of the 2nd and 3rd generations.

Those drafts were painful. I just told the story, I didn't "show" the story (authors out there know exactly what I mean). The story was good, the characters were good, but I didn't know then how to write. Now that I have 25 books under my belt, I'm much better able to do this series justice.There were scenes in all of those drafts that I adored. I mean, they were really good and really showed the characters and their motivations and their personalities.

The problem is the characters have changed since I wrote those drafts. The plot has changed somewhat, the motivations have shifted, and now those scenes just don't work anymore. I found myself trying to use some of it in the first trilogy and it was so freakin' painful.

So I went back, looked through ALL the masses of paper copies, and circled what to keep and tossed the rest. Then I filed them. Then I took all those electronic drafts and I tucked them into one big folder and I filed it on the D drive of my computer (where I never go).

Now I was faced with fresh pages and some of those scenes still stick in my head, but now I can use them as jumping-off places for these "new" characters.

Letting it fall by the wayside was tough, but I had to do it. And someday, when I'm old and gray, maybe I'll dig around in that D drive and have a chuckle reading those old drafts.

Maybe.

J L
(still writing after all these years)

Eight Marvelous Self-Editing Tips by Alison Henderson

I know it's "M" month, but I'm deep in revisions right now and have editing on the brain, so I thought I'd share my top eight tips. (This is actually a list of my personal writing bugaboos, but you may be able to relate.)

We all know publishers have limited resources to devote to editing these days.  Many editors are overburdened and underappreciated.  They lack the time to spend with individual authors tightening scenes and strengthening story arcs.  And copy editing is becoming a lost art.  I don’t believe I’ve read a book by a top author in the past year that didn’t contain at least three glaring copy edit errors.  Now, more than ever, writers are responsible for the product that ultimately reaches the reader.

I had a wonderful experience with my first book, Harvest of Dreams.  My editor was gentle and patient, guiding me through three rounds of edits until we had a satisfying final version.  I soon realized an objective editor is worth her weight in gold.  I thought I knew how to write, but during the editing process she taught me to recognize and remove redundancies, energize passive writing, and beat down my proclivity to stuff sentences with adverbs. She did such a good job that my third book, The Treasure of Como Bluff, needed only a few minor tweaks.

Unfortunately, we can’t always rely on someone else to point out the flaws in our work and suggest corrections.  If we want to get published and stay published, we have to nourish our inner self-editor.

I’m not talking about the little voice of self-doubt that criticizes every word choice and threatens to strangle your muse during the first or second draft.  I’m talking about a critic who can review the almost-final product and see mistakes with detached clarity. 

Every writer should develop a self-editing checklist based on his or her weaknesses.  The process requires self-knowledge, but isn’t that one of the ultimate goals and rewards of writing?

Here’s a short version of mine.  Perhaps some of these will strike a chord with you, too.

1.     Watch those #%$&* adverbs!

2.     Remove unnecessary “that”s.

3.     Watch for word echoes (words repeated too close together).

4.     Keep verbs active (within reason).  I once had to give up on a mystery after three chapters because the author had amped up every single verb.  The result was unnatural and exhausting.

5.     Show, don’t tell.

6.     Balance dialogue tags and beats.  Too few and the reader won’t know who’s talking.  Too many and you interrupt the flow.

7.     Use repetitive words or elements with caution.

8.     Maintain consistent point of view.  This is partly a matter of style, but I prefer deep third person POV and try to catch myself if I start drifting father away.

There are many more pitfalls in writing, so find your own, and happy editing!

Alison

www.alisonhenderson.com

http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com