Stephen King

7 Editing Questions – Reprise

First Draft
First Draft

I revisited this blog post from 2010 as I was thinking about the next phase of my current writing project. I still have a few thousand words to go and a major plot point to figure out, but I’m eagerly awaiting typing “The End” and finally getting to the fun stuff. I love revising and editing my work. It means the tough part is over, and now I get to create the story I had in mind when I started. My first hurl of words onto the page is always a struggle. I feel set free once the words are finally down, and I get to play. Below are some self-editing questions that I will ask myself as I go through my work. Maybe some of them will help you, too.

1. Where does the story really begin?

Reread the first two to three pages of your story very carefully. When does the action really start? A major fault with many first drafts (mine, included!) is too much background material at the beginning before the conflict is introduced and the characters finally take over the story. In my case, I can almost bet that my story doesn’t really begin until about half-way down page three, so out go the first two pages. If the material I have cut is essential for the reader to know, I find ways later, through dialogue or thoughts of my characters, to get the information to the reader. My later insertions are never as long as those original two and a half pages and the pace of the story gains needed speed.

2. Is this adverb necessary?

Chances are, if you are using a lot of adverbs, you are telling and not showing. Think about the character that has just won the lottery. Rather than have her yell hurray ‘joyfully’, why not have her jump up and down screaming so loudly that her cat runs under the bed in terror and it takes her twenty minutes to get it out. Maybe she runs to her closet and throws all of her old clothes in the garbage while “If I Had a Million Dollars” blasts in her iPod. Both of those pictures show how the character reacts instead of telling and are certainly livelier than the word ‘joyfully’.

3. Is this adjective doing its job?

Look for those empty adjectives and replace them. ‘Amazing’, ‘interesting’, ‘exciting’, ‘awful’, ‘ugly’, ‘beautiful’, ‘nice’, ‘scary’, and other adjectives like them need to be replaced with sensory details that bring to life what you are describing. Find places to get the readers’ senses working; it means you are making the story real for them.

4. Whose problem is it?

Your main character has the problem; the main character needs to solve it. Make sure that your protagonist remains the chief actor in the story and doesn’t become solely the reactor to another character’s influence. Sometimes in longer pieces, characters other than your lead can start to steal your attention and your imagination; this can be especially true of villains and ‘comic sidekicks’. Be careful that these characters don’t become so charming that they threaten to steal the book from your hero or heroine. (I speak from some experience here. I created a villain in an historical romance that I liked so much, he eventually got his own book!)

5. Are the grammar and spelling perfect?

Yes, I mean perfect. The most that an editor needs to read of a short story in order to make a decision is approximately three paragraphs; a novel might get three pages. If that’s the only chance you have, don’t blow it by showing your lack of ability in spelling and grammar. Of course, publishers have people whose job it is to make sure that the copy they publish is correct in every way, but there’s no way they’re going to waste that person’s time on writers who haven’t bothered to do their best the first time. If you are self-publishing, correct grammar and spelling are key to your work being thought of as professional and being recommended by readers.

6. Have I read my story out loud?

One of your best proofreading tools is the sound of your own voice. Reading your story aloud is a great way to find awkward or incomplete sentences, clumsy phrasing, and inconsistencies in verb tenses and pronoun agreement. If you hesitate when you are reading or if you have to reread a sentence or phrase, then that’s a section of your story that needs a rewrite.

7. Have I applied the Stephen King rule?

Stephen King concludes his autobiography, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, with an editing exercise. He shows you the first draft of a story he has written and then shows it again full of his cross-outs, inserts and editing marks. He explains his edits and why he makes the choices he does. King’s revision rule is: “2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%.” We have a tendency, as writers, to believe that every word we write is precious and are very reluctant to cut our material–after all, we remember how hard it as to get it down on paper the first time. However, editing is about making our prose lean, and exciting, and compelling the reader to turn the page. See what you can do with ten per cent fewer words.

Consider revision a reward. Remember that if you are revising, you have finished a project–and how neat is that? Try these seven questions to kick-start your editing and begin your pursuit of a great final product. I can’t wait to start!

Goodbye Words!

I love editing. I’ve just deleted 2625 words from a current project and couldn’t be happier. I didn’t follow Stephen King’s rule in his book On Writing: “2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%”, mostly because this isn’t my first draft. I’m happy with losing the 4% that I did cut.

This is a manuscript that I haven’t looked at in a while. It’s amazing how time gave me a different perspective on the words I left behind on earlier edits because I was a little too fond of my own cleverness. Over the last few days, I’ve been much more ruthless. This time I followed the advice of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch: “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings.”

I was hardly responsible for “exceptionally fine writing” but I certainly was responsible for a mess of poetic but highly dumpable similes and images that were very pretty but cried out for deletion. They didn’t move the story along or develop my characters; they were just my fancy wordplay interrupting the story.

So,  2625 “darling” words are gone. I’ve learned that, just because writing is hard work, the effort of writing alone doesn’t mean that the words get to claim their territory forever. Is the book better for my edits? I think so. Will it sell? Who knows, but it’s out for a viewing on Monday, and the rest is out of my hands.

Do you think a lot about your manuscript after it’s sent and check your email hourly, or do you move on to the next project? My choice is to move on. The decision will be made by one person on one day and my writing life is about more than that. If I’m lucky enough to get some feedback, I’ll be thrilled. If it’s a “thanks, but no thanks.” I’ve already moved on and am, I hope, enjoying the company of new characters in a new story and once again writing my doomed “darlings.”

Do you have your own “darlings” that you know you will be cutting even as you write them?

What do you do after you’ve sent a manuscript to a publisher?

My Favourite Books About Writing

Some wonderful books have been written by writers about writing and here are a few standbys that I wouldn’t be without.

If you don’t already have it, make sure you own a copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. This little book is a concise guide to clear, uncluttered prose. According to Stephen King, “Strunk and White offer the best tools (and the best rules) you could hope for, describing them simply and clearly.”

 And that leads me to Stephen King. His book, On Writing: A memoir of the craft is a funny, moving, and unromantic look at his childhood, early struggles to get published, decline into and recovery from drug and alcohol abuse, and surviving a nearly-deadly collision with a van. Aside from King’s colourful insights into writing and his writing life, it is hard to find a more succinct description of the necessary techniques of the writer’s craft than in the section of this book titled “Toolbox.” You have to love a writer who declares, “Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”

Another favourite of mine is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Combining autobiography with writing advice, this book reaches the reader with a brilliant combination of serious advice, laugh-out-loud humour, and inspiration. One of Lamott’s writing tools is always at my desk—the one-inch picture frame. Lamott says, “It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.” When a project of mine becomes overwhelming (and sometimes this can be daily), that picture frame gives me the freedom to write just a little bit. I can deal with that. I know I will write another bit and another–and finish the project. Ask Lamott why writing matters and she will reply, “Because of the spirit. . . .Because of the heart. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.” Anne Lamott’s book will feed your writer’s soul.

 Both the Lamott and the King books are sprinkled with some fairly ‘colourful’ language and, if you will find that uncomfortable reading, then here is one more great inspiration. Writing down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is a book you will want to read with a highlighter in your hand because it is so rich in ‘just right’ statements about writing. Here’s a sample: “Writing…is ninety percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you and when you write it pours out of you. If you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else.” Wow.

Of course reading about writing has its place, but the most important thing is the writing. Here are some writing starters from another favourite book of mine, The Pocket Muse: ideas and inspirations for writing by Monica Wood. Full of photographs, quotes, writing tips and ideas, it’s a book I like to open when I need a creative push. Here are a few of her writing starters:

  • “Fill in the blank and then keep going: Until _______________, nothing notable had happened in the town of Madison since the year of its founding.”
  • “Write about a person who wins something she doesn’t want.”
  • “Today’s Horoscope: Somebody close to you will tell your secret.”
  • “Write about trouble resulting from a good deed.”
  • “Write a scene in which the dramatic tension revolves around a misspelling: a road sign, the name on a birthday cake, the directions to a doctor’s office, a word in a spelling bee.”

Sometimes it’s hard to face the empty page or blank screen. Wood has this advice for people reluctant to start a writing project: “Nobody has to see that first draft but you. You can eat it when you’re done.  You can make it into origami animals and decorate a table. You can dunk it in hot water, stir it up, mash it back into pulp. You can build a fire, line a birdcage, stuff a pillow. You can’t do any of this, however, until you write the thing.”  For me, that says it all.

I have one other favourite book, No Plot? No Problem!: A High-velocity, Low-stress Way to Write a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty. I’ll write more about that closer to NaNoWriMo time.

Do you have a favourite book that you turn to time and again? I’d love to know what it is and why it is so special to you. Please add a comment and share it with me and my readers.  

Links:

Monica Wood – http://www.monicawood.com/tips.html

Natalie Goldberg – http://www.nataliegoldberg.com/

Stephen King – http://www.stephenking.com/index.html

Anne Lamott – http://www.barclayagency.com/lamott.html

Elements of Style – http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X

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