Category Archives: revision

September 08, 2015   sharon   make it stop, metaphor, our office, revision, Sharon  
1

Broken Glass and Other Painful Metaphors about Revising

August tends to be a quiet month in publishing but the past couple weeks have been anything but here at DGLM. The building is doing work on the roof, so we’ve enjoyed a constant racket of drilling, hammering, and buzzsawing. Not to mention dust showers everywhere and occasionally the stench of propane. It was supposed to take just one week, but then they broke some windows in the process. And not just windows – the very ancient tall skinny skylights loom over our entire office! Replacement panes had to be special-ordered, and now the workers are back, hammering, vacuuming, and moving drop-cloths around as they hustle through their repairs.

All this reminded me a little bit of the revision process. It can be torture. It goes on forever! It gives you a headache! You have so many other things you’d rather be doing! And just when you think you’re finished, you realize a beneficial reworking in this part of your story messed up a plot point several chapters on. Back to the computer…

But, just like our roof work – which they tell us is for asbestos abatement, yikes – it’s gotta be done. Revisions lead to a better, stronger book that will stand up to criticism. Maybe you suffered a little broken glass along the way, but now your book is brighter and cleaner, and full of light!

 This metaphor is done now, and we hope the workers soon are as well. In the meantime, stick with it, all you revising writers!

 

April 02, 2015   Stacey   advice, characters, covers, editing, female protagonists, first books, getting published, revision, Stacey  
2

Writing strong characters

Many years ago, I was working with my very talented client, A.J. Hartley, and he sent me pages for a new thriller with a female protagonist, the first female protagonist he’d ever attempted. I read the opening section and tried to be diplomatic in my feedback, but I basically told him that the lead character was not likeable or sympathetic enough and that she came across as very defensive. He took the criticism graciously, went back to the drawing board, and delivered a revision that nailed the character so well that when the book was later published, Publisher’s Weekly had this to say about her: “Hartley has created an enduring heroine in Deborah, who’s courageous, loyal and smart enough to learn from her mistakes.” He has since gone on to write many wonderful books with both male and female protagonists, but that first one paved the way. See first edition cover image below.

I recently came upon a piece on Tor.com’s blog about strong female characters that I wanted to share. The author, a writer named Ilana C. Myer, brings up an important point about writing characters in general, regardless of gender. What is most important is that they have empathy. Focus less on whether they are a man or a woman and more on the character’s feelings, their pasts, their sense of humor and a fully realized character will emerge.

What are your tips for writing strong characters? Any pitfalls you try to avoid? The stereotypes are easier to fall back on, but when you get past that and create really memorable, enduring protagonists, gender can be the least important factor of all.

April 16, 2014   sharon   brainstorming, editing, ideas, inspiration, revision  
2

Inspiration/Perspiration

I have ideas for novels all the time. ALL THE TIME. And especially when I’m cruising around the internet over my morning cup of coffee. Like this article about a 13-year-old falconress in Mongolia – I instantly thought, she would make for an amazing YA heroine. Or this article about a summer job pulling a rickshaw (comedic coming-of-age, right?), or this one about an asteroid hitting earth (A dystopia, but set in the past, not the future!).

But have I written any of these (obviously brilliant) books? Heck no! Because writing a book takes more than an exciting story idea – it takes a great idea, and a basic understanding of grammar, and a talent for putting words together. But most importantly, it takes plain old fashioned discipline. You have to come back to your manuscript day after day, week after week, until you’ve told the whole story, and then you have to keep working on the pages you wrote until you’ve made every sentence as good as it can be. And then you share your book with other people, and you turn their criticism into another revision. And all that (hopefully) happens before it even gets to your agent and editor for their feedback.

So for every book you see on the shelf, that’s hours and hours of patient, focused labor happening between the this would make an amazing book! moment and the first copy going home from a bookstore. That’s hours spent writing instead of sleeping, writing on vacations, writing in between doctor’s appointments or graduate classes, writing in airports or parking lots or coffee shops. Writing through writer’s block and hand cramps and carpal tunnel syndrome!

So if you like books – and of course you do, otherwise why would you be reading this blog? – then hug a writer today! Or buy them a cup of coffee, because they can probably use the caffeine.

Where do you find inspiration? 

 

December 18, 2013   Miriam   advice, editing, fun, Miriam, optimism, revision  
15

Happy Sisyphus

We here at DGLM are big believers in helping authors develop their work.  That means that  all of us spend a significant amount of time reading, evaluating, and editing proposals and manuscripts so that we can get them in shape for submission.  Oftentimes, for myriad reasons, our input extends beyond the selling stage and we get involved in the editorial process after the book is sold.   In other words, we spend a lot of time observing the creative process in all its (painful) glory.

Revising seems to be most people’s Achilles heel.  I’ve seen even the most confident, successful, unflappable, hardworking authors melt into puddles of insecurity, denial, and rage at the thought of tackling a revision of a work they’re convinced is perfection (or as good as it gets).  For every author who loves to roll up his/her sleeves and get to work polishing, adding, restructuring, and (perish the thought) cutting, there are dozens, nay, hundreds who are thrown into existential despair at the thought of revising.

Which is why this piece in the Atlantic is so wonderful.  From Khaled Hosseini’s fatalistic “it’ll never be as good as you imagined” to Fay Weldon’s “F—k it! Just start again!” I love the advice and the insights into the writing process, so much of which involves watching the rock rolling downhill after you’ve used every ounce of strength to get it to the top, pausing a moment to feel sorry for yourself, and then taking a big breath and starting the uphill climb again. 

I agree with Hosseini that perfection can’t be attained, that all you can do is the best you possibly can and hope that your work strikes a chord and means something to someone.  But, to get the thing as good as it can be requires a lot of rewriting, reconceptualizing, reevaluating, all the re’s, including restarting after you think you’re finished.  And, in order to do that you need to be mentally and creatively tough.  Just because it’s not perfect yet doesn’t mean it’s not good or it can’t be.

What are your thoughts on revising?  Is it as horrific a process as many authors make it out to be or is there zen in the art of taking your work apart and putting it back together?

 

August 26, 2011   Rachel   editing, opinion, Rachel S., revision  
1

Reining in the red pen.

Strangely, I’m thinking today about natural disasters. What with the baby earthquake of Tuesday afternoon and the impending hurricane disaster, it’s an odd choice, but such are the inner workings of my mind. In any case, destruction is on the brain. In between putting an extra pitcher of water in the fridge, and checking to make sure the flashlight has batteries and that there are matches for the candles (all while dubiously looking out at the blue skies and bright sun shining this morning), I remembered about the essay I told my friend I would read and edit for him over the weekend.

Destruction of another sort, editing an essay, manuscript or any other piece of writing (especially for a friend) is always a tricky balance, at least for me. Oftentimes, I’ll love an idea or angle, but the writing is just so muddled that while I understand it because it’s been explained to me verbally, the sentences themselves just don’t make sense. Or the eloquence isn’t there—there’s not enough personality or individualism to the words; they could have been written by anyone.  It’s taken a few years of practice to train myself not to get carried away just rewriting the whole darn thing. I would start out well, correcting punctuation and grammar, suggesting a subtle word change or elaboration, but once I became comfortable with a piece, the writing would start to look curiously like my own.

Of course, I had to stop myself, because it isn’t my work. If it was, I would probably have someone else look at it and value their opinion, but I’d want the actual narrative to be mine. Where to draw the line, though? When someone asks you to read a draft—whether it’s something academic or personal, how do you rein in your input? Suggesting a reworking of a paragraph, giving the hint of an idea; these are perfectly acceptable creative edits, but in college I had to learn to restrain myself from taking a friend’s muddled essay—with the kernel of a great idea!—and just tearing it apart and inserting paragraphs of my own.

Is this something you are guilty of? How have you learned to overcome it and what sort of techniques do you use to subtly suggest new and better (in your opinion) phrases and structure to a friend?

Luckily, with this new essay to edit, I’ll have plenty to do if this supposed hurricane barricades me inside this weekend and who knows, maybe inspiration will strike in the face of disaster.

March 23, 2010   DG&B   advice, Chasya, revision, writing  
5

Spring cleaning

by Chasya

It’s time to take out the trash–literally. As the birds come out to sing and the bitter cold edge of winter fades into a distantly unpleasant memory, I’ve been spending the weekends wrapped up in a yearly ritual that’s both exhausting and fulfilling–the purging and cleansing of my apartment.

That’s not the only thing I suspect being cleaned up, and on this helpful page run by a group of romance writers, Sylvia Rochester offers some good starter tips on polishing up your manuscript. Anyone else have some great tips to share?

Let the spring cleaning begin!