Work Ahead (Revising)

While drafting is more about getting in the mood, revision is more like showing up for work. Lots of light, sit at the keyboard, and work. Just as if you were performing a work task, there are steps for revision.

While different methods works for different folks, my own methods include several concise, repeatable steps.

To set the office-type atmosphere for revision (thanks Kat Duncan for your guidance), I ensure the following:

• Lots of light (overhead lighting plus lamps)
• No music playing
• No special scents
• Revision Checklist front and center
• Colored pens and highlighters at the ready
• Cathy Yardley's Rock Your Revisions at hand

My revision steps include:

1. Print out entire manuscript
2. Mark blatant grammar errors that scream for attention
3. Read manuscript
4. Highlight margins of manuscript where the story lags
5. Focus on and read individual chapter
6. Mark up hard copy
7. Edit chapter on screen
8. Run Spell Check
9. Run MyWriter Tools
10. Apply changes using MyWriter Tools suggestions
11. Perform layering editing (add environmental details, senses, reaction to POV character, sentence details)
12. Focus on and check off items on Revision Checklist (scene anchoring; scene review; scene details; levels of carrying, worry, conflict, and interest; and pacing) [Revision Checklist blog post forthcoming]
13. Paste chapter into AutoCrit and run analysis
14. Address AutoCrit categories (overused words, sentence variation, cliches & redundancies, repeated words & phrases, pacing, dialog, initial pronouns, readability, and homonyms) in chapter
15. Run MyWriter Tools again
16. Apply changes using MyWriter Tools suggestions again
17. Run Spell Check again
18. Move on to next chapter

Lots of steps and a tad tedious, but the process works, and this writer gal's working the revision process!

Hard Work Ahead

As I near the six-month mark of my full-time writing journey, I have discovered there are some writing processes that are much easier and faster than I expected or imagined, yet that "making your novel stand out from the crowd" requires quite a bit of time and effort.

Thanks to Rock Your Plot and Rock Your Revisions, plotting and revisions are no where near as demanding as I expected, yet I have realized First Drafting and working through the techniques presented in Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook is hard work.

The discipline it takes to First Draft sometimes alludes me. Over the past few months, I have experimented with different tools and techniques to increase my production and productivity. Since I'm floundering at present, it's time to review what worked best and what didn't, then re-implement the former.

The brainpower it takes to "add tension" to every page, is exhausting, yet the results are well-worth the effort; however, the time it takes to employ such techniques cannot be discounted when creating a realistic writing schedule.

According to Cathy Yardley's Rock Your Revisions, you can expect to spend three times as long with revisions as you did writing the first draft. Since I'm using her Rock Your Plot process up front, that should cut the time for revision considerably, yet adding the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook techniques will add more time; thus, I need to consider the time involved in realistic revision efforts.

For now, I reevaluate, plan and schedule because there's Hard Work Ahead.

Time For Review - Rocking My Revision

According to Cathy Yardley's Rock Your Revisions, the first thing to do, after at least a two-week cooling off period, is to perform a Quick Read of your manuscript.

First off, I have to confirm what Cathy says in Rock Your Revisions. Printing out my entire novel and having a stack of paper before me that represented my novel was quite satisfying.

As I read my draft of Book #1, Series #1, I jotted notes in the margin to address the eight (8) items listed in Rock Your Revisions.

Today, I review my Scene GMCD (Goal, Motivation, Conflict, Disaster) chart, which includes what the character wants in each scene, with the overall story GMC of what the character mainly wants in the story. (For example, a young man wants to help his PTSD conspiracy theorist brother; so, does each of the young man's scenes support that overall goal?) Then, I will look at the Scene Flow and Escalating Conflict.

Rock Your Revisions contains clear direction for revising a completed manuscript and the directions are doable. Rock Your Revisions is a definite "Recommend."

Rock Your Revisions

I recently finished my 2nd First Draft of Book #1, Series #1, and Cathy Yardley just released Rock Your Revisions. When I discovered Rock Your Revisions was available, I hopped out of my desk chair and did the happy-happy-joy-joy dance (not a pretty sight, but what I lack in coordination and rhythm, I make up in enthusiasm).

The Amazon book description of Rock Your Revisions is as follows:

Do you feel overwhelmed trying to revise your novel?

Faced with a hot mess of rough draft, maybe you feel confused, unsure of what to fix -- or rather, what to fix first!

Editing fiction takes a slightly different mindset than writing the first rough pass of a novel. There are a lot of moving parts in a work of fiction. The trick is to not try and tackle everything at once.

ROCK YOUR REVISIONS: A Simple System for Revising Your Novel will show you a clear, easy-to-follow process for editing a novel. It will help you:

- Test for story structure on a macro level, providing detailed checklists for character and plot arcs.

- Test for story structure at the scene level, making sure each serves a purpose in the novel (and hopefully more than one!)

- Gain insight on the mechanics of the novel -- checking POV choice, dialogue, exposition vs. detail (showing versus telling), and more, with a systematic scene-by-scene approach.

This book goes straight to the point, putting theory in plain language, adding illustrative examples, and finishing each section with exercises designed to help you see how to not only edit a novel, but improve your reader's enjoyment of your book.
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Rock Your Plot has been and continues to be extremely helpful. Thank you, Cathy Yardley, for sharing your expertise. Today, I read and study. Tomorrow, I rock my revision.