CUT! Tightening the Story and Reducing Word Count

I'm so close to finishing my current rewrite of RESET. So close, in fact, that the ending is already written and all I need to do is tie up the last loose ends. (This sounds easy but in fact is not!)

The funny (or depressing) thing about each of these rewrites is that they all felt like a first draft. My characters continue to drop bombs that wreck my plot and I find myself adding or remove entire scenes to have things continually moving forward.

So, yeah.

I've cut a whole lot from that 110,000 word first draft from hell. I mean, seriously, what agent is going to go within a hundred miles of a newbie writer with a 110,000 word paranormal romance manuscript?

You really want to know? Read this post on the subject at Guide to Literary Agents and this one as well as this one at Book Ends, LLC.

This 4th rewrite of my own manuscript is going to top out at approx 85,000 words. I've now crossed off one reason it might be rejected when it comes time to query!

How did I cut 25,000 words? Well, as I said, when my characters dropped those bombs, my plot changed - became tighter. I cut a whole bunch of redundant scenes. I dropped a handful of characters who were unimportant. I dropped a few stages (locations) and merged other world-building stuff together to make the thing a whole lot easier to read.

But doesn't it suck to get rid of all that work?

Doesn't it hurt to know you wrote all those scenes and developed all those extra characters for nothing? No!

Because nothing was written 'for nothing'. In my long-winded first draft, I got to know lots about the world, the characters and the plot... Stuff that's now (I hope) hidden between the lines!

When I begin my read-through and revision of this particular draft, I'll also be looking for ways to tighten my writing, lose useless adjectives and all that editing stuff. Perhaps I'll cut an additional few thousand words. Who knows?

Do you have a really long first draft and now are stumped with how to revise it? Have a look at what Janice Hardy says on her blog (links below). And if you don't regularly read her posts, you should. It's like taking a really amazing online creative writing course... For free!

Happy chopping!

Janice Hardy's posts on word count: HERE, HERE and HERE.

Daily Word Count Targets and Goals

Yep, it's Saturday, so this post is seriously tardy.

I think I have set an unrealistic goal for finishing RESET. I wanted to have Ginormous Rewrite #3 finished by the end of March. (Note I say rewrite as opposed to revision, of which there has been more than I can count on my own fingers.)

Now I have a good reason for pushing myself. I never had a brother in the Boy Scouts, but the motto Be Prepared seems like a good, general one for every writer.

Be Prepared.

Since my first 25 pages made the finals in the NTWRA Great Expectations contest, I feel it would be very imprudent to not have Rewrite #3 complete in the event that all the stars align, they discover life on Mars, and I actually get a request.

Yes, I could submit Rewrite #2 but lots has changed in my plot since I began asking the right questions!

However, I am about to enter the land of the employed again, much to my relief and chagrin. Yes, I'll get a paycheck again (kind of important) but it will leave less time for writing.

Rewrite #3 is currently at 62,000 words. I have a lot of scenes that won't require more than a "simple" POV change, but others that are sitting empty. I have written the new awesome ending, but have to answer a lot of my questions in the next 30,000 or so words.

Can I do it?

What goals do you have for yourself and what drives you to push yourself everyday?

Playing with Stakes - not the Vampire kind!

Thee first draft of RESET was unreadable. A Great Big Mess.

I painstakingly put the whole thing through a wringer, then mercilessly chopped, pasted, rewrote. That was the FIRST BIG REWRITE.

I was so proud! My story worked!

Er, say again?

I prematurely queried ten agents - not top picks. Well, most weren't. Guess what? TEN form rejections. No surprise there. But that was okay - I was just getting my feet wet...Wasn't I?

After submitting my first five pages to the folks at the QueryTracker.net forums, I began to grasp what was wrong.

Back to the drawing board. I became the Ruthless Reviser yet again, cutting 15,000 words and tightening the story, making the plot clearer. I read the whole thing out loud to my dogs and was pleasantly surprised when I found I enjoyed it!

So, I'm ready to hit the query trenches again... Except, what the hell is my book really about? Sure there's romance, there's a twist, there's a couple of immortal beings.... But the stakes are not high enough. There's a lot of conflict, but no CONFLICT. There's not a whole lot to lose that the character hasn't already lost before.

It seemed I wrote my entire novel without asking any QUESTIONS!!!

Don't know what I'm talking about?

Holly Lisle writes about it HERE.

So the new question is: Can I raise my stakes, or should I stake my novel? Hmm, I'm not sure my MC can be killed that easily!

Happy Question Asking! When in doubt...Just ask "WHY?"

Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat? (Or, Will You Critique My Story?)

Writing.

Riding the roller coaster of emotions: the OMG, my story is awesome! and the Another rejection? My story sucks! does something to one's objectivity towards their own work.

So, employ the objectivity of someone else.

A Beta reader could be a friend or family member. But remember, they love you.

"Does this dress make me look fat?" Even if you seek an honest answer to the question, would they tell you? Remember, they won't want to hurt your feelings. Best find someone else, perhaps a member of one of the writer's forums you are a member of? Maybe someone with a cool screen name and avatar...

And since critiquing will only help you grow as a writer, how about swapping stories?

Okay, you've got the first 50 pages of your new crit partner's manuscript in your inbox. Eager to dive in and hopefully enjoy a good story whilst making suggestions for an awkward sentence here and there, you expect to be finished and have it sent back within the hour.

Uh oh. The dress really DOES make that person look fat. Do you say so? Or do you add a silk scarf, some bling, to draw the eye upwards?

What if the manuscript you are critiquing reads so much like a first draft from NaNo that you are on comment number 245 and it's only page 31?

"Sorry. The dress is really not right."

I opted to tell the writer where I, as a reader, was left feeling frustrated, confused and bored. I broke the critiquing golden rule of sandwiching a criticism in between two compliments (although I did comment positively in the parts I did enjoy), and although I tried to make my criticism constructive, I'm pretty sure I fell short. I do feel bad about that.

But should I feel guilty? Depends. If the writer was only looking for compliments on her dress, then I might. If she is truly looking to be published someday (aren't we all?) then I hope she'll accept my critique for what it is.

Honest.

I don't pretend to know all about writing, but everyone who reads knows when a story doesn't "work".

I wished I'd got back an honest "Yes, the dress does make you look fat" from my partner. I hope she wasn't just being nice when she said how much she enjoyed the story and wanted to keep reading. How will I know?


Crit Links:

How to Critique a Bad Manuscript

How to Take a Critiquing and Keep on Ticking



Where to find Beta Reader:


Forward Motion Writers Community Forums (free membership required)


QueryTracker.net Forums (Free membership required)

The Timing of Queries

Getting Past the Gatekeeper: The Middle Way: A new method of timing your queries

Because I am currently picking my way through agent listings on Query Tracker (and it seems that many of them are earning that little red heart sign) it was nice to come across this blog post. Whew. Take a deep breath. Cool my heels and all that.

Because of my Wannabe status, I do not want to query my top picks until I'm certain that my query package is great. I have received feedback in several critique forums telling me that it is essentially 'good to go', but no agent has yet seen it...Well, that's not true. After reading that one of my top picks was taking a Query hiatus beginning today until after the New Year, I sent my query off on Friday. I expect she was already on hiatus as of 3 pm on a Friday afternoon, and my query will not be read, but of course I can still hope that it made it under the wire...

Hope. That's what it's all about. I wish on a star every night and if its rainy I imagine a star to wish upon).

To be published...To be published....

The whole process makes me feel like I'm in the first round of auditions on American Idol, about to get up on stage in front of the scary judges hoping my song and dance will get me to round two.

FInished Type In !

The cutting room floor

Well, it sure took me a long time. It's so easy to become distracted from the task of revision, when there are other stories developing in my head, just itching to be written. However, if I want to keep the dream alive - the dream of becoming published (hopefully? someday?), I need to learn better discipline!

I am so excited about the finished product; it IS a book I would want to read, and that, apparently, is half the battle...Getting that awesome story that lives in your head to resemble the same story once it's on paper. It truly is a skill!

Next up, a final check on Promises and Timelines, Theme and the like. And then (gulp) to research possible agents to query. So exciting, yet so daunting! With such a small percentage of manuscripts ever making it to print, it is so easy to become discouraged.

I'll also start posting some of the scenes that were cut. They weren't necessarily cut because they 'sucked' (although some do so thoroughly I think I must have been sick with fever when I wrote them) but mostly because they didn't keep up with the pace of the story. They might give you a taste of the characters. Hopefully, you'll fall in love with them as I have.

Onwards!

Trip to visit my setting...In person!

At the end of September, 2010, nearly 2 years after I wrote my first scene in Reset, I made the drive to Martinsburg, West Virginia, where the story is set. My main concern was that, once I had actually visited the town, I would feel it didn't actually work for my story. I was relieved to find that it did. Very well, in fact.

So why did I choose this town? History.

I needed a town that had a lot of it, preferably interesting and violent (like war) and with a lot of old architecture and restored mansions. An initial Google search pointed me to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, where a heap of Civil War battles took place. Now while the town has no legends of _ a _ _ _ _ _ _ per say - not that Reset is about _a_ _ _ _ _ _, not entirely - it would be easy to imagine them living quietly in such a place, where beautiful public buildings are flanked by mysterious blank offices, tattoo shops fancy 'Chocolatiers' and buildings rich in Civil War intrigue. I took a lot of photos, so I could remember the feeling of the town.

Tuscarora graveyard in person! Love the falling down wall beyond this old headstone....Lots of potential to work that into the story!

Tuscarora again.

The Martinsburg Historical Society HQs, right beside Belle Boyd House and across the street from the historic B&O Roundhouse.

The real "Across the tracks".

King Street, I think.

Martinsburg High School.

The Young Residence. Actually have no idea who lives here, but the neighborhood, aptly labeled "Boomtown" was dotted with mansions like this. Plus, it was close enough to the highway that it would make sense for a busy City Hospital doctor to live here. Also very close to downtown and historic Main Street. All in all, it works very well!

Finished my cut!

And what a MESS! I have 300+ pages of chopped up manuscript, taped to blank pages with scrawl up and down the margins and spilling onto the backs....What a daunting thing Type-In will be!

Apparently, the next phase of the course is to go through the manuscript for cosmetic improvement. However, I cannot think where I would make any more changes! I have decided to waiver a bit from the HTRYN course and read (out loud to my dogs - they are great listeners, and I am not ready for hard critique yet!) about 25 pages per day, making my cosmetic changes, checking against my themes and promises and laundry list of "important things to remember" etc. as I go along. Then the next day, I will do the type in for those 25 pages. That way, I just might be able to read the darn thing when I'm through! Also, I can type "cool" without reading (and second guessing) the work I did during read-through.

Tuscarora Presbyterian Church, Martinsburg, WV - the graveyard where the hero is NOT buried...Oops, no spoilers yet!

It is getting exciting, being this close to finishing. I wonder what it will feel like when I send my first agent query? I know, I know...Only about 30% of what is received by agents' gatekeepers even make it to the agent's desk...But I am doing my research and will write a kick-a_ _ query!


Onwards!

Getting There!

So long since my last post!

I have been plugging away at my revision - it is no easy task, requiring equal parts inspiration and ruthlessness. I have added a lot...I have cut a LOT! I am still cutting....(Lesson 17 of HTRYN). I wish I could have sat down and completed the cut in a week; it's so hard to keep track of the latest and greatest cool things that I am adding or cutting. I have added post it notes to the cut pages to tie in with the "Laundry List" (List of 'How Stuff Works' in the world of Reset, the world of Lewis and Lilly...Oops! Just gave something away!) When I do my type in, I will (hopefully) be able to keep everything straight!

The old haunted 'Hunter House' (Reset)

Meanwhile, I am reading every issue of Writer's Digest cover to cover in an attempt to learn more about the industry. I really don't want to sound like the Newbie I am when I write my first Query letter (my heart flutters at the thought).

Today beginning scene 57 (out of 88) and hopefully will have my cut completed in another couple of weeks.

Onwards!

I've Finished My First Draft...Now What?

Oh. My. Goodness.
I did it!
I finished my first draft and have printed out all 350 pages (120,000 words).
Better go out and buy a LOT more ink and a LOT more paper!
Okay, one trip to Staples and that's done...
Now what?

This manuscript is a result of a mid-life crisis I had last October. Throughout writing the first draft, I was consumed with the story, but wrote it down in such a disjointed and non-linear manner (index cards? Plotting? Timelines? Nope), its' going to be hard to decipher and turn into something that others might want to read...Others beyond my own family, who will nod and smile and say, "that's a good story" simply because they are my family.

Above: "Across the Tracks" - Reset

The first major problem that has made itself blaringly obvious is the flow of the plot.

Lack of flow of the plot.

To say I am unqualified for attempting to write such a difficult story with intersecting timelines and complex characters would be nothing but the truth. The only credential I have for writing fiction is my background in bid-writing for the medical equipment industry. While much of that can be classed as fiction as well, I generally didn't have to think past a paragraph or two on one particular item.

"What value added services does your company provide that sets you apart from the competition?" Well, that's easy. Our company will basically write anything in this space to get your to buy our product. Our product will give you wings....No, wait, that's Bulldog.

Funny how that popular energy drink gave me nothing but gut rot.

Anyway...How to fix the story?

Remember, I am an unqualified newbie that has no training in creative writing; I don't know the rules the methods or the madness (although I am learning a lot, just by writing). The thought of line-editing my 350 pages made me want to stick pins in my eyes....What purpose would fixing grammar and spelling have when possibly the entire scene needed to be rewritten?

I began reading about revision.

I read about the "10 steps to a turning your manuscript into best selling novel", I read how at the revision stage is where many aspiring authors throw in the towel and take up bungee jumping, cliff diving, swimming with the sharks or some other less insane pastime. "Revision will make you nuts", everybody says.

Well darn it! I am not letting one year of work sit in my shiny new 3 ring binder. Maybe it won't ever be saleable, maybe nobody will ever want to read it, outside my own family...But I will at least strive to make it something that will earn me first dibs on the Christmas turkey (large family - lots of teenage nephews). So, I am going to pursue this whole revision business.

I looked into online classes and mentorships. Too expensive. If I'm going to self publish (those Office Max spiral bound workbooks can be darn pricey!) I'd better save my money.

I bought books from the Writer's Digest bookstore....A couple of hundred dollars later and I still have not begun an actual revision. All containing good information that I will put to great use if I ever do this again...But I still have NO idea how to begin sorting out the mess that I created in my one year of madness.

Enter Holly Lisle and her HTRYN Course.

For less than $50 per month - I gain access to her madly popular (the first sign up in November filled before I could even click the link!) How To Revise Your Novel course and worksheets. In addition, I gain access to a workgroup and forums where I can cry on a shoulder, get helpful advice and gain inspiration and motivation to keep slogging along.

So, I'm giving this a try. Let's see if my novel will hit the shelves someday - beyond my own bookcase!