I posted this in response to a question on a mailing list I belong to; the person was wondering how a fairly new writer might go about making sure their book was "tight." I like the way it came out, and wonder if it might help anyone here (or if anyone can point out any obvious or inobvious flaws in the methodology)
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First, write -everything-. All the stuff you want to include. Go nuts. It's a first draft. It's going to suck. But it's a first draft; it's allowed to suck. If it runs to 6000 pages, so be it. If all your scene settings say "insert spooky looking trees here," so be it.
Next, set the thing aside. It needs to age, like Limburger; you want to give it time so that the stink becomes very apparent.
Then, after six weeks or six months or whatever space you need to let the thing air out, print it out and read it cover-to-cover, in as few sittings as possible. Read with a bunch of highlighters, and NO RED PEN.
Look at things on the scene level:
Save the piece as "Story, v2.0"
Go through it again on the keyboard. Clarify all the yellow spots. Decide if you need to keep the blue spots. Decide what to do about the orange spots--does the stuff need to be in both places, just one, or neither? Clean up the pink spots. Enjoy the green spots.
Save it again. Print it again. Sensing a trend? Sentence level, this time.
For v5, be nitpicky. Go through and wordsmith. If there's a phrase that could be a single word, find that word. If there's a word that needs to be a phrase because the word itself isn't evocative enough, write that phrase. Rearrange sentences in the paragraphs so the flow is better. Delete individual words that don't carry their weight. Fix spelling mistakes and typos. Apply all the lessons learned in what you did right (the green stuff), and in how you addressed the other stuff (the other colors).
v5 is when you really get into the "can I use seven words instead of ten" mode. Up to then (and maybe in v4, to an extent), it's really about making sure the story itself works. There's little point to wordsmithing when one is working with rotten ore.
...and that's one way it occurs to me that one might try to systematically and effectively improve one's story/book. A weakness in the method is that it doesn't very well address the things that -aren't- there, but only suggests ways to look at what -is- there. Thoughts on how to address missing stuff in the context of this method would be welcome; so would other editing methods.
Hope it helps someone with something!
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First, write -everything-. All the stuff you want to include. Go nuts. It's a first draft. It's going to suck. But it's a first draft; it's allowed to suck. If it runs to 6000 pages, so be it. If all your scene settings say "insert spooky looking trees here," so be it.
Next, set the thing aside. It needs to age, like Limburger; you want to give it time so that the stink becomes very apparent.
Then, after six weeks or six months or whatever space you need to let the thing air out, print it out and read it cover-to-cover, in as few sittings as possible. Read with a bunch of highlighters, and NO RED PEN.
Look at things on the scene level:
- Green: "This scene rocks. I need more stuff like this. I understand everyone's motivations, and they're killer motivations to boot. The setting is interesting, the conflict is juicy, and it flows likemelted butter."
- Blue: "Do I even need this scene? What purpose does it serve in the story? It introduces things I never use again, or takes a character in a different direction then they end up going. I'm bored. It isn't even really a scene; there's nothing happening here." (If you need to take notes or brainstorm, do it on a separate piece of paper or computer, noting the page you were reading when you were having the thoughts.)
- Orange: "Is this scene redundant? Does it do something that's been done by another scene earlier?" (Look back and note the page of the earlier duplication. In highlighter. Put down that pen. We're not at the word choice level yet, and pens encourage wordsmithing.)
- Yellow: "I'm lost. This scene is jumpy and doesn't make much sense. I need it here--the story or the character can't progress where I need them to go without it--but it doesn't make much sense to me. Or... the scene before and the scene after need a scene in between them. Things are happening that don't make sense without some sort of additional scene inserted here. Or... things aren't adding up in this scene. I need to go backward and plug in something to make this seem logical." (brainstorm on the computer or on paper--not on the marked-up page.)
- Pink: "This scene doesn't seem consistent with what I was writing earlier. Something about it just seems off, like it's about different characters or like it's a team effort where the writers stopped talking to each other." (brainstorm on the computer or on paper--not on the marked-up page.)
Save the piece as "Story, v2.0"
- Celebrate the green stuff. It'll need work later, but not yet. Still, read it over a few times, and try to figure out what made it pop for you. Decide if what you've done in that scene can be used in other scenes (in an abstract fashion--did you like the way it flowed or built? Did you like the character interactions, the humor, the way it amplified your themes?) and, in the cleaning up the rest of the highlighting, see where those lessons can be applied.
- Decide what purpose the blue stuff -is- serving, if it's serving any. If it's not--if it's not advancing the story, depthening the characters, or building up the setting (preferably more than one at the same time)--cut it and save it in a Deleted Scenes folder.
- Decide if the orange stuff is redundant or reinforcing, if it's echoing to build something or if it's just repeating the same stuff over and over to no good end. Think of it as a piece of music; is this a chorus or a verse? Verses shouldn't repeat; choruses can.
- Fix all the yellow stuff. Make sure you know what you need to be happening in these scenes, and make sure it's happening and that it's clearly communicated. Write the missing scenes.
- Fix the pink stuff. Figure out who you want the characters to be, what you want the writing style to be, and rewrite so that it works the way you want it to.
- Green: "Dude, this paragraph rocks! I still can't believe I wrote it!" (What made it so? How can you use the lessons learned in other paragraphs?)
- Blue: "I'm bored. The scene works but this paragraph is doing nothing for me. Do I need to fix it because it's necessary, or can I just delete the whole damn thing?"
- Orange: "Didn't I say this six chapters ago? Didn't I say it earlier in the scene, in a slightly different fashion? Do I need it?"
- Yellow: "I'm lost. The scene makes perfect sense, now, but this paragraph is all over the place."
- Pink: "Didn't I say something -else- six chapters ago, or earlier in the scene?"
Go through it again on the keyboard. Clarify all the yellow spots. Decide if you need to keep the blue spots. Decide what to do about the orange spots--does the stuff need to be in both places, just one, or neither? Clean up the pink spots. Enjoy the green spots.
Save it again. Print it again. Sensing a trend? Sentence level, this time.
- Green: "This sentence rocks!" (Why? Can I use those tricks elsewhere?)
- Blue: "Could this sentence be more concise? Am I rambling here? Too many sentences for too few thoughts? Vice versa?"
- Orange: "Have I used this sentence structure too often? Do I do the same thing with this sentence that I did with an earlier sentence, without any intention to it?"
- Yellow: "The paragraph moves just fine, but this sentence is jumbly or jumpy."
- Pink: "Are all the sentences consistent with the character's voice? Is the detail level consistent where it needs to be?"
For v5, be nitpicky. Go through and wordsmith. If there's a phrase that could be a single word, find that word. If there's a word that needs to be a phrase because the word itself isn't evocative enough, write that phrase. Rearrange sentences in the paragraphs so the flow is better. Delete individual words that don't carry their weight. Fix spelling mistakes and typos. Apply all the lessons learned in what you did right (the green stuff), and in how you addressed the other stuff (the other colors).
v5 is when you really get into the "can I use seven words instead of ten" mode. Up to then (and maybe in v4, to an extent), it's really about making sure the story itself works. There's little point to wordsmithing when one is working with rotten ore.
...and that's one way it occurs to me that one might try to systematically and effectively improve one's story/book. A weakness in the method is that it doesn't very well address the things that -aren't- there, but only suggests ways to look at what -is- there. Thoughts on how to address missing stuff in the context of this method would be welcome; so would other editing methods.
Hope it helps someone with something!
much editing comin up soon? oh yes. 
