A Book Belongs Only To Its Author
How to revise your work while staying true to your vision
The hardest part of writing a novel is understanding what you’re writing. You draft a story by following the thrill of your own creative power, and when you finish, you hardly know what you’ve made.
So you ask someone to tell you. You give them your manuscript and you wait for their reaction. This is the most painful part of the writing process—seeing your work through someone else’s eyes. Reconciling what they see with what you tried to show them.
What do you do with these notes from early readers? How can you use them to improve your story without trampling on what you’ve created?
Previously, I wrote about sending my suspense novel to four critique partners, each of whom gave me very different feedback. (Read about it here: All My Friends Hate My Novel In Very Different Ways.) In that post, I detailed the steps I took to sort through their notes: compiling their compliments into a “praise sheet,” reconciling their conflicting criticisms, and starting to create a plan for revision of the manuscript. Today’s post picks up where I left off—with creating a revision plan. I hope that by sharing my approach to revision, I can help you make a plan for revising your own manuscript.
Finding A Vision That Can Eclipse All Anxieties
When we last left off, I had created a list of every criticism I’d received from the four people who had critiqued my novel (a literary writer, a librarian/writer, a creative writing teacher/writer, and a very smart reader/friend). As you can guess, this was a painful process. I had to keep returning to my page of compliments (“absolutely stunning,” “compelling from the first page”) to motivate myself.
From there, I realized that their notes mainly focused on my story’s characters. Even the notes about plot seemed tied to character motivation. So I created a summary list of issues that needed to be addressed for each character. I find it most helpful to form these issues into questions for myself.
Here’s an example of part of the list I made for just one of my characters:
Who is he when he’s not in this situation? What is he like back home?
What is his moral code? Why does he get upset over the other characters’ actions?
Why isn’t he more afraid of X character, who is bigger and stronger than he is? Why does he feel comfortable crossing that character?
What are his feelings toward Y character? Does he admire Y character’s leadership or chafe under his authority?
Next, I set up a brainstorming page for each character so that I could try to answer these questions. This part is very fun for me because it means revisiting the sheer joy of creation: coming up with a little story of something that happened in the character’s past, thinking up a way to display another facet of his personality, imagining the thoughts and feelings he has while interacting with other characters.
And then it’s time to form the revision plan. Which means, anxiety. Will this new scene satisfy the critique partner who didn’t previously understand the character’s motivation? Will this dialog meet the requirement one critique partner has for understanding the character dynamics? Will this approach to reworking the scene annoy the critique partners who find this plot point confusing?
Giving into these anxieties would mean the death of the story. Writing is not a customer service industry. We don’t write our stories to order. A good critique proves to a writer that she hasn’t yet achieved her vision, but she must use a critique only to find the story that most satisfies her own taste, not that of her readers.
And yet, it’s not easy to understand our own vision for a story, especially when we’re swimming in other people’s opinions. In fact, as the type of person who loves to entertain multiple viewpoints on just about any topic I encounter in any facet of life, I find it incredibly difficult to know what I want for my own stories. So many options seem viable!
Determining The Novel’s Tentpole
Whenever I feel pulled toward pleasing someone who has given me a critique (especially someone who has given a very insightful critique!), I return to my tentpole. I remind myself what made me want to write this story in the first place.
For me, that’s usually a character dynamic as displayed in a specific story moment. For my first novel, Where Futures End, that moment was one in which the main character approaches a girl at school and tries to convince her he’s someone else. For me, this moment gets at the heart of the novel’s most interesting dynamic: in a near-future society, some people have inherited an ability to alter other people’s perceptions of the world.
That story moment isn’t the most memorable in the published novel. I bet even readers who really liked Where Futures End don’t remember that scene. But thinking about that moment helped me revise the novel because it helped me remember what was most interesting to me about the story. Every scene in Where Futures End explores different motivations for, and repercussions of, using this supernatural ability that alters perception.
For my current manuscript, the scene I keep in mind is also pretty minor as far as plot is concerned. It’s the moment one character approaches another in a bar and tells him she has something that belongs to him. The dread and shock of this moment is what I want to permeate the entire story. Whenever I made a decision about how to address a note from a critique partner, I asked myself whether that decision lined up with the feeling of this particular scene.
I have smaller tentpoles as well, a list of several story elements that I enjoy about my manuscript. The setting: I could never revise this particular novel in a way that would transpose the setting or even pull focus from it—it’s that integral to the story. Also, the fact that the main character falls in love, and who she falls in love with. I’m not interested in telling this story if doesn’t include that plot line. Also, the shift between multiple POV’s: I’m not just interested in how the events of the plot unfold—I’m interested in how those events are view differently by different characters.
I’m wary of listing too many tentpoles for a story. I’ve been surprised before by revision suggests that improved a story in a way I never would have guessed. When the editor of my first novel suggested cutting a major element, I scoffed at the note. I was sure the story just would not work without that element. But all of her other notes had been so good, and she had such a great reputation in the industry, that I decided to open a new document and give the edit I try. To my surprise, it made the novel so much more cohesive, so much more in line with what I had been trying to achieve. I’ve learned that any note from someone insightful is worth entertaining, and there’s no harm in trying even an unlikely edit. But the result must always connect to my major tentpole, and probably to my minor tentpoles as well.
Letting Go Of The Idea Of Destiny
I’d like to tell you that crafting a revision plan that aligns with your tentpoles will lead you to the one true way your novel was meant to be written. It’s tempting to believe that with enough notes and enough revisions, the story will emerge in its destined form. Alas, I have learned not to believe that any novel has one true form. And holding onto this idea can make us feel like we must find the correct way to revise a novel.
Any story can probably be written in several, equally satisfying ways. Which means that while there are many ways to incorrectly revise a novel, there isn’t a correct way to revise one. We will have to do our best to make good choices, and then we will have to live with those choices knowing other choices might have worked just as well. We are measuring out our lives in coffee spoons, etc.
For my current manuscript, after I wrote out a list of goals for revision and filled up pages and pages with brainstorming notes, I finally had to make some decisions about which changes to implement. But I realized that every change was going to have to line up with the novel’s ending, which each critique partner had viewed differently. Before I could revise anything at all, I needed to decide exactly how the novel should end.
I called up one of my critique partners and laid out for her what I saw as the four possible ways the novel could end. These are all really interesting, she said. I could go for any of these. But each of the endings said something different about the events of the story—what was I was trying to say?
I wasn’t sure. And my tentpoles couldn’t tell me. The phone call with my friend stretched longer.
Finally, she asked a question about one of the characters. The question didn’t seem to have much to do with the novel’s ending, but it lingered in my mind for the next few days.
When I finally came up with answer to her question, I found a new understanding not only of that character but also of the project as a whole. Now I knew—this is what I want my story to feel like. This is what I want the novel to say. This is what I’m trying to do.
Keeping Track Of The Plan
At this point, I was able to come up with a list of proposed changes for my manuscript. I created four pages of bullet-point notes in the form of answers to the questions I had listed out in the previous step of my process. Here are some examples, following on from my earlier examples about a particular character:
Why isn’t he more afraid of X character, who is bigger and stronger than he is? Why does he feel comfortable crossing that character?
The reason he isn’t afraid to get into confrontations with the stronger character is that he wants to test his own strength as a way to explore his self-doubt.
What are his feelings toward Y character? Does he admire Y character’s leadership or chafe under his authority?
He has mixed feelings toward Y character, wanting to impress him but also somewhat fearing him, the same way he feels about his own dad.
Next, I made a spreadsheet where I listed every scene of the novel along with the specific change I wanted to make to each scene and the reason I wanted to make the change. That looked something like this:
Column 1 (original scene): “Characters Y and Z argue about whether to go to the police.”
Column 2 (proposed change): “Something happens during this scene that proves Z character wants to impress Y character but is also frightened of him. Maybe Z character flinches at something Y character does?”
Column 3 (reason for proposed change): “Need to show Z character’s complex relationship with Y character as a father figure.”
You’ll notice that I didn’t plan out exactly how to change this scene (i.e. exactly what Y character does that makes Z character flinch). That’s because my brain rebels against such practicality. It will only produce good writing when I leave room for it to improvise. This is certainly not the case for every writer—it’s just how I personally operate. You should do what creates an optimal writing experience for you and your own lovely brain.
You might also wonder why I bothered with Column 3. And it’s because my brain is very flighty and dreamy and will forget that we have any goals and instead just continue to create lots of interesting new details for the sheer joy of it. Such digression takes me from revision into reinvention, so that I’m merely changing my story rather than improving it. Your own, more trustworthy brain probably behaves differently, and you might not need Column 3.
As I worked through implementing my spreadsheet (I revised the scenes in the order they appeared in the book), I often noticed places where my proposed changes weren’t actually accomplishing my goals (ie Columns 2 and 3 didn’t actually align). Sometimes I also just didn’t like my proposed changes, or the goals didn’t seem as important as they had when I was making the spreadsheet.
Doubt was reintroduced into the process. I had to stop and remind myself of a very important lesson I’ve learned from Michael Scott years of experience: KISS (keep it simple, stupid).
Choosing The Simplest Solutions
I’ve found that when it comes to choosing a solution to a story problem, it’s often best to choose the simplest edit. Don’t hear what I’m not saying—don’t think I’m telling you to make the easiest, quickest edit. Sometimes after I’ve critiqued a manuscript for someone, they’ll send another draft and I’ll see that they’ve simply cut a scene that had an issue, or they’ve added a line of clunky dialog to explain a character’s motivation. These quick fixes don’t always serve the story well.
But sometimes writers try to address an issue in a complicated, tortured kind of way, and these fixes don’t work either. When I’m stuck on how to fix a scene, I’ll ask myself, “What’s the simplest way to solve this problem?” and the answer might be that I’ll need to rewrite the entire chapter with a different conflict, or I’ll need to combine two characters into one. At the same time, the answer could be to rewrite a single line of dialog.
With my current manuscript, I had to re-order several chapters to fix one issue. To fix another issue, I only needed to add a sentence to better describe the action the character was performing.
Exploring New Facets Of The Story
A new draft of a novel is a chance to explore new dimensions to story elements. For me, this is great news, because the aspect of writing I most enjoy is invention. Anything new to the page is very exciting.
This greed for novelty means I have to be careful not to make changes just for the fun of it. But surprises that come up in a new draft are a good sign that the story is gaining depth and complexity.
Here are some questions I ask myself while revising, in order to create a more layered story:
What does this scene tell the reader about the character that the reader didn’t already know?
How might the setting of this scene sharpen the obstacles in the plot or reveal a new side to a character?
What are the characters saying in this dialog exchange that they haven’t said elsewhere in the novel?
How does this scene force a relationship to change?
I wrote here about how a novel can suffer from repeating the same beat over and over. Maintaining focus on your favorite story element element is great for a first draft; it lets you figure out what you want to do with that character dynamic or conflict or theme. But in subsequent drafts, a good revision will allow a story element to develop, not simply repeat, so that the element gains complexity.
Making Peace With Dissatisfaction
How do you know when to stop revising? When is the job finished?
I never know, personally.
Most writers working toward publication vastly underestimate the level of story quality required to get a publishing deal. They’ve read plenty of published novels they didn’t care for, and their own good taste tricks them into thinking their skill is also good. They’ve worked on their novel so closely that they no longer have a sense of where it doesn’t align with their vision for it.
At the same time, no story will ever be as good as we intend it to be. I can think of plenty of shortcomings in even my most favorite novels. Sometimes, thinking about the fact that I can never write a perfect story gets me down. I start to think I’ll never accomplish what I want to as a writer, and I’ll never publish the novel, and I’ll never please readers.
But we love stories in spite of their flaws, and, strangely enough, we love stories because of their flaws. Those flaws are little flags of personality. They’re the big ears on your favorite nephew, the cackling laugh of your best friend. Someone is going to adore those flaws. And someone else is going to realize that your novel is not a McDonald’s burger made to order but your own personal creation that happens not to be to their taste. Fine.
How many rounds of revision should you do? Probably more than you think. But if you start your next project, you’re going to find your skill has improved as a result of all the work you’ve been doing. So sometimes it’s better to mark your manuscript as finished and move onto the next project.
The Steps I Took, In One Simple List
Let me lay out for you the steps I took to revise my manuscript, starting with the steps outlined in the previous post:
Read each critique as quickly as possible the first time through and give each a more thoughtful read later, after the sting has lessened.
Create a “praise sheet” with compliments from across all the critiques.
Compile all notes from all critique partners into one long list. Return periodically to your praise sheet to keep your spirits up.
Create your own summary list of issues, in the form of questions you want to ask yourself about the story. (“Why isn’t this character afraid to cross bigger, stronger characters?”)
Determine your major tentpole (the reason you wrote the story in the first place) and your minor tentpoles (a few story elements that are crucial to your enjoyment of the project).
Create a brainstorming page for each group of issues. (I grouped mine by character, but you can group yours in a way that works for your particular story.)
Write a list of proposed changes in the form of answers to your questions from Step 4.
Create a spreadsheet that serves as your plan for implementing your proposed changes on a more granular level. Consider logging your goals alongside your proposals.
Revise your plan as needed, remembering to choose the simplest solution and to allow for the story to gain complexity.
If you’d like a downloadable guide to revising your novel, scroll down. Best of luck with your revision, and remember that I’m currently open for manuscript critiques.
