SPOOKED

 

Some things, which the rationalists call “coincidences,” will spook those of us who think lives are a mixture of the coincidental and the coherent deliberate invisible pattern woven by the supra-human.

 

I am positively spooked right now, and it isn’t Halloween.

 

When working to polish and revise my longer stories, I go through two full drafts of the middle-grade novels before I share them with anyone. In the past, I had three or sometimes four beta readers lined up, and I turn my completed second draft to the first, revise per feedback, and on to the second, etc.

 

For my current work-in-progress (=WIP) I had three Betas ready to look it over.

 

The first Beta is managing serious health challenges. When she returned the WIP to me, I noticed that many of the chapters had not a single comment or typo correction, which (if you knew me) is not possible.  I mentioned this to her, and she said it was likely a matter of her comments not having been transmitted to my system. Shortly after attempting to go over them again, she had to abruptly sign off saying she was too ill to continue.

 

I felt very bad at causing her to struggle thus and told her my next Beta reader will deal with whatever it was I still could not see.

 

Two days after mailing my third draft to Beta number two, two decades younger than myself, I was informed she had passed away. I felt terrible about that, never mind my manuscript.

 

Beta number three was set to receive my next draft two months from then, but I asked if I may send it early. “Sure,” she wrote back. “Send it as soon as you are ready.” This I did after again looking it over and catching a few more issues myself.

 

Beta number three, a superb professional with a work ethic to rival no one and energy befitting her young age, usually took two weeks to return drafts back to me with her feedback. A few days ago, I received a note that she has been seriously ill, sicker than she had ever been in her life, and was not able to work on my WIP.  She vowed to return to it when she was better.

 

But, by now, I am wondering if this manuscript is carrying some sort of curse. I certainly would not dream of inflicting it on anyone else. This thing, my latest novel, appears to be a killer and not in the good way some use the word.

🫣 SPOOKY😨

THE THREE QUESTIONS, or MAKE IT FOUR

 

As I’m about to embark on the sixth draft of my current work-in-progress, (=WIP) I’m mulling over this post that highlights three questions one should ask about the story while drafting:

Is there a character arc?

Does the plot hold casual progression?

Are characters’ motivations convincing?

 

While this is important to do when evaluating a novel and also when giving feedback to others, it is just as valid for a picture book text if the picture book isn’t a concept text  (i.e. lists of shapes, or ABC and such)—Any story of any length will be compelling if a writer can strongly sign on as having checked these three marks.

But I’d add a fourth, which is a duh sort of pillar:

Is it entertaining? It’s best to enlist another’s eyes for this, but even the writer can tell if they themselves are yawning. If you are snoozing at your own writing, others would have been snoring by that point.

Great storytelling is both an innate talent and also a craft mastered with care.

Revision Cave: Deep or Dainty?

 

I’m holed up in revision cave, per feedback aimed to make my WIP better.

Revision cave is a dark place, with a light shining from a distant opening. Every day, I crawl a few steps further and the light gets a wee bit larger.

 

This revision is a tricky one. On the surface, the suggestions are minor. The plot doesn’t change, the characters stay, and the theme is as in the original.

 

But here’s the kicker: as I change one pivotal aspect, in this case— the physical setting, all of a sudden every little detail needs tending and amending.

 

So as the light streaming from the cave’s opening illuminates more, the need for changes isn’t lessened, but grows.

 

What began as a less than deep overhaul, has now earned three “D”s : Deep, Detailed, and razor- cut Dainty.

 

Doing my best not to drown over here.

The In-Betweens

“You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between”

Copyright 1944 Johnny Mercer

Mr. InBetween turns up again in this Australian TV series. He’s big again, that Mister.

But I’m mulling over a different In-Between. I’m in between two projects. Different revisions, different stories, one done the other about to begin.

This is necessary In Between time.

I know writers who work on different manuscripts simultaneously. I know writers who jump from one to the other without any down time. I know writers who plan one, draft another, and revise a third and a forth in the same week.

I tried some limited version of this when I was in the midst of a first draft and a requested revision to a different novel manuscript came, with some time sensitive matter. I worked on the first draft (practically sacred time for me) during the week, and revision on the weekend. That sort of worked. Sort of, because it would have been better to separate the narrative voices by more than a day in each direction.

So, at least for me, In Between Time is part of the process. Call me Mrs. InBetween without worries about my taking it as messing. It’s the exact opposite. It’s a way of assuring clarity and creative purpose that is not messy.

Personal Process

A few months ago a writer on a kid-lit chat board asked how others approach revising a novel. She’s written many picture book texts, but this was her first novel. After completing the first draft, she was stymied as to the next step. “What do you do?” she asked.

Some responded with links to sites that gave directions, while others made specific suggestions. I realized that I could only speak of the way I work. After all, practice helps, and by now I have some. I haven’t published a lot, but I have written and revised a few middle grade novels, and am now working on a new story.

I copy my response here, because it says all I have to offer and because, as I said, I’m busy first drafting. A good excuse for taking the easy way on this blog today.

So here is my process, which may be of some interest, even as every person must forge their own.

It is personal, and it takes some experience to find how you work best. If you are experienced in Picture Book writing and revising, you might take some of what you have learned about your process to a novel. The only difference is the time invested in each draft and thus, proportionally, the time between revisions.


Speaking for myself, the first draft is a plow forward. I'm a combination planner and a bit of a panster, too. (This means I have a very thin outline before I even start, but the fleshing out is done by the seat of my pants, as the saying goes.) First drafting is the reason I am a writer, and for me the rest is the necessary work to make it better. As others said, some love one part and not the other. It's a somewhat different set of problem solving.


I don't even go near a novel for a minimum of two weeks between drafts. Two months is better. By "drafts” I am not referring to tweaks and repairing an inconsistency here and there. I mean substantial changes and meeting the phrasing with fresh eyes, more like a reader than a writer.

The first two real drafts are done with me alone. No one even hears what it's about. I have a lot to work out before I feel "I've got something there." 

Third draft comes after my first beta reader reads and gives developmental comments, points out inconsistencies, (thank you, you know who you are!) and catches typos. I go over the feedback carefully. Sometimes other matters arise for me while doing this.

When done, a full re-read after another break, and then a second beta reader. I look for a reader who might be different from the first in many ways, (mostly in their taste in books and their sensitivities) and when their feedback returns I mull over it in a similar way.

Another break, another read-through, and then I have my own checklist to make sure I have asked myself  if I am clear about the theme, foreshadowing, character development/change, Main Character solving the problem (or coming to terms with it) and so on.
Another read-through, mysteriously catching *even more* typos...

...and then it goes  on submission. When I had an agent, this was the point where I shared it with her, and her feedback made me revise again.  Another revision, sometimes two, before it went out. Subsequent editor's interest means more revising, and the happiest of all are revisions after contract.


As to the mechanics of "how," you really only have your reading ways and your reading eyes. It will not be different from the way you have worked on shorter picture book texts. One writer mentioned she makes a hard copy printed like a book. This is a good technique for many. Not what I use, but I know it helps. Another mentioned reading the text aloud, or having someone else read it back to you. There are some techniques for line editing, also. 


But never feel you must write many drafts, (Stephen King does only three, but to say he's experienced is an understatement) or that what someone else says is a must really is for your way of working. Some writers are very clean grammatically and phasing-wise, and some (like me) can never get rid of all the typos no matter how many times we go over the words.

While first drafting, I refuse to think of all the work to come. I suppose that if I did I might not have the strength to start. I’m glad I wrote this^ months ago, before I put my writing vehicle back in gear.

What's your way?

The Truth and Untruth of Statistics

"Figures often beguile me. Particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"

Mark Twain

{ Chapters from My Autobiography, published in the North American Review in 1906}

And so I find myself, having just finished the fifth draft of a new novel for middle grade readers, staring the stats WORD popped up.

Time was, I wrote long hand, then revised and typed a story, only to ignore the numbers. WORD insisted on telling me the word count, but I looked the other way. I was writing literature, not counting beans.

I remember the feeling of diminishment when I encountered writers who spoke about word counts for different age groups, chapter page counts, and output counts per writing day. Everyone, it seemed, was counting.

I honestly couldn’t figure out why, and determined not to write-by-numbers.

Only they are everywhere. And while they say nothing about the quality of the story or the art of the telling, turns out they do count.

In the business of publishing, they count quite a bit. To quote Agent Jennifer Laughran’s iconic post on the subject, outlier word-counts put her in the mode of  “...I am tying a noose.” I don’t want that responsibility. I also want my work to be considered for publication.

Innovative work should not count these counts. But the numbers will let us know how far off the expected norms we’ve ventured, and then choose to do so knowingly and deliberately.

These Stats still lie in the most fundamental sense of not telling that all’s well, or that I must take some drastic action. The readability statistics only sit there, telling their truth. It’s not an important truth. But it is one I  now look at , just as I look at the WORD program’s mechanical (and often wrong) grammar-check at which end these stats pop up.

For me it is about marching forward having looked at all I could know about what I wrote. It means that if a reader calls the story “too long,” this is not a matter of length but the feeling it drags. The strengths and faults lie in the art, not in the craft. The mechanical checks and algorithmic statistics deserve a glance, and then the option to dismiss or heed from a place of awareness.

Phew, these latest revision stats look okay. But who's counting?