The Art-Ache of Revision

By Laura Spinella

Since I am currently bleeding revision, it seems like an appropriate topic for my GBC post. So hang on a sec while I clamp off an artery, pump in some plasma, and we’ll write a blog. I’m at the halfway point on a lengthy, cumbersome revision to book three—but whose revision isn’t lengthy and cumbersome? Part of my plight is that I’m a miserable multitasker. Revision, in particular, leaves me so knotted and burrowed that brushing my teeth seems like one challenge too many. Point of fact, I’ve barely had time for friends and family, while PERFECT TIMING promotion has gone the way of shoulda, coulda, woulda. And damn, I’ve hardly had a chance to marvel over my Facebook scrapbook, compliments of Mr. Zuckerberg.

            When I turned in this manuscript, it was met with singular enthusiasm. From there, briefly, I had this obtuse and vain notion that my book was ready to fly—following a civil and forthcoming edit, naturally.  Ha! Yeah, the bruises are still healing from that fall off the turnip truck. Realistically, I knew better. Enthusiasm also came with a three-page footnote, suggestions for my “wonderful and promising” novel. Say what?  But that’s the way it goes, right? And if you’re fortunate to play a part in traditional book publishing, it’s wise to view that glass as half full. I believe the opposite reaction would have resulted in a blog about the short-lived life of book three. (Well, book seven if you light up my flashdrives, but who's counting) This brings me to what I might contribute here, in the midst of my all-consuming, often maddening revision. It’s a universal experience that leaves writers’ wishing they wrote pop-up books or, better still, obscure pamphlets on improving dry soil regions.  

Here is what I have learned.

Come Prepared:

Before I began, I stepped away. I spent a couple weeks not looking at any of it, then a few more weeks studying the suggested revisions. I argued some in my head and saw the “how dumb am I…?" sense in others. I considered what existed versus what could be. When I was finally ready to sit, I cleaned up my office space and even Windexed my computer screen. I figured I was in for the long haul.

Pace Yourself:

The amount of time it takes my washing machine to cycle through a large load setting. That was my dream schedule. Realistically, by the time I finish this rewrite washing machines may be obsolete, replaced by Rosie the Robot. In truth, no good writing comes out of rushing. I can’t speak for anyone else’s process, but I’m a do-it-in-sections kind of girl. I won’t move forward until it feels right. If that means revising Chapter Twelve until the significant difference between using “She” versus “Aubrey” to begin paragraph four is something more than atom splitting, so be it.

Speaking of feeling:

Go with your gut. I’ve embraced the bulk of my proposed revisions. Why not? Someone more successful than me put them on paper. It did take downtime to digest the scope of the undertaking, but I get it. I really do. However, there was one POV note that had me banging my head and wringing my hands. I wrote and rewrote to the suggested tune, but things only got worse. The story was bad, the rhythm was off.  Try as I might, I could not see a certain portion of this novel from a certain character’s POV. When I decided to go with my gut, I had no regret about passing on this particular revision. End of story.

Ignore your audience:

While we all seek an audience for our work, this is a long rehearsal.  It’s not show time. Conversely, this work in progress is not a draft, the kind of writing that would otherwise benefit from a roundtable discussion.  Said editor or agent has presented a specific vision for the finished product. If someone offers input, make sure that person can view the work from that same ten-thousand foot view. It’s too easy to be steered off course by the well-meaning. On the other hand, if you’re lucky enough to have somebody who knows you, your book, and your revisions… Well, thoughts of holding that person hostage in a linen closet (just until it’s over) have crossed my mind.

Ignore other writers:

Ah, this one’s hard to maintain, kind of like healthy eating or a single glass of wine. In the regular realm of writing there’s always someone who’s got it better. They’re selling more books, drowning in terrific reviews, and flabbergasted into sharing humble Facebook posts about their unexpected success. Yeah, well, we all did something great at least once, whether it’s in our mother’s eyes or our publisher. If you’re spending time monitoring the competition you may lack the energy, and often manufactured eagerness, required to tackle 410 pages of your own brilliant mess.  

And the best revision advice:

That doesn’t come from me. It comes from the one and only Elmore Leonard, who offered enough writing pearls of wisdom to strand a double set.  While all are to be heeded, there are two snippets I keep at the forefront of this revision: Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Blunt works for me and this is a gem that resonates.  Am I bored?  Are the characters bored? Will the reader be bored?  Will anyone really give a flying fig about the poetic prose used to describe the color of the sky? If the answer is yes… or no, then out it goes. This leaves my other cherished Elmore idiom: rewrite the parts that sound like writing… Equally clear and vague, I think you really have to know your own story to answer that one. I also see it as the map for the vicious circle that is revision, because once you can recognize the parts that sounds like writing, you’re more than halfway home.   

Laura Spinella is the award winning author of BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, a RITA finalist, and the newly released PERFECT TIMING. Visit her at lauraspinella.net. 

Writing the Revision

By Laura Spinella

The topic this cycle is the writing process. Currently, my writing process is in a state of revision or my revision is in a state of process. I’m not sure which. I’ve read with interest previous posts about the writing processes of my fellow girlfriends. Many sound hauntingly like mine. I believe there’s been talk of musical inspiration and serious concentration; I think it was Judy Merrill Larsen who mentioned self-imposed hand slapping. I definitely get that one, red-knuckled and bruised as I type. So I thought might be fun to chat about the revision process and how that differs from writing something new, or, in my case, editing.
It seems that after the first book, they expect you to write a second. Who knew? Although, it’s not like this is my first attempt at writing a second book. Truth be told, BEAUTIFUL DISASTER was my first second book, but the first one deemed worthy of a cover and spine. In fact, the book that’s currently undergoing the revision process was never meant to be the second book. That book was brushed aside last summer, powers that be hinting that they’d like something with a tone more akin to my first effort (which was really my second effort), a character like Flynn but not Flynn, and, BTW, if I could make the love story char the edges of each page, that would be just swell. Sure. Anybody got a bottle with cork? Cuz I’m on the hunt for lightning—that or I plan on drinking a lot in the months to come.
Oh, that sounds like sour grapes, and, actually, it’s not, but the revision process doesn’t put me in the best mood. It’s not, for example, like the editing process. Now you can label them however you like, though I see them as two distinct and different functions. Editing is what happens after I’ve finished the draft. It’s where I get to fuss over my work, making fluid sentences flow, changing the names of insignificant characters, and deleting or adding commas as the case may be. I think it’s when I’m most in love with my book. If I’m really lucky, that smoldering passionate mindset lasts about as long as my 10th grade boyfriend. (Do not ask me to recall his name) The editing process, ego-plumping as it is, is not without pitfalls. Suddenly, in the midst of a beautiful and moving passage, I realize a brilliant plot point doesn’t sparkle like I’d intended, and maybe the storyline is a bit transparent with the reader seeing the ending coming from the title, which probably isn’t so special either. This, in turn, leads to the great mountain-valley-desert of revision. Or, as I like to think of it, self-inflicted revision, a close cousin to the self-inflicted gunshot. Revision, of course, can also come by way of an editor or agent, which is my current status. Given a choice, I prefer this type of reconstruction, harsh as it first may seem. At least it comes with guidelines and the suggestion that if I do it right, I’ll be rewarded. This revision process, surgical and messy, is kind of like taking an Oldsmobile apart on your living room floor and rebuilding it into an Aston Martin. Well, probably not exactly, but that’s how it feels.
The book in question, now officially referred to as the follow up, was written mostly in first person, but also included a third person point of view. At some juncture, that was discussed and blessed off as the way to go. As I neared the end of the draft, I started to get uncomfortable with the arrangement, thinking what sounded entertaining and witty now read more like a Chick-Lit novel in need of a Zoloft prescription. The good news here is we were all in agreement, and could I simply swap out that first person for third person all the way through? So far, it’s kind of like undoing a straight-jacket by way of a paperclip in your teeth. But it is what it is and I will manage to muddle through. At some point, not long so ago, I remember dissecting BEAUTIFUL DISASTER with the same overwhelming sense of tediousness and angst. In the end, I’m fairly certain I didn’t build an Aston Martin, but it drives surprisingly well and neighbors think it’s pretty keen.

You can always find me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BeautifulDisasterANovel or www.lauraspinella.net

IDEALLY...

by Therese Fowler

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“Where do you get your ideas?”

This question is one every writer I know has fielded countless times. My answer is often something like “from the Story Well,” “from the Story Fairy,” or “from the Story Cloud”--which of course hovers nearby full-time, and all I have to do is reach up and pluck out a new idea the way Harry Potter plucks memories from Dumbledore’s pensieve.

Right.

The truth is that there’s no actual answer to that question. Story ideas come from everywhere, and they come from nowhere. Sometimes I’m inundated with new ideas and have trouble prioritizing my interests; at other times I’m stumbling through the desert under a blazing sun, my hand shielding my eyes while I search and search for the smallest story seed, but to no avail. You get them when you don’t need or want them; you can’t find one when you need one…they’re fickle, that’s simply the way of it, and every writer has to embrace that truth or go find a more predictable occupation, such as mortuary technician.

I began writing fiction seriously ten years ago. To date I’ve completed eight novels. Three of those are published. A fourth—number eight—is under contract and scheduled to come out next year. I turned in the manuscript just before my newest book, Exposure, was released, then held my breath waiting for my agent’s and editor’s feedback. While I was on tour, the news came in: the story was “drafty,” yes, but its bones were good and they were confident it was all going to come together very well.

This is exactly what a writer needs to hear after spending long months (or sometimes years) with the story idea that captivated them enough to merit such a commitment. When tour ended, I was all set to review my editorial letter and then get to work again.

I read the editorial letter and, as I always do, began mulling my wonderfully astute editor’s various questions and observations. Each character arc was examined, the plot arc tested, the overall message considered. This manuscript had a lot going on, and so my editor asked what, in my view, did I think readers would take away from the story?

When I answered that question for myself, I saw something I hadn’t seen before. Something that didn’t suit me at all. Something that, after two weeks of mulling things over, made me realize that I as a reader didn’t want to read that story—and therefore I didn’t want to have it published.

I hardly need to tell you that this is not an ideal situation.

I knew that before I told my editor I’d gone off the rails in this way, I needed to offer a solution to the problem. So I went to the story cloud and plucked from it a brand new story premise. Remarkably, that premise contained almost all the same characters as my completed draft, but in a situation that was so elegant in its simplicity and so interesting that I could see the story in its entirety. I was confident (or as confident as an experienced writer ever is) that the writing would feel more like taking dictation than the pushing of boulders uphill that it sometimes is.

Do I make it sound like finding that solution was easy? It felt easy—once I’d obsessed about it for almost three weeks, tortured myself with scenarios of never having another novel published, of being thought difficult and unreliable. It felt easy once I overcame my certainty that real pros would never write the wrong story in the first place. It felt easy once I remembered that the only person I ever truly have to satisfy is myself.

Will this new idea turn out to be the right one? That test is still ahead of me. The challenge is a rigorous one. But it’s the kind of challenge I’ve succeeded with before, so as I set out, I’m both confident and terrified—which should play well on the page, since that’s the state my characters find themselves in as well.

One thing I know for certain is that even if this story doesn’t end up working the way I want it to, doesn’t get published, never reaches readers, I can go back to the story well/fairies/cloud, and if I’m patient, be rewarded with a new idea, another chance to get it right.