After the excitement of finishing your first draft, and the tedium of making all the fixes and changes you knew you had to do, how do you know when you are really done and the manuscript is ready to send out, or that you need to polish it some more? The answer to this is tricky. On the one hand, you definitely don’t want to send your baby off to be read by agents before it’s done. You want to give it every opportunity to succeed. On the other hand,…read more
To ensure that you don’t waste time or duplicate work, take the advice of a seasoned editor and use a hierarchical system for making changes. First come big, structural changes. These need to be in place first. I’m referring to chapter order, or large chunks of writing within chapters. Then move on from there to the level of paragraph. This has more to do with the way information is flowing on the page. Only after you have dealt with the paragraphs can you come down to the level of…read more
Many writers I know obsess about transitions from one section or scene to another. It comes up particularly when you are in the editing stage and are moving big chunks of manuscript from one place to another. Everyone (including me) always thinks it will be hugely complicated and difficult, but I have found that it is usually simple. In fact, there often doesn’t need to be a transition at all. That’s why I recommend marking where you think you need them, but then waiting until you read through the manuscript…read more
Once you have your list of things you know need to be done to your first draft, then you need to go back into the manuscript and make them. There is a specific way to approach this that will make things easier and smoother. Here’s what to do: Make a list (if you haven’t yet) of all that you want to do in the manuscript. Divide it into these sections: moving things/transitions/new additions/cuts/line edits Make a new copy of your file. The simplest way to do that is to rename…read more
Have your first draft done? Good! Here’s what to do next. First, you must print it out. I know everyone hates to use paper these days but I’m sorry, you just need a hard copy for this. Now, take a pad and a pencil or pen, and sit down to read it through. Since you were writing quickly, in flow, and you probably didn’t even write transitions (That’s good! Flow writing comes first.) you will immediately see a lot of things that need fixing. Resist the temptation to fix them…read more
When I am writing in flow, which is what I always aspire to do, it feels like such a relief. At last, the words are coming and I can’t get my thoughts down fast enough. But then, inevitably, my time to write ends. And then the next time I show up, that excited energy is long gone; I don’t remember where I am or what I want to write next. Often, it’s so tempting to go back to the beginning and re-read to enter back into my piece. I’ve learned…read more
From my Newsletter, August 2009 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Because I am now working on this myself, and because it came up in my last Microsoft Word for Writers class, I thought it worth bringing up again how helpful it is to have your files in order on your computer, and to name your different versions correctly so you can find everything in one place. This is a little like creating a binder on your computer for your work. And since I think what our work is about is bringing ideas into form,…read more
From my Newsletter, Spring 2009 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A student who finished her first draft (yeah!) asked me, How should I approach doing the edit? If you’ve taken my and others’ advice and let yourself just write out the first draft to the end, there are a bunch of things you have to look at in the edit which will produce the second draft. First, structural things. Are there places you know things need to change? What things do you know now that you’ve finished the draft that you didn’t know in…read more
From my Newsletter, Winter 2008 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A student sent me an email. She’d been working on her manuscript a long time, and I’d asked her if she’d gotten it done. She said she was surprised that it was almost done but there were more things than she thought involved in finishing. I told her, well there are always stages to “doneness,” and it helps to realize that there are at least seven completion points. She immediately asked, oh, can you tell me what they all are? This is my answer….read more
From my Newsletter, Summer 2008 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you first began to write your book, you probably just opened a new file in Word and started typing. You didn’t think about how to organize it, you were probably just grateful you got started. But now maybe you have 100 pages and you aren’t sure what you’ve got and you’ve been having trouble finding paragraphs you know you already wrote. This is where it’s handy to know a few tricks about managing large documents. It helps to start using some of these…read more