Revision Hell – Or – Hangups of a Fiction Writer
So, I’m currently on the first revision of my novel, Soul Cavern. I’m plodding through, really unsure of myself. Revisions are not something I do much of. That’s not to say my writing is so phenomenal that I don’t need revisions. I do need revisions. I’m just not used to doing them.
My mentor, Mike Arnzen, tells me that I should take this time and really make my story shine. To show the world all the neat creativity I have. To surprise them, maybe scare them, impress them.
Revisions are difficult for me because I’ve never really done any. So I’m flying by the seat of my pants, fiddling with things in a marginal way, tweaking some wordage. Am I really revising? I have no idea.
Some of my classmates at SHU can take their manuscripts and completely rearrange the chapters, taking chapters from the middle, putting them at the front, etc. How do they do that? Maybe I’m just a linear thinker (so should I even be writing?), but my ms needs to be mostly in the order I’ve written it in. As it is, I’ve got a chapter that I have to find a way to fit in, so I’m going to need to hack two different chapters in half in order to get the chronology right. And that’s freaking me out, in itself.
Something I discovered about myself while writing this book: once it’s on paper, I think it’s holy. Okay, not really holy, but I’ve found that if I put something down on paper, it’s very, very difficult to make major changes to it. Psychologically speaking.
I made this realization about a year ago, when I was coming into the mid-point of my novel. I’d had to write a synopsis several months prior, before I really knew where the story was going. I just made something up for the second half, figuring I could change the synopsis once I figured out where the story was really going.
My muse, however, wasn’t privy to that plan.
When I came to the point in the story where I was supposed to write about my main character and her father hopping a plane to Europe to save her best friend from fiendish kidnappers, my muse decided to vacation for awhile. Maybe in Tahiti, maybe Barbados, maybe skiing in the Alps.
I couldn’t write it. Not one word. I was so frustrated with the writing process that, after weeks of wrestling, I decided to scrap my novel and start on a different project. I’d already written over 50,000 words. And I was going to dump it.
What I eventually realized was that because I’d put that BS on the paper, for the second half of the novel, my muse thought that it had to be that way. And I froze. Somehow, once something’s put on paper, that is The Way It Must Be. Isn’t that crazy?
So revisions are a challenge for me both in polishing the prose, but in also forcing myself to tear off the chunks of the story that have been written but need to be cut. Or moved. Or merged with something else. I guess for me, the paper is sacrosanct.
Oh, by the way, I ended up not even using any part of the second half of that synopsis. My poor main character ended up in a hedge maze being hunted by baddies. And it’s a much more interesting novel for that!
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award & Random Life Stuff
SHU’s very own Chun Lee has made the first cut in the ABNA contest! Having heard a small portion of Chun’s novel at his thesis reading prior to graduation, I can say with confidence that Chun has what it takes.
An angel crashes into the paved asphalt of an LA street. He hates coming to Earth, he hates being near humans, and it hurts to be away from the presence of God, but he’s come down for a reason, to kill a demon.
Have a look at his entry, Angel’s Reflection and see what you think! I should mention that this is not your goody-goody angel story. This is dark urban fantasy/horror, so please keep that in mind when reading.
So, I had a pretty fun weekend. I bought a new motorcycle! My old one got flooded out, so I bought a 2002 Honda Shadow ACE 750, fully dressed with the exception of floorboards. It’s beautiful! Mine is a metallic blue with a patterned design on the sides of the gas tank and the fenders. It’s just gorgeous.
I haven’t been riding very long and my previous bike was a 500cc, so this is significantly bigger. It’s still too cold out to really ride, so I’ll have to wait to practice. But I’m really excited! 
Okay, there’s today’s randomness!
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The Curse of Was (or How to Hunt Down Passive Sentences)
When I first started writing with an eye for publication, I hadn’t taken any writing courses, no fiction classes, nothing. I was really flying by the seat. I started out submitting mainly to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, then also to Cemetery Dance and other short story markets. I always got rejected, but I often got little notes that really boiled down to, “I liked the idea, but it just didn’t grab me.”
I remember thinking, “How do I do that? Tell me how to grab you!”
Looking back at those old stories *cringe* I recognize why the writing wasn’t doing any groping. Most of my sentences were passive. Certainly, that wasn’t the only error, but it accounts for the sagginess of the prose.
Now, when I’m revising manuscripts (especially the old ones), the first thing I do is track down errant “to be” verbs. Here’s how I do it (in MS Word):
- Edit -> Find
- Checkmark the “Highlight All Items Found In: Main Document”
- Type the word “was” in the search field
- Click the “Find All” button
- Once the words are found and selected, go to the Highlighter function button and highlight the words an obnoxiously bright color
Then I do the same thing for: were, be, being, been, wasn’t, weren’t, and any other passive verbs I can think of. Once they’re all highlighted that garish pink, purple or yellow color, I go through the document highlight by highlight and see whether the sentences affected can be improved and made more active.
Usually it’s pretty easy. It’s just a matter of dropping the “to be” verb and changing the -ing verb to an -ed verb. For example:
Selina was careening through the underbrush.
becomes
Selina careened through the underbrush.
The active verb makes the sentence immediate and engaging. And that’s what grabs your reader.
String together a slew of active sentences and you have a riveting paragraph. Make your paragraphs strong and active and you’ve got yourself a much more publishable piece!
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