After going over a hard copy of my novel three times: once to find too much telling and not enough showing, once to address my beta readers comments, and once to improve my verbs change as many to be verbs to action verbs and improve the actions verbs that already existed I took the marked up copy of my novel off the wall. Amazing! After having the book on my storyboards for almost three months, it took me just thirty-five minutes to take it down, remove the push pins, and carry the foam boards into my garage. My next step is to start incorporating all of my mark ups into a new version. That means inputting any editorial changes I made with my trusty red pen, deleting material that I highlighted with my yellow marker, and adding chapters and sections where indicated again with my red pen. However, I'm going to give myself a couple of days off to let the enormity of the upcoming task sink in. I'll be back at it on Monday, hopefully creating a new version that will be good … [Read more...]
I’m making slow progress with my novel revisions
I've posted all the comments from my novel's beta readers on the wall, I've posted the entire novel on the wall, and I'm working through the comments by scribbling page after page with yellow marker and red pen. I use the yellow marker to highlight where I explain and/or use expository language to tell rather than show (a lesson learned from the Writers Digest tutorial, Revise for Publication: Revision Strategies That Will Improve Any Draft). And, I'm actually rewriting with the red pen, with special emphasis on clearing up inconsistencies like one of my characters has a black bushy beard in one scene and a light brown beard in another improving on the quality of my verbs, and further developing my characters - while making sure I describe them consistently throughout. I storyboarded my memoir when I worked on its revisions as well. However, this time I actually saved time, wall space, and printing costs by reducing the size of the book to single space rather than space and … [Read more...]
Novel revision next steps
I've finished the big read of my novel, made brief notes in my notebook not on the book itself to remind myself what inconsistencies and repetitions I've found, and I've hung the whole book, page by page, on six by eight foot, quarter inch foam board panels on my hall wall. (I used Moore aluminum push pins. And by the way, each board has space for thirty 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheets, which allows me some room to grow). Now I'm ready for the next step: i.e., experimenting with first person narrative. I am going to see if I can rewrite a couple scenes in first person. If that works I'll take on the job of rewriting the whole book in first person. If not, I'll move on to Part Two of my novel revision process: rewriting and fleshing out the later chapters of the book to catch them up to the level of the first eleven chapters, which I've worked over several times already. Then I'll start the real revision, starting at the top. It looks like I have months of work ahead of me. … [Read more...]