16 Truths about Revision
Things I have re-learned from this round of revision on The Bone Trench, my manuscript about Mother Mary and Jesus called back Memphis by a private prison project:
Description must flow from the character observing it
Description works best when in motion (e.g. She wore a tight skirt vs Her tight skirt tugged as she bent to pick up the skull)
Too much description inside the course of dialogue clots the flow
It’s a fine line between creating atmosphere and suffocating the reader
The setting must be interesting—move the setting from a support group on folding chairs to one where the members are painting a brick wall and see what happens
Unless you are writing a novel about food, avoid every time you can having your characters sit around eating a meal
Your central character may slowly disappear if he is constantly following action directed by others
You can take the information from a scene that’s not working and transpose it into another setting, providing the needed information in a more interesting way; the novel will survive
If you have a scene that’s not working, study the scenes that are working and discern why they appeal to you as a reader
When stuck in a revision, open a new blank page. Take off writing and wait for the image/symbol/alive connection to be made with what you’ve already written
Trust your subconscious, a corollary of the above
Don’t use the “I’ve got a secret” approach, slowly meting out the facts of the past in a literary striptease; get on with it and then let the reader read to find out how on earth that came to be
Write it in, then go back through and rake two-thirds of it out
Remove as much explanation as humanly possible, another corollary
If at all possible have your characters engage in an activity while they talk
When you reach the point where the manuscript is an unholy mess and you believe you will never emerge from the other side of the brambles, keep working
here’s to creative synthesis . . .
16 truths about revision, choosing your settings, description in dialogue, description in fiction, revising your novel, stuck in revision, the importance of setting
16 Truths about Revision | cain't do nothing with love
[…] Truths I learned while revising The Bone Trench, my novel where Mother Mary and Jesus are called back to Memphis by a private prison project, reblogged from my other blog […]
Rick Destefanis
And when I read these innocent people on Goodreads saying, “I’m a new author and I am going to start writing a book. Does anyone have any advice for me?” I think……………
Ellen Morris Prewitt
“Buckle up. We’re in for a rough ride”?
Marisa
I am going to print this and tape it all over my house. THANK YOU. I think you saved the lives of several very sick novels cluttering up my house…
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Not cluttering up. Waiting to be revised and revived!
carol gardner
I am not a writer but I am an avid reader. The admonishment about over -descriptive resonates with me. I want to yell “Editor needed” when the author appears to be waxing poetic without forwarding the story. I got the picture,mood, climate etc.with the first description if it is well done.
In my next life I may come back as an editor. They truly are the unsung heroines of literature.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Thanks for the “reader reality check,” Carol. And I think you’d make a good editor