Books are not babies

A lengthy post about manuscript revision follows. Just a warning. GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

So, the book is now nearly unrecognisable. I felt depressed about this on the weekend, as I looked at the hundred thousand words I spent last year toiling over and realised that a great deal of them were gone. I shook myself out of that funk pretty quickly, however, by recognising that all that material needed to be written in order for me to find the novel that was inside it. As Mark Twain said, "The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say." This applies to novels too, I think.

The novel was sliced and diced into bits. I had a lot of ideas and a lot of questions, and I needed to get a clear vision in my head of the shape the finished book would take.

I (metaphorically) sat down in the middle of all the shredded paper and bits of bleeding manuscript and asked myself, "What am I ACTUALLY trying to say with this book? What is it really about? Really, really?"

(A pretty good question to ask oneself before beginning, I'm sure, but hey, I'm a maverick - as in, I'm probably doing it wrong).

Once I'd asked myself that question, it was relatively easy to peel all the layers of story away until I was left with a kernel. It reminded me of a segment on the special features of the Lord of the Rings (yes, I am an enormously geeky person and spent an entire summer holiday watching all three films and every single special feature over and over, every day for about three months. I am not exaggerating. Luckily my husband was doing it with me, which makes it a bit less sad. But I digress). In this segment, Peter Jackson was discussing the editing of the three films. They shot for a record number of days, and ended up with a wealth of material. Too much, in fact. They had a very difficult time in the editing studio trying to trim down all this material to match the script in a way that advanced the story without slowing it down or digressing. It was a nightmare. Finally, Jackson went away and thought about it, and came up with a simple and brilliant solution. He asked himself what the story - this lengthy, hugely detailed, complex monster of a story - was really about, and decided it was about Frodo and it was about the ring, and it was about the journey of these two entities.

This made their decisions far easier. Even if they loved a particular piece of footage, they asked themselves, "Does this support the central story?" And if it didn't, out it went. (Of course, they had an extended cut as well as the cinematic cut, but we humble book-writers don't have that luxury).

I had a similar revelation, and I found this article by Holly Lisle remarkably helpful for the process, as is almost everything on her site. I wrote down what the book was about, in fewer than fifteen words. It took a while to get down to fifteen, but I worked at it until I had the briefest summary I could possibly have. Then I went through my plot outline and cut out everything that didn't serve that central story in some way. I also wrote down the main theme in fewer than fifteen words, and the sub-themes in the same way.

This meant that I have had to ask myself some hard questions over the past two weeks. About every scene and every character I have asked, "Does this matter? Do I need this? Is it important?" Quite often, the answer is no. It has been tough. I thought I was handling it quite well until I realised that a particularly beloved character and subplot did nothing but slow down the story and distract it from its real purpose. Cutting that one hurt quite a bit. Essentially I am taking a microscope to the core of the story and discarding everything else, which means both that the central story needs to be fully developed and that I am going to end up with a much stronger book at the end of the (hellish) process.

Then came another hard job. One of the problems I saw with my original manuscript was that my narrator wasn't strong enough. She was an observer rather than an active participant. I also felt that she didn't show enough significant growth throughout the story. So, I took some more of Holly Lisle's suggestions, and wrote a one-line story arc for this character - the journey she takes through the book. I also asked myself:

"What does she want more than anything else in the world?"

and

"What is she most afraid of?"

These questions are so revealing. I think these are the two most important things to know about any character - the answers show you the motives behind any person's actions. They're trying to achieve the one, and they're trying to avoid the other, and if they're a compelling enough character they feel passionately about both. Once I had a clear story arc in written form, and the answers to these two questions, I felt like I knew my protagonist a lot better. She came more sharply into focus, and the rest of the book came with her.

I also made the decision to switch the book from first to third person. It's a big job, but I think it's necessary.

If there's anything I've learned while working on this book, it's that I have a lot to learn. Novel-writing 101. It is definitely humbling, but also very exciting. And a lot of hard work. I've written 'novels' since I was very young, and even had one published, but I've never had to work so much on the brick-by-brick construction of a work like this one. I think I (arrogantly) assumed that I would get everything right by instinct, but no matter how talented you are, it takes a lot of revision and hard work to make a successful book.

My three main tools at the moment, as I work through the rewrites, are: a synopsis; a chapter-by-chapter breakdown; and a page of character notes. I have found them all unbelievably helpful for keeping me focused.

I say synopsis, but there are actually three synopses - the one-sentence one I mentioned earlier, a very detailed one that's about seven pages long, and a shorter one that's about the length of the blurb on a book cover. After a couple of hours working on these, I went a bit mad and started ending the plot summaries with silly things like "WITH HILARIOUS RESULTS!", "BEFORE A GIANT METEOR HITS THE EARTH," and "TO FIGHT THE INVADING SPACE PIRATE ARMY." At least I find myself amusing. (And no, my book does not contain an invading space pirate army).

So, as you can probably tell from all this, I'm stitching together almost a new book altogether. I think it's going to be worlds better when I'm finished, but there is an enormous amount of work ahead. Occasionally I have a minor panic attack, but then I go for a walk, buy something, eat a piece of chocolate or put a pot of coffee on (hey, I didn't say they were all healthy solutions) and get back to it. Speaking of which, I had better get back to work.

To explain the post title: books are not babies, thank goodness, even though they are often compared to them. "It's like sending your child out into the world!" "I feel like I've given birth to this book." I understand those sentiments, but the analogy falls apart when it's time to revise. You wouldn't give a baby plastic surgery, change its gender twice and its name three times and try six different noses on it to see which one looks best. I hope.

P.S. A bit of housekeeping. I am dreadfully behind on comments again, so thank you for bearing with me - I am crazily busy and will catch up as soon as I can. And if you're waiting for a package from me, you won't have to wait much longer ... I'm sending them out next week! Hooray. Oh, and I'm also having a big closet clean-out very soon and selling some lovely vintage dresses, so I'll keep you posted on that too.