Yours sincerely,

Stuck in a Never-Ending Editing Vortex

Dear Stuck,

There’s a natural order to the process of writing. Lots of people claim to have the road map for making the writing and revision process simpler, smoother, speedier . . . except that the process looks different for each writer. You absolutely can’t compare how soon you’re ready for feedback, or how quickly you can process that feedback into actionable revision steps, with how soon someone else can. That said, there are a few common reasons writers find their revisions stalled. Just remember, it’s a try/fail process to figure out what techniques make you most effective and efficient at completing your manuscript.

My first piece of advice is to take notes. Keep a record of what you tried this time, be it the Book Architecture Method of creating a series grid, or a National Novel Writing Month marathon/sprint for content creation, or any of the zillion other “proven” methods out there. The more times you do this, the more data you create to learn about what works for you. In her podcast episode titled “Honor Your Reality” Gabriela reminds us that the only best practice is the one that works for you. So keep track of what works and what doesn’t so that you don’t find yourself spinning your wheels trying the same techniques time and again with the same result.

Five Reasons Your Revision Process is Stalled (and what to do about it)

1) You submitted for critique too soon in the drafting process

If you find yourself being tossed about by feedback like a rubber duckie in a choppy sea, it’s more than likely you’ve submitted your writing for feedback too soon. Likely, it was too early in the drafting process for you to really know what you want your writing to say.

Solution: Give yourself room to rewrite the piece a few more times, and to think critically about it on your own. That way you’ll be sure of what you’re trying to accomplish with a piece, and better able to judge by the response you receive whether you’ve achieved that or not.

2) You didn’t have enough distance from the work

It’s a common mistake to rush right into the critique and revise stage without allowing yourself emotional distance from the writing. Akin to the first reason above, this has to do with submitting a piece before you (and it) are ready. Emotional distance will help you keep from taking the critique too personally, which will help you to be able to discern what feedback will be useful.

Solution: In order to achieve the appropriate distance from your writing, you have to be willing and able to detach your emotions and identity from it. That can mean putting it aside for a time before sharing it. It can also involve sitting yourself down to have a talk about not getting emotionally wrapped up. Or soliciting feedback in such a way that allows you to maintain distance, such as in written form so that you can take breaks and come back to it. Be honest with yourself and your critique partners about this emotional distance. It will save you (and them) a lot of hurt and frustration.

3) Your request for feedback is too broad

Handing someone a story and saying, “Tell me what you think!” seems so natural. But that’s probably not the best way to get targeted feedback from a reader. You can get anything from “It was great!” to “I found a few typos,” to “It’s really not my style.” None of these responses are particularly helpful if you’re trying to figure out how to make the story better.

Solution: Before you hand your story over to someone whose opinion you trust, think of a few specific questions you want them to ponder while they read your writing. Ask them to answer those questions and those questions only. That way you can be sure you’re getting feedback on specific areas you’re interested in focusing on in that draft.

4) You’re tackling too much in each revision pass

We all do it. It is hard to see past the details (grammar, punctuation, certain plot holes, etc.) as you’re reading through your work, so, instead of pushing through for the sake of the larger goal you began this revision with (one particular character’s arc, timeline inconsistencies, etc.) you stop. You fix the commas and periods, the awkward dialogue, the color of a particular character’s eyes (that you have to scan back through 200 pages to find). And eventually you forget what the larger goal was in the first place. I know the revision process can be tedious. I know the desire to hurry and get your story finished so that you can share it with the world is overwhelming sometimes, and so it seems like you should tackle all the issues at once. But it’s important to make sure you focus each revision pass on one, MAYBE two elements. That way you make sure you’re as precise as possible and you don’t miss anything.

Solution: Start with one issue, or category of issues, at a time in a simple, logical order, addressing the biggest problems first. Leave the grammar and punctuation until the very end. If you’re interested in how to break down your revisions by their hierarchy of needs, you can check out Gabriela’s Revision Pyramid here.

5) You’re not taking enough time between revision passes

When you’ve been working on something so hard and for so long, it may seem counterintuitive to put it down and walk away, but that’s what I’m telling you to do. Some people find that a break of a few weeks is enough, but some people need longer than that. After spending hours, days, weeks, months in the world of your story, you can easily forget what issues you’ve addressed. The world and the characters seem so obvious to you that you can’t tell what is on the page or what is still in your head anymore. The fatigue you feel is a real barrier to the sharpness of your attention. You may find yourself frustrated by encountering the same plot problem over and over again, but still not being able to identify the answer your story needs.

Solution: Consider how much time you’ve spent BETWEEN drafts, and then play with that amount of time. If you’re still feeling confused, frustrated, or overwhelmed after a couple of weeks, try longer. You’ll know it’s time to return to that story when you find the solutions to particular plot problems or character arc issues calling you back. In the interim, keep writing other things. And read books on story-craft. In fact, just read. Read lots of good stories, taking notes about their structure, tone, and characters.

Revising your work and receiving critical feedback can seem like an endless uphill battle. It’s such an important part of the process of writing, though, and worth as much time as it takes to do it well. The reading public is not so forgiving as your critique partners. You want to be sure that your story is the best version of itself before you release it out into the world.

How to “Ask the Editor”

Send your questions to ekauffman@writingrefinery.com. Limit yourself to a few paragraphs to introduce yourself and the problem at hand. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” after all. And keep an eye out for opportunities to send in longer submissions for critique.

Elisabeth Kauffman is a freelance editor in California. Her favorite genres are YA fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. She regularly obsesses over board games, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter. Come share your ideas with her on Facebook and Twitter and on the web at www.writingrefinery.com. Also, check out her author website and her author page on Facebook.

The post Ask the Editor: Five Reasons Your Revision Process is Stalled appeared first on DIY MFA.

In this episode I’ll talk about how to rock your post-NaNoWriMo revisions and what you should do once you have finished a fast first draft. I’ll take through the process of going from Draft Zero to a solid, complete draft that’s ready to query.

Whether you just finished NaNoWriMo and have 50,000 words begging for revision, or you have a short story you want to polish, I’ll walk you through the whole revision process from draft to done. We’ll take inventory on what you’ve written, use a systematic method to tighten  your manuscript, and finally get feedback from Beta readers. Check out the episode below.

For those who may not know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it’s an event held in the month of November. Participants of NaNoWriMo commit to writing 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. When someone says they won NaNoWriMo, it means that they met that goal and wrote 50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days of November.

Now, 50,000 words is not usually a complete novel manuscript, and even if you did cover all the plot points in that amount of writing, you probably have a very lean draft to work with. The first thing you need to do is assess what kind of manuscript you have.

Category 1 – The Lean Draft

This manuscript manages to hit all the plot points of your story arc, but it may need some filling in to make it a complete draft.

Category 2 – The Incomplete Draft

This manuscript is still missing major plot points and character development. Before you move on to the rest of the revision process you are going to need to finish this draft. Make sure your story has a solid beginning, middle, and ending. Keep it up! You’re almost there.

Once you’ve got all the pieces of your manuscript together, you have what I call Draft Zero. This draft hits all the major landmarks of your story and contains sufficient description and narrative to get you from scene to scene and from start to finish. Then you’re ready to revise.

Three Steps from Draft Zero to Ready-to-Submit

1) Extract an outline.

Some writers start with an outline before they write. I write first and then I go back and I outline what I’ve written. Outlining allows me to get a full view of my story, to see all the parts and the big picture at the same time.

2) Analyze the manuscript’s components.

I begin the revision process with the most basic points (character and plot) and then work my way to the nitty-gritty details (theme and language). This idea is based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, where you want to fulfill your book’s more basic and urgent needs first, then move on to the smaller components. This means focusing on your overall book first, then breaking it down act-by-act or scene-by-scene for more detailed revision. The graphic below gives an overall view of how I like to break down the revision process.

3) Get some beta readers.

Your beta readers should be people who have never seen your novel before, people who will read like readers, not like writers. Also, you should try to include at least one person who is an expert in the genre you are writing in.

Keep in mind that this process takes time, up to several months. NaNoWriMo is all about getting the words on the page. Now you get to spend time with your story.

Resource Recap

Here are a few helpful articles about revision and receiving different types of feedback on your writing, courtesy of the DIY MFA team.

• Seven Steps to Editing Like a Master – by Rebecca Jordan
• When You Finish a First Draft – by Bess Cozby
• What Kind of Feedback is Right for You? – by Gabriela Pereira

Also, here are a few of my go-to books on editing and revision:

Revision and Self-Editing for Publication

By: James Scott Bell

This book breaks down revision into a logical process. When I heard Bell speak on this topic, he said that writers should “write hot, revise cold.”

In other words, the first draft might be written with abandon, but the revision process is far more calculated and meticulous. This book breaks down revision into a simple, step-by-step process to help you navigate the revision process and make it a bit less daunting.

Blueprint Your Bestseller

By: Stuart Horwitz

Stuart Horwitz’s Blueprint Your Bestseller, is a must-read for any writer struggling with their book. While Horwitz’s “book architecture” method works if you’re midway through a draft, this game-changing technique is invaluable to a writer in the midst of revision. By starting with theme, and working down into more detailed revisions, the book architecture method goes hand-in-hand with the revision pyramid approach discussed in this episode. You can use both techniques separately, or together as they complement one another.

Link to Episode 19

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 19: How to Rock Your Post-NaNoWriMo Revisions appeared first on DIY MFA.