Posts Tagged writing tips

One of the hardest parts of both finishing and revising a novel is keeping the big picture in mind–juggling all the elements so that you end up with a story-shaped book that delivers the ending you promised at the start. I’ve tried different strategies over the years and this is the one that is working pretty well for me at the moment.
5 steps to seeing your novel as a whole

1. Shrink your text to 8 point type, remove space between chapters and make margins as narrow as possible so that the whole novel will fit on less than 50 pages. Print it out. Put it up on a wall or lay it out on a large table or bed.

• Observe the balance of dialog to description.

• Notice chapter lengths relative to each other.

2. Highlight setting descriptions

• Are they present throughout but not large?

3. Highlight physical intensity/action in a different color. Do the same for emotional intensity/tension and humor

• Is there balance? Some action in every chapter; some tension in every chapter?

• If it’s not a funny book, is humor providing a respite? If it’s a funny book, is the humor consistent throughout?

4. Use a post it notes to mark where each character is introduced.

• Does the main character appear in the first page or first 400 words of the book?

• Are all the major characters introduced in the first third of the book?

• Are there clumps of 3 or more characters introduced in a single scene?

5. Use post it notes to mark the major events of the plot

•   Are setting and main character established in the 1st 500 words?

• Is the inciting incident in the first chapter?

• Does every chapter contain an obstacle, or a reversal, or an important plot point?

• Is there a single clear climax?

• Does the story resolve and end shortly after that climax?

Remember these are questions and not commandments. You may have additional questions to ask yourself or different aspects to highlight based on the type of story you are telling. It’s just a tool, so feel free to make it your own.

This is how big picture revision looks in my office.
This is a 45,000 word MG novel shrunk down to 34 pages. Setting details are in green, humor is pink, action is yellow, and emotional intensity is orange.
Over the top of the highlighting I used cross-hatching to indicate view point narration. I have two view point characters. One is indicated by right slanting red lines and the other is shown with left slanting green lines. Putting the alternating point of view up on the wall like this made it clear that in the middle, the POV character is not clear. I can also see that there is too much of the red characters POV and not enough of my green character’s POV in the final section.

I’d love to hear from you about what works for you when you are revising with the flow of the whole novel in mind. Leave your suggestions in the comments!

I’m happy to be settling virtually into the Mixed Up Files clubhouse, and settling physically into my family’s new home in rural New England. While boxing and unboxing all my worldly possessions, I’ve given a lot of thought to “moving experiences” in literature. Authors most often use relocation as a plot device, but it can also highlight a book’s theme, demonstrate character traits, or show an aspect of the setting.

Plot Moves:

This is the most straightforward example. Typically there’s a character who encounters a new kid in class, or is a new kid in class, or has to deal with a friend or family member moving away. The move might be permanent, like Pip moving to London with great expectations, or it might be temporary, like Alice’s visit to Wonderland. The important thing is that if Alice decides not to follow the White Rabbit, the entire rest of the story fails to take place. The character’s move is what moves the plot.

Thematic Moves:

C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe features a group of siblings who are relocated to the countryside during the WWII bombing of London. They then discover a magical gateway and move again, this time into the land of Narnia. That second move is necessary to the plot, but what about the first? Wouldn’t this story have worked just as well if it had been otherwise unchanged but instead had the siblings discover a portal in their own long-familiar London home?

Lewis used the initial move to introduce a theme and ratchet up the tension. These kids, moved from bomb-battered London to a seemingly safe environment, suddenly find themselves in more danger than ever. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. The move has created ironic tension, because the pastoral countryside is not the sanctuary it was made out to be. The themes of danger and safety are integral to the book and make the story more impactful.

Character-Revealing Moves:

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin presents a group of unlikely characters who compete to solve a mystery and earn the inheritance of a wealthy eccentric. At the start of the book, every one of these future contestants moves into the same apartment complex, which makes it possible to tell the story in a compact space. It’s a practical move, necessary to the plot, but it also spotlights the manipulative nature and social engineering skills of Sam Westing as he entices all of these people to uproot their previous lives even before the contest and its stakes have been introduced. If any of those families had decided to stay put instead, the entire intricate plot would have begun to unravel. By the end of the book, we see exactly how manipulative Westing has been, but it all starts with that big collective move.

A World-Building Move:

Consider the Harry Potter series, in which Harry moves from his uncle and aunt’s house to Hogwarts for each school year and back again for the summer. In his first year, Harry moves twice. First, he moves to a part of the wizarding world that’s a single semi-permeable wall away from the world we live in. From there, Harry and the other first-year students move by train to the pure magic of Hogwarts, which is as far removed from the muggle world as one can get. Most of the characters who make a similar double-move are muggle-born, like Hermione. Others who are native to the wizarding world only have to move once, like Ron and Draco. Every student is in for a magical year of new experiences, but readers have been introduced to a caste system that plays out more and more in later books.

How else have you seen a move used in your favorite books? Let me know in the comments, and thanks to everyone who helped me move my words onto this blog.