Writer's Corner
Murder Your Darlings:
A Slice-and-Dice Approach to Revision
By Catherine Mulvany
This is not an approach for the faint-hearted. Writers love
words, especially their own words, but sometimes we have to
sacrifice those we love for the greater good.
Example: In 2003, after several major revisions and numerous
tweaks, I finally “finished” a manuscript called The
Cat’s Apprentice. Once I found an agent,
she quickly sold the book to Pocket, where it was renamed Run
No More. But at 150K, the manuscript was too
long. I had to cut 40,000 words. Talk about agony. This wasn’t
just a nip here and a tuck there. It meant major surgery. I
had to remove two subplots, one involving a secondary villain
and one dealing with the heroine’s search for the father
she’d never known. This included axing one of my favorite
tear-jerker scenes and one of my favorite goosebumps scenes.
Murder your darlings? You betcha.
Cutting 40K from a manuscript you love. Things don’t
get much harder than that, right? Wrong. How about a one-page
revision letter that basically says, “Can you make the
heroine edgier, get rid of a couple of the secondary characters,
start in a different place, increase the sexual tension, and...oh,
yeah, change the hero’s occupation? Scientists aren’t
that sexy. Could you make him a spy?” That’s what
happened with Shadows All Around Her.
So I’m freaking out—at least internally—wondering
how on earth am I going to do this? How did I do it? Basically
I rewrote the entire book. New characters. New settings. A
different villain, different opening, different climax, etc.
Writing 110,000 words in a little under three months just about
killed me. But the result? Different book. Much better book.
My editor is a genius.
But what if you don’t have an editor
to put you through hell? Well, then, it’s up to you to
impose this torment on yourself.
First rule of revision. Never revise your original
file. Always copy the manuscript into a new file,
do your slicing and dicing there. Then if you decide you
cut something you shouldn’t have cut, you can copy
bits and pieces of the original and paste back into the revision
copy. Sometimes I’ll keep the two copies open side
by side so I can compare the strengths and weaknesses of
the two versions.
Second rule of revision: Don’t tackle a major
revision until you’ve had a cooling-off period of at
least a week. This isn’t always possible,
but it is ideal. Why? It’s a brain thing. First drafts
are driven by the creative right brain. Revision is a more
analytical left brain activity. Once you’re able to
distance yourself from the work, your left brain will be
able to view the story objectively. Lefty’s a real
bastard. He loves revision. He loves to criticize.
Third rule of revision: Don’t get side-tracked
into tackling major changes until you’ve read the entire
manuscript through from beginning to end. Why? Because
you need to check for pacing problems and continuity errors. I
recommend doing this read on a hard-copy instead of on the
computer. It will cut down on your natural tendency to endlessly
tweak the text. Another way to distance yourself from the
text is to curl up in a comfy chair for this initial read-through.
Pretend you’re reading a book by a favorite author.
You’re not looking for nitpicky things now, just the
big picture stuff like pacing and continuity problems. And
you don’t change them now, either. You just scribble
a comment on a sticky note, slap it on the offending page,
and move on.
But why? Why skip the nitpicky things? They need changed,
too. Yes, they do. But until you’ve completed the major
changes, changes that may require deleting the section containing
the nitpick, what’s the point? You’re wasting time
and energy better spent addressing the more important issues.
What issues? Well, I already spoke about pacing and continuity,
but you also need to check for plot holes, for logic, for conflict—which
directly affects pacing, for characterization, and for reader
orientation.
Let’s do some quick definitions here to make sure we’re
on the same page.
- First, pacing. Pacing is the rate at which
the story unfolds. Ideally it should vary, moving quickly
as the story rises to a crisis or turning point, slowing
a bit in the aftermath. I like to use a leisurely pace to
lull the reader into complacency just before zapping them
with what novelist and screenwriter William Goldman calls
a reversal, an event that slaps the characters upside the
head and sends the plot spinning off in a new direction.
Romantic scenes or scenes fraught with sexual tension
also work well with a more leisurely approach. But that
doesn’t
mean slow pacing is always good. Most of the time, it isn’t.
When someone—a contest judge, a critique partner, or
your evil brain-twin Lefty—tells you that your pacing
is off, they generally mean one of two things. One,
the story doesn’t flow; it’s choppy. Or two,
the story bores them to tears. Neither is a good thing.
But both are fixable.
- Second, continuity. This means making
sure your blue-eyed hero doesn’t suddenly
develop chocolate brown eyes in chapter seventeen. It means
you keep the timelines straight, that you don’t send
a character to school on a Sunday or have her eat breakfast
in Rome and lunch in New York on the same day. It means if
the heroine loses her purse while being kidnapped, she doesn’t
later use the nail file from her purse to pick the lock and
escape the kidnappers.
- Plot Holes: This is just what it sounds
like. A gap in the story’s structure. This happens
for me when I start with one idea and then decide another
idea works better, only I forget to go back and plaster in
the gaps. Do you know the movie Signs?
In general I liked the film. Interesting premise, intriguing
characters, wonderful setting, terrific atmosphere. And I
mean, hey, Mel Gibson. But it also had one honking big plot
hole. The aliens were brilliant enough to plan and execute
a takeover of the earth but too stupid to figure out this
world they were invading was three-quarters water, water
being the alien equivalent of Kryptonite and sarin gas rolled
into one? I don’t think so.
- Logic: Do things make sense according
to the rules you’ve established for your story world.
If one night, your heroine is driving through a lonely stretch
of desert when she’s suddenly attacked by a gang of
vampire bikers, she’d better have a really good reason
for not using her cell phone to summon help.
- Conflict: This is the fuel that drives
the story. Conflict is opposing forces, roadblocks on the
heroine’s journey. Conflict can be caused purposely
or incidentally by another character. It can spring from
the setting—a desert, an arctic wilderness, a hurricane.
It can be created by the situation or the quest. Or it can
be an internal struggle as the main character’s conflicting
beliefs launch a civil war. Some people think conflict in
a romance means having the hero and heroine argue interminably
until, passions aroused, they fall into each other’s
arms. If this works for you, go for it. But don’t think
it’s the only way to go because it’s not.
- Characterization: One of my pet peeves
is the old—and I do mean old—argument about which
is more important, plot or character. The truth is, the two
are—or should be—so closely intertwined that
they work in tandem to create a story. In one hand I hold
Cinderella and her fairy godmother. In the other hand I hold
the ball, the midnight curfew, and the lost slipper. But
until I clasp my hands together, interweaving the elements,
there’s no story. The point being, plot affects characterization
and vice versa. Characterization is how you portray your
character through thoughts—hers and others’,
through action, and through dialogue. It’s not just what she
does but why she does it. When revising
you need to ask yourself if the what and why are clear to
the reader. Does the character seem real or cardboard? Is
she too perfect, too flawed, too one-dimensional, too unlikable,
too wimpy, too aggressive, too whiny? Nothing kills a story
like an excess of internal BS. On the other hand, lately
I’ve critiqued a number of scenes that were so streamlined,
so devoid of the dreaded info dump, that it was impossible
to get a handle on the characters. I guess the key is balance.
If you’re using first person or a deep limited third
POV, you should reveal character through internal monologue
as well as through action and dialogue. Let’s look
at an example. In this first version of a scene opening,
the POV is shallow. We don’t get much idea what the
POV character is thinking. Consequently, the story suffers
from weak characterization.
Hailey Miller threaded her way through the crowded main hall
of Crescentville High School, looking for Kennedy MacCormack.
Halfway along the corridor she spotted him with blonde cheerleader
Trisha Anderson.
Hailey frowned.
Trisha giggled at something Kennedy whispered in her
ear. “You
are totally bad,” she said.
Kennedy glanced up just then and smiled at Hailey.
“Hailey,” he said. “Just who I was
looking for.”
“You were?” she said.
“You were?” A slight frown marred Trisha’s brow. She laid
a hand on Kennedy’s arm.
“Yeah.” Kennedy said. “You promised
to loan me your physics notes so I could cram for the test
this afternoon, remember?”
Trisha snickered.
In this second version, the POV is much deeper. You
know exactly how Hailey is feeling throughout.
Hailey Miller threaded her way through the crowded
main hall of Crescentville High School even though
she knew the detour would make her late for P.E. What was
a tardy slip when compared to a possible face-to-face with
Kennedy MacCormack?
Halfway along the corridor she spotted him. Unfortunately,
he wasn’t alone. Blonde cheerleader Trisha Anderson had
her bouncy D-cups pressed up against his chest.
Hailey frowned, irritated with Trisha for being there and
irritated with her barely-graduated-out-of-a-double-A self
for experiencing an undeniable twinge of boob envy.
Okay, dilemma time. Should she approach Kennedy as planned
or just fade into the crowd unnoticed?
Trisha giggled at something
Kennedy whispered in her ear, then batted her mascara-caked
lashes. “You are totally bad.”
Not to mention totally
gorgeous, totally buff, and totally sexy. If this were a fairy
tale, Trisha would be the witch who’d placed Prince Kennedy
under a spell that only she, Hailey, the one true princess,
could break. “I wish,” Hailey
muttered under her breath.
Kennedy glanced up just then and
smiled at her.
Her knees went weak. Her heart stuttered.
“Hailey,” he said in that husky baritone that made everything that
came out of his mouth sound like the prelude to seduction. “Just
who I was looking for.”
And in that perfect moment of crystalline clarity, the
prince recognized the one true princess.
“You were?” Hailey
was proud of herself for not A. tripping over her own feet,
B. dropping her backpack, or C. sounding as pathetically
needy as she felt.
“You were?” A slight frown
marred Trisha’s flawless brow.
She laid a proprietary hand on Kennedy’s arm.
“Yeah.” Kennedy
smiled at Hailey, his chocolate brown eyes as sweetly seductive
as the M&Ms to which Hailey was so hopelessly
addicted. “You
promised to loan me your physics notes so I could cram for
the test this afternoon, remember?”
Trisha’s snicker
fell halfway between relief and mockery.
Do you see the difference?
- And finally, Reader Orientation. This
refers to setting. Is the reader firmly grounded in time
and place at the beginning of each scene? Additionally, is
it clear whose head we’re in?
Okay, so we’ve let the manuscript cool off, then we’ve
done that initial faux-reader read-through and let Lefty do
his thing. Some people recommend recording your comments during
this phase. If that works for you, fine. I prefer sticky notes.
As Jenny Crusie says, many roads to Oz.
Next, do a second draft, incorporating all your sticky note/recorded
fixes. Then read the whole thing again beginning to end. Are
you tempted to skim? RED ALERT time. If you, the proud author,
are bored, imagine how your potential readers will feel. Cut
the boring stuff. Slash-slash. Snip-snip. Delete, delete, delete.
Do you have unnecessary scenes? Cut them. Have you promised
a scene you failed to deliver? Add it. This doesn’t happen
to me often, but once in a while, particularly toward the end
of the book, I’ll rush the narrative. In the original
version of Run No More, for example,
I didn’t show the physical process Tasya went through
when she time traveled from the present back to 1972. I didn’t
even realize I was shortchanging the reader until my editor
pointed it out. So I added that scene, and as a bonus, it’s
one of my favorites in the book.
During this draft, you’ll probably find a few more character,
conflict, plotting problems, etc. But this time you don’t
have to take notes. Just fix each problem as it crops up. And
while you’re at it, spend some quality time on the opening
scene, the whole first chapter. Focus extra attention on the
ending, too. Make it as perfect and satisfying as you can.
Then read the manuscript again, on the computer this time.
Your goal? A copyediting run. Check for awkward constructions
and grammatical errors. Delete every unnecessary word, every
unnecessary scene, no matter how much it hurts. I aim for a
10% reduction in verbiage. This is where I attack the descriptions,
the dialogue tags, the adjectives, the adverbs. Look for hackneyed
phrasing, clichéd dialogue, misspelled words. This is
also the pass where I search for repetitions, repeated words
or situations. Unless you’ve done it knowingly for emphasis,
repetition is a bad thing. Repeat after me: Repetition is a
BAD THING.
Now would be a good time to send your baby off to a select
group of trusted first readers. If one reader says Character
A is believable, but Character B doesn’t work, yet another
reader likes Character B but hates Character A, then leave
the manuscript alone. When critiquers disagree, the rule says,
tie goes to the writer.
But if all or most of your critiquers say your ending is unsatisfying
or the pacing is off, then it’s time to listen. Listen
and fix, but don’t make any changes that go against your
gut instinct.
Do your final tweaks. Then read the story one last time. Out
loud. If it makes sense and you still like it, that means you’re
done.
And so am I.
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