Stages of revision 16: final copyedit and some further suggestions

 

The end or not the end?

This is the last time you’ll look at your script ….  until it’s accepted and you go through it with an editor or it’s rejected and you take another look at it, some months down the  line, before you send it out again.

Oh yes, by the time you get to this stage you’ve really polished it … and the first thing the publishing house’s editor is going to do is take it apart.

You yourself will do this as well at a later date – because fashions in writing change and you move on as a writer anyway.

To be honest, editing never ends.

 

More of a proof read?

You’ve probably got rid of most of the more obvious mistakes by now. The read aloud edit helps a lot. It may be wise here to concentrate on a few specific things. There are some things that we all get wrong frequently and there will be your own specific common mistakes. E.g. I often type “form” when I mean “from” 

Here is a suggested list but it is by no means comprehensive. It’s a good idea to develop your own list over time.

·         Is dialogue set out correctly?

·         Are you using a word too often e.g. “Gosh” “seems”

·         Is your use of the apostrophe correct?

·         Look out for confusions  such as

o   who’s / whose

o   its / it’s

o    your / you’re, 

o   to/too/two

o   their / there

o   bare / bear

o   affect / effect  

·         Are you consistent in the way you hyphenate words?  

·         Are you consistent in the way you write numbers as words (different styles recommend numbers up to twenty, up to fifty or up to one hundred – can you see which style I’m using?)

·         Are you distinguishing between generic relations – mum, dad, grandpa, and proper  nouns Mum, Dad, Grandpa  

Some proof-reading tricks

Can you bear to start at the end reading one paragraph at a time?

Complete this edit in small chunks.

But perhaps the wisest of all: ask someone else to proof read, or even pay someone else to do it.   

Change the way the text looks

This will help you to get some objectivity. You can:

• Change the font.  
• Single space
• Set it out as booklet
• Print it out as a booklet

 

A final tip

Start each stage of revision in a different place. Otherwise, you tend to rush as you get towards the end and your final chapters will receive less attention.  How many pages does your text have? Divide that by 16.  Say you come up with 25.  So start revisions 1 on page 1, revision 2 on page 26, revision 3 on page 52 etc.

Then get submitting!       

Image by  Lorenzo Cafaro from Pixabay 

Stages of revision 15: Overall flow

One down side of completing all of these edits in isolation is that you can lose the overall flow or the essential voice of the piece. The best way to test for overall flow is to read out loud.  Oh yes, that’s right – all 100,000 words of your thick-spined novel.   

A daunting physical task?

Yes it is. But drink plenty of water, limit yourself to a couple of hours at a time and have a few mints to suck.

Some advantages of reading aloud

Because you’re reading more slowly you are more likely to notice typos, missing words, spelling mistakes and punctuation mistakes.

You will also notice odd phrases that don’t quite work.

The rhythm of the piece will also show up.  Are there too many short or long sentences together? Does a paragraph go on for too long?

Should you have an audience?

Well you could try your cat. Mine used to give me a funny look when I started reading out loud but then she would start purring, Unbelievable, perhaps, she would fall asleep or walk out of the room at precisely those parts where the language jarred or where something was amiss and it made me hesitant. Alas, she is no more and we currently have no other pet. I have to make do with my miniature Buddhas.  

But here’s another suggestion. Make a video recording of you reading. When you come across a tricky bit you don’t need to stop and alter the text. You can do that when you go back and listen to or watch your recording. It is good to watch yourself.  If you notice a sudden frown there is probably something that needs altering in the text.

It’s an added bonus anyway.  You can see what you look like when you’re reading and maybe cultivate something that looks really good. 

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Stages of Revision 14: Get rid of clichés

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The effectiveness and the ineptitude of clichés

There is one thing that is very annoying about clichés; they are very good.  They are extremely apt for what they’re trying to describe and they’re hard to beat. The problem is, though, that they become tired and can make your writing seem dull, even though the cliché was spot on in the first place.  So, you need to go about it like a bull in a china shop, avoid them like the plague, and don’t get me wrong, I think clichés have their place.

Do you see what I mean?

Nothing can do quite as much damage as that bull rattling around between the plates and dishes, can it?  Is there anything you’d need to avoid more than the plague? (Covid 19 perhaps?)  and what better warning for your reader than that they may be about to misinterpret you? (Really? Isn’t it your job to make yourself clear?)

Get to the heart of the matter

You can often get underneath the cliché and work out what’s really going on and you may find that the cliché wasn’t as effective as you thought. You may come up with other similes and metaphors. Perhaps what’s happening is actually more like a toad trapped under a saucepan, or someone is procrastinating because they can’t face doing their tax return, or your character steps out of the story to tell you something unexpected about themselves.

Here are some real challenges for you. Try to describe the following without resorting to cliché:

·         What chocolate tastes like

·         What orange peel looks like

·         What rain feels like on your skin

·         What church bells sound like

Believe me, these are quite tricky.

When there is nothing that works as well as the cliché

Then perhaps you can subvert it a little. Replace your bull with an equally rumbustious animal and put him in a named store. Avoid your clichés as you would another nasty disease or situation. Anticipate your readers’ misinterpretation in another way.

Borrow from other languages

If you speak another language you may have a real advantage here. What is a cliché in one language isn’t in another. It will seem fresher in the other language.  Spanish for example is peppered with them. Here are a couple of rather interesting ones:

It had always pleased him to remain superior (or on top of!) his mother.

She had eaten the soup before midday. (Had sex before marriage and got pregnant)

And here are a few from German.

I don’t want to tread on your tie.

Don’t put your mustard on my sausage.

It’s all sausage to me. (I don’t care)

Delightfully, when there is one of those sudden inexplicable silences, the French say “It’s an angel passing by.”    

Images by Michelle Maria  and ArtTower from Pixabay 

Stages of revision 13: Kill off your darlings

This is a bit of a writers’ cliché, a little like the previous post. However, it is worth looking at  a little more closely.

What are the darlings exactly

They are those little bits of showy-off writing that actually don’t look right with the rest of your writing. You think of something clever to say and you’re rather proud of what you’ve come up with. However, ask your self- is this really that clever? Is this really part of my writing? Is this really what I want to say?

 

Two choices

These “darlings” tend to be rather short excerpts of rather rich language. They don’t fit it with the rest. So, you can either get rid of them – and you can do this by removing them completely or rewriting them into something more acceptable – or you can build up the rest of the text to match.  There are two real disadvantages with the latter.  First of all it’s a heck of a lot of work to change probably what would be over 99% of your text. Secondly, it can lead to a text being much too rich for the reader. They may feel as if they’ve gorged on chocolate instead of nutritious food. 

I remember once reading an excerpt of a text that seemed beautifully written. The language was really evocative. So, we asked to see the rest of the script. We then had to read over three hundred pages of the same style.  It was incredibly hard work and rather tedious.

 

What to do with your darlings once you’ve killed them

Maybe “kill” isn’t the right word. Maybe we should hibernate them. You may be able to use that clever turn of phrase elsewhere. Or they may serve as a reminder of what not to do.

I once crafted what I thought was a really good chapter about my protagonist and her chums stopping for breakfast. I’d worked carefully using the senses to really absorb my reader into the scene. It worked on that level, certainly.

But the verdict within my critique group? “This is really good writing but nothing happens,.  This chapter isn’t needed at all.”

I haven’t thrown it away.  One day, I’ll turn it into a piece of life writing or a short story.  In the meantime it serves as a reminder to me that the writer shouldn’t over indulge herself.    

 

Why do we do it?

I can only give you my own experience here. On the days when I feel that everything is going well I often find my writing is less good. On the days when I struggle I tend to produce better work. And those “darlings” tend to appear on the days when I think all is going well. Could it be that subconsciously I am after all aware that I’m not doing so well and the inclusion of a “darling” is an attempt to lift my writing?

Stages of Revision 12: Show, don’t tell

That old chestnut.  And I’d argue that the more advanced skill is knowing when it’s right to tell instead of show. However, no matter how experienced a writer you are it’s worth doing a separate check on this one. There are a few vey specific things you can look out for:

 

Precision

Don’t just say car – be precise. Is it a little run-around or a gas-guzzler? Is it old or new? Is it clean at the moment or could it do with a wash? What is the interior like?  Now, you don’t need to include all of those details but you at least must know them. If the picture’s clear in your head it is more likely to also be so in your reader’s

 

Writing with the senses

What can you, your character, narrator or protagonist hear, see, smell, feel and taste? Again you don’t need to be exhaustive but you will convince the reader that the story is really happening if you can make them actually experience the scene. Be aware that often we rely too much on the visual. Use the other senses from time to time. Also be aware that one sense brings the other. If you invite the reader to smell the bacon cooking, they’ll probably hear it sizzling as well and might even be able to taste it.  If you have a scene involving good food, make them hungry.

Real time

Is what you’re relating happening in real time? Your action should take as long as it takes you to write it or read it out loud.

A film in the head

Are you creating the same film in your reader’s heads as you started out with? You might be able to check this by showing your work to a writing buddy, your critique group or a reading group. . Let them read your work and then ask them some questions about it. Some surprising things can happens sometimes. You may not have mentioned the colour of your character’s hair in this passage but they may have got it anyway.

Image by sipa from Pixabay

Convey emotion through body language

Don’t tell us that he looked angry.  Show us his frown, the clenched fists or the flashing eyes.

Dialogue and body language

This is a better way of showing how a character reacts than merely telling us about it.

Showing versus fast pace

If you are showing instead of telling well you will inevitably slow the pace. However, you are sharpening the involvement of the reader. To increase the pace again you can use lots of action words and short, sharp sentences.  Short chapters help as well, especially if they have cliff-hangers at the end.  Anyway, if you have a really good story where the stakes are high that will create its own pace and tension.  In addition the real-time pace holds the answers back and this increase the reader’s tension in any case.