by James M Jackson
I have entered the final self-revision phase of my fifth
Seamus McCree novel. It’s the last step before I send it to my editor. Over the
years I have honed my revision process, making it much more efficient.
I’m a pantser (or as some prefer, “organic writer”), so I don’t
create an outline before I start writing; I begin with only a basic premise.
Ninety thousand words later, I’ve found my story. I’ve tried outlining, but
it’s a waste of time for me. As I write the first draft, I discover new things about
my characters and their stories. Soon the outline is as useful as a losing
lottery ticket.
In my early novels, I’d take the first draft and rewrite
from scene one to the end, and then repeat the process. After some (large) number
of drafts, I completed the project. That was neither an efficient nor effective
approach.
One of my favorite lines about writing comes from Justice
Louis D. Brandeis: “There is no great writing, only
great rewriting.” I’ve distilled my process to start with the largest
issues and work my way down to the tiny nits that can make the difference
between a frustrating read and an enjoyable one.
I share my process in the online course I’ve taught for
chapters of Romance Writers of American and Sisters in Crime. (I’m offering it
again this October. The details about the month-long course can be found at https://jamesmjackson.com/.) The final
step of my revision process, and the one I am performing right now with the
novel, is fixing the nits—putting the final spit shine on the writing.
With each new manuscript, I fall in love with some word or
phrase that I overuse and then need to discover and root out. But I also have
bad habits that I can only kill with conscious effort. I have developed my
personal list, which I add to when I find a new problem.
Some words are redundant. For example, I don’t need to say,
“She shrugged her shoulders or she nodded her head.” Have you ever seen anyone
shrug a knee or nod a foot? Me neither. Shrugging or nodding is sufficient (and
should not be done too often).
Other problematic words are flabby placeholders for what
could be a stronger word or indicate a sentence I should revise. Going to,
planning to, and trying to are three phrases I check to determine if a more
determinant sentence would be stronger.
You see, I like flexibility (don’t make me commit before I’m
ready) and carry that trait into my writing. Finding multiple uses of “a bit”
or “about” are leading indicators I’ve fallen into this flexibility trap. I
might write the sentence, “He walked about a mile to the liquor store.” Readers
know the character didn’t get out his ruler to make sure he walked 5,280 feet
and 0 inches. In any given novel, I’ll include about about a thousand
times before I apply the scalpel.
Do you have any pet peeves about authors’ writing styles
that you wish they would change?
7 comments:
you mean three page chapter guy reads filled with dialogue about guns, good whisky, and fast cars?
Or two page infodumps lifted from a guidebook listing the architectural details of a historic building, roof to cellar?
I'm a beta reader for a few writers, and I've learned a lot about my own writing from seeing some of their mistakes. It's always easier to spot things in other people's writing than in your own. The one thing I've noticed, and I'm guilty of, is repetitive physical reactions like shoulder shrugging, eyes widening, heart pounding, etc.
It seems like I sort maybe kind of more or less apparently take out weasel words.
Margaret -- those both sound terrible!
Grace -- We writers do fall into reaction ruts. I'm thinking of creating a wheel I can spin with 36 different emotional descriptors.
Warren -- LOL a five-word sentence bloated into sixteen with weasel words.
Grace, I enjoyed a workshop with a group of romance writers in July. They use an emotion thesaurus to identify a variety of physical emotional reactions. Try a search using that term and if I can find my notes, I'll send you the name of the one they recommended.
Thanks, Margaret -- Because of what I've noted, I purchased a book entitled, "Emotional Thesaurus." It's been widely reviewed, so that may be what everyone is referring to.
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