Tag Archives: novel revision

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Bad advice

Bad advice is one of those topics that comes mind whenever I discover a problem somewhere in my work, and realize I actually understand what that problem means. Sometimes, it’s just that I didn’t realize what exactly the problem was, even after being told about it.

One good example of bad advice comes with technical problems. You know: spelling, grammar, punctuation and so on. I see those sorts of things as mistakes more than actual writing problems. Yes, those are elementary parts of the craft and I shouldn’t be making those sorts of mistakes if I consider myself even somewhat serious. My least favorite is “perhaps you should get a grammar book.” My position is that this is bad advice. It’s simply not helpful for someone who doesn’t necessarily know what the problems are. Not only that, people make mistakes. One of the things I’ve learned, working where I do, is the faster you work, the more mistakes you make. It doesn’t matter how good you are, these happen. So, in your story, or novel or whatever, even re-reading often doesn’t catch these kinds of problems. Why? Well, because, you’re probably working with 50-80K (or more!) words. On top of that, you’re one person who is also intimately familiar with the work and like it or not, you are probably skimming over large portions of text. If, indeed, someone has a truly heinous grammar, the surest way to prevent them from addressing it is to tell them their grammar looks as though a 6-year old wrote it. A better solution, if possible, is to offer to mark up a few pages to point out the mistakes they’re making and perhaps even an explanation as to why it’s wrong. One of my most egregious transgressions are run-on sentences. When I was first told this my reaction was: What the hell does one of those look like? Well, I can identify them now, still make the mistake though.

Another example is something like: “Your characters are flat.” or “The characters don’t really have their own voice.” Again, when I first started, I got this a lot (still get it actually, but I’ve got better ideas on how to fix the problems, and what it means to the story if I don’t) The only thing this advice did was make me ask: In what way? How? The main reason I think this bad advice is because it’s really only unhelpful criticism. For writers who are likely to argue back about any particular suggestion (Don’t pretend you’ve never done this, if you’re trying to be a writer or are, you have.), this sort of advice is going to be summarily dismissed. I can’t say what the correct advice might be for any given situation, except to say that it should be a full-on discussion, pointing out why you think this might be a problem, and a couple of suggestions as to how it could be remedied. Whatever you suggest is almost certain to be shot down in the end, but an alternative solution the writer dreams up is far more likely. For me, this approach helps to illustrate the problem and gives me a sense of what might work for remedies. This sort of feedback usually goads me into some sort of revision, which, inevitably, is better.

The worst advice ever, however, is the writer who refuses, point blank, to take it. Sometimes that’s the right decision, but unless the explanation to yourself is super-clear and actually works to make the story better in some fashion, it’s not. Every writer hands out his or her work to be reviewed and commented upon. A lot of the time all we get back are cliched and unhelpful remarks that don’t actually get at the heart of the problem. If your reviewer has pointed something out, even if it is unhelpful, odds are quite high that an actual problem exists, and you should get a second opinion. When you do get some good quality advice it is essential to consider it. When a reader tells you something that boils down to: ‘your first chapter seems to be building up too much with no pay-off’ (I got advice very much like this and the advice was satisfyingly specific, with suggestions.) you have to listen. Perhaps the best thing to do is set it aside and think about it, but the bottom line is: If you really want to make the best story possible, you have to take advice.

I could totally go on about this topic forever, but I think I’m done with my rant for now. Moral of the story: Advice should be specific and focus on remedies, Advice should be seriously considered. I’ll probably complain more about it at a later date.

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Ripples in the space time continuum

So, I got all my stuff together reasonably early this morning, so I got to go to the coffee shop and spend a few quality hours getting all jittered up and and writing. Except for the fact that I can hardly sit still just now, I feel good about the progress I’ve made so far. Tonight looks good to make quite a bit more progress as well. Of course, I haven’t checked my work e-mail, so all that could change.

Sometime this past week, I was thinking hard about one of my main characters, and realized the voice I’d tried to give him wasn’t working. It didn’t make for consistent reactions through different parts of the story. It took a bit more character history writing to figure out what voice would work, but I think I got there. So, my task today was to go back through and revise three or four chapters, hitting all of the spots where one of these characters appears, in order to work on giving him that new voice.

After bopping around for a while, updating dialogue, and feeling super good about myself, I hit a point where one of the characters had been written to react in exactly the opposite manner than he had done in an earlier chapter. I wouldn’t have even thought about it except that I was reviewing all of the conversations for consistency of voice, and this one was obvious. It wasn’t a major problem, I don’t think, I just went back and added a few sentences to explain the change his position on the matter, the circumstances already set it up for him to change his position anyhow. Unfortunately, this edit brought my attention to other issues of consistency. Mostly stuff about who said what and when.

Needless to say, this became an exercise in flipping around through all of the chapters to make sure everyone was reacting to situations in a consistent manner, as I progressed through the dialogue re-writing. For the most part, I was looking for instances where new information was being presented as known, or known information was being presented as new. Nothing seemed to require major changes, just a few well-placed sentences, and in a couple instances a paragraph or two. A lot of the inconsistencies appear to have come from earlier revisions where I was smoothing out dialogue so it felt more natural, and less like an information dump. Based on the issues, it appears that I had moved a bit of explanation, then removed it later because I think I thought it had been addressed somewhere else. I’m nearly to the point where I’m back to working on new material, and so it should be easier to prevent those inconsistencies.

I don’t know what the point of this post is, except that I’m making progress. I suppose this is also a note to be careful when you’re revising, even small details, because they can have a way of rippling outward in your story from the point the change was made, even if it’s a tiny change. The longer you let those go, the bigger they’re going to seem to the reader.