As many of you know, I've recently received my first editorial revision letter for THE FAERIE RING. Now, I've heard this can be a very traumatic moment for some authors, receiving a sometimes lengthy letter from your editor that details areas of your book that would potentially be improved by revising. Some authors might mistakenly take this as a criticism of their work but I just have to say I love having the opportunity to work with my fantastic editor, Susan Chang, and have experienced, qualified eyes look at my story and make suggestions. What a fantastic gift! And I guess that's a key word there - Susan's approach was just that - here's a suggestion that seems like it might make the story tighter, what do you think? Giving us both a chance to discuss what we like and don't like about certain scenes (and anybody who knows me knows I always like to get my two cents in) and ultimately steer the story in a direction that will make it stronger.
A writing friend asked me to blog about my editorial revisions so I'll try to give a brief summary of my process. Keep in mind this is my first time in the revision process so I'll let you know how it goes as I move along. I envision that I'll have probably three passes before we're done.
Basically, I worked on re-structuring and simplifying the plot, enhancing the characterization and deepening the setting. What's left, you ask? uhhh... well...good point. In re-structuring the plot, there was some cutting and pasting of chapters. It's amazing how easily these chunks of story can be picked up and plunked somewhere else and it actually works better. My story is told from two different Points Of View (POV) and at Susan's suggestion, I did reduce one POV substantially, which gave the story more forward momentum. Of course, after you cut and paste and eliminate chapters you have to go back through and make sure the thread of the plot moves consistently from start to finish, which can be a bit time-consuming, but ultimately satisfying when you've finally got the spine of the story in place.
From there I worked on characterization - increasing the information the Reader learns about each character, providing backstory and description to make them more real. It's fascinating how these people really do become real in your head - you can see them, hear them and for those reading this that aren't writers, the best part is when your character goes off and does something you had no idea they were going to do, and all the author can do is follow them and keep writing - adding those fun twists and turns in the story when even the author says - you did what? :-)
Last I went back, again, and worked on adding setting details. This story is set in London in 1871 and having just been in London it was so much fun to add sights and sounds, smells etc. that evokes these places, hopefully in that era.
So basically that's it. Kind of like brain salad surgery, which totally dates me, I know. I shipped it off to Susan last night so from here I'm going to dive into the sequel to TFR and tie in the changes I just completed, until I hear from her on round two.
What about you? Have you revised before? What process do you use? Any tips?
