Forum / Okay you novelists -- how do you do it?

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Sep 24, 10:12am

Not the first draft, but the second, third, fourth, ... nth drafts? That is, the revisions?

Do you tip-toe lightly the first few times, removing pesky adverbs, replacing weak nouns and verbs? Or do you wade in with a hack-saw and surgically excise characters and scenes? Do you take a systematic approach (plot arc, POV/tense, character, motivation, style, prose clean-up, yada-yada-yada) or do you pick at your manuscript like the leavings of a buffet?

I'm curious. I'm in the thick of revising my second novel, it's so different from the editing/revision process of my first (I didn't know what the heck I was doing the first time around, and not sure I know any better the second time). The first half or so is pretty pristine but the behind end is a mess, and I'd love some convo on different approaches to whipping novels into shape. Peace...

Susan Gibb
Sep 24, 11:21am

Hi Linda,

I love revising, though of course, I used to hate it. Now I sort of edit as I go, particularly in longer pieces where each time I get back to it, I read, if not from the start, from a few paragraphs prior to where I left off, and tweak before continuing the writing.

I also used to tread lightly but now it's with that "is this really necessary to say?" frame of mind and delete ruthlessly if I can't answer honestly that it is.

Close-reading, to me, has become a natural thing, and I read books the same way. Not looking for hidden meanings or metaphors, but for phrases and style, and voice, etc. while I follow the story. Most of my book reviews are written based on happening upon a phenomenal bit of writing that I want to share because it struck me so.

Of course, it's always more difficult to read your own than someone else's for rewrite, but I think that with the type of fine writing I've seen you produce I doubt that you'll go wrong on the rewrites.

James Lloyd Davis
Sep 24, 11:32am

Good question. I've completed two novels that are not very good, half-finished another two that I think are worthy & will try to publish, and have outlines for three more, no, four more.

This is what I've learned, or, what I do:

I start with an ending, go back and write the first chapter. I do characterizations, bios of all the characters ... including dates. I might roughly outline the story with an idea of how to get from the first chapter to the ending. Then I write the book without stopping to edit.

When I think I'm done, I set the whole thing aside for at least a couple of months, then begin the first edit with an eye to continuity. My second edit, I'll play with what's written, first by removing the first one to two chapters to see if they are relevant to the story line or simply backstory that should be omitted. This second edit is brutal. I look at every scene in terms of the reader's needs, cut at least a third of them ...

After I cry and moan over the really great stuff that I cut out because I know some editor with no eye for beauty and truth will condsider it dross, I begin a third edit, adding more relevant scenes, more spare, poetic lines that I know the reader will enjoy and that do not detract from the movement of the novel.

Then I set the whole thing aside for a couple of months and come back and do a few more edits, which are mostly hedge trimming and detail, grammar, spelling. In the final stage, I will add some adverbs and weak sentences so the editor won't fall asleep when he or she reads it.

Because of the time that I take between edits, which is necessary for the sake of perspective (not to mention the fact that you can get sick of your own story) I find that writing two novels, trading off between one and the other, saves time and attitude.

Three words apply for what a novelist needs:

1. Discipline.
2. Brutality
3. Megalomania

It also helps to have influential friends in publishing.

Matt Dennison
Sep 24, 11:45am

Norman Mailer said something about having to have a huge set of, uh, brains, I think it was...

Susan Tepper
Sep 24, 12:31pm

Linda, for me it's a matter of re-reading it (from a loving place within yourself, and for your characters, settings, etc). Then the needed changes will just jump at you off the page. Take it like you are reading someone else's book. No load. Just a read

Car Gonzalez
Sep 24, 07:09pm

@James

That is such great advice. I really like how much discipline you have for yourself.

I'm definitely going to follow your advice step for step. thanks;)

Matt Dennison
Sep 24, 07:30pm

"In the final stage, I will add some adverbs and weak sentences so the editor won't fall asleep when he or she reads it."

Ha!

(Luckily I had just put down my coffee. But the cashews flew!)

Matt Dennison
Sep 25, 02:19am

Linda (and all you other novelateers):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one

(scroll on down page...)

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Sep 25, 06:10am

Great responses here -- thanks all!

@SusanG -- I share your love of revising, usually. It's the first draft that's painful, at least this last go around. (Funny how every novel does not look, read, behave, or smell like the one before. Just like my children. But I digress.)

I like your edit as you go. That's what I did with the first half (why so squeaky pristine) but after two years of slow writing felt the need to write to the end (why such a disaster). Perhaps I'll rewrite the back-end entirely from scratch.

@James -- Very contrary to Susan's approach. Very methodical, and as a scientist, I like structure.

A question: When you are in the 2nd edit (cutting phase) do you go through in one fell swoop and hack to get the pain all at once, or is it a slower process?

I think I need to let stuff marinate. I AM sick of the story.

DISCIPLINE. BRUTALITY. MEGALOMANIA. << new mantra. Think Rome (just watched the series on dvd - whoa!) and I'll be fine.

And KUDOS for you for keeping not one, but TWO worlds and sets of players in your head at once! I am thrilled to not call my kids by my characters' names, and not write my kids' names into the book. I often lapse at work, though; several folks serve as 'role models' for my antagonists.

I will gladly share your influential friends in publishing ;^) I'd share mine, but alas, I have none...

@SusanT -- I appreciate the loving place in your heart perspective. I need to remember that. It means being in a good place. Thanks.

@Car -- Yes, there is such great advice here at fn -- welcome!

@Matt -- Brains? I got brains! One of your cashew bits hit off my nose.

Thanks for the Guardian link. I'd seen it before but the reminders from Leonard are so point on they require reiteration.

Beyond the nuts, lots to munch on here. I appreciate your throughtful responses.

One more question: In revising, how important is your 'gut' reaction in guiding your decisions?

And another question: Using your approach, how long does it take you to finish a novel?

Peace, and happy weekend!

James Lloyd Davis
Sep 25, 08:32am

Linda, regarding the second edit and your question about 'gut' reaction:

If I was writing one those recipe books for novelists, which you've probably seen and maybe read, I would devote an entire chapter to the second edit and call it 'samurai synthesis.'

The cutting brutality of this second edit requires two things, three things actually, but the third is a mindset.

The first rule and motivation of the second edit, achieved by the removal of excess, is to serve a purpose, the defined product, the central theme of your novel, and its intent. The story is all. Every word, every scene either aids or detracts from that story. Before you go into that cutting process, you must decide the priority, which is the intent and the content you need in order to tell the story. A novel is neither a treatise nor a travelogue, it's a story. There is nothing wrong with lyrical, florid description, or even philosophical revery, but if it detracts from the mood of the scene or the purpose of the story, your reader will become impatient. Don't lose the reader's attention.

The second goal is refinement, also achieved by the removal of excess. Refinement may seem like the first goal, but it's not. Refinement is the elimination of things which may actually have relevance to the scene or the story, but are actually better served in the 'assumed' backstory. Give your reader credit for brains enough to perceive these assumptions through reasonable and reasoned exposition.

This second edit, which involves wholesale removal of seemingly good material requires more than mere brutality. In order to approach it with intelligence, you must be detached and reasoned.

Mindset:

And this is where the term, 'samurai synthesis' is applicable and not merely clever. A novelist loves the beauty of a wide scope. It's the nature of the novelist, his or her preference and predilection toward the freedom to revel in the wide open range. It is a joy to work with a liberal, expansive budget of words, to build thoughts and ideas on a scale permitted by the far-flung boundaries of a novel.

You love your thoughts, your ideas, your prose ... and to a much greater degree than your reader ever will. In order to make the required cuts, to exercise the brutality necessary to remove what you believe is good and poetic and fine in order to serve the greater idea, the greater good of the novel's intent, requires a cold, calculating, purposeful mind, the zen mind, the 'no-mind' which is entirely detached from self interest and therefore more naturally attuned to the goal, the end result.

And what's even worse is that you will be cutting things that, in subjective perspective, actually DO have value. They are good and worthy ideas, well expressed. You have to put aside your feelings.

In the second edit, gut reaction is of no use at all. Following your instincts is best applied in the first draft, the most creative phase in writing a novel. The second edit is also a creative process, but much more rational, goal oriented, a literally cold process.

How long will it take to write a novel? Finishing a novel can take years. How many years is subject to so many and personal variables that I doubt anyone could say what is 'normal.' I would never put a time limit on any novel, but concentrate more on the discipline of writing every single day. Even when I worked for a living, I would take the time to write every day.

But, again, this is MY method. What works for you, for Susan, for anyone else, is and must be a personal process. It certainly wouldn't have worked for Kerouac, would it?

Julie Innis
Sep 25, 11:02am

Enjoying this thread. Thank you, Linda, for posting it. Out of curiousity, has anyone ever attempted to workshop a novel? I've only workshopped my short fiction because I don't like to share unfinished work, but I'm in a position now with my novel where workshopping might be useful, maybe??? I don't know. New territory for me. Thoughts, perspectives appreciated.

James Lloyd Davis
Sep 25, 11:31am

Julie, I've found workshops helpful for a novel, but NEVER during the first draft. I made the mistake of workshopping a novel in progress and had to subsequently stop writing that novel for nearly 4 months because ... simply because the feedback I got on one character was entirely negative. In the end, that character proved to be the most remarkable one that I've ever developed.

As a rule, now, I never workshop anything but short fiction. It's entirely possible that you cannot expose a portion of a longer work to a group when they have no contextual vision of its entire vision. Even if you try to provide that context in outline form, you cannot possibly do so to the point that a reader can grasp the relative importance of a character or point of relevance in the exposition of the story line. Any feedback you get may be a terrible mistake and could even cripple the artistic thrust of your novel.

If there are people you trust, show them the whole thing, but only in the latter stages. Even then, be careful about accepting their critique. Trust yourself. In the end, it's your work and your name will be on it, with all that implies.

Ann Bogle
Sep 25, 12:02pm

In graduate school at Binghamton, I studied The Novel with Larry Woiwode. The method he taught stays with me, though it represents only one way to write a novel. You begin by deciding how long your novel will be. I wanted to write a novella of 120 pages. The goal is to draft it in 3 months. The first draft is handwritten in pencil. Do not reread what you have written until the first draft is complete.

In workshop we discussed praxis but not the details of our stories, and we did not workshop chapters. When your first draft is complete, redraft by typing on a typewriter, then at a computer, and so forth. I admit I gave up writing by pencil early and finished drafting with pen then typed the first draft at the computer. I was always going against guidelines -- these were guidelines not rules -- and in my opinion, it showed. During the last two weeks of the semester we read our first chapters aloud.

I'm still working on this book, a 35-page story in its present manifestation. I cut 85 pages, though Woiwode's counsel had been to go up to 300 pages. This is the second time I've done this: cut so dramatically a longer work. I began in past tense, and since it is a memory-driven novella (not a memoir, but the narrator tells the story by looking back), it made sense to keep it in past tense. In the short version, I cast it in present tense. I think it is less elegant and less nuanced but more immediate in present tense.

I agree with James Lloyd Davis that keeping the novel to yourself is a good idea in the early stages of writing it.

Marcus Speh
Sep 25, 12:04pm

guys, loving all this discussing & hearing about your experiences. workshopping a novel: i made the same experience as james once, except it killed the novel entirely. next week i'm going to take the first part of my first draft to my writers group but them i trust, they're wholly supportive all excellent writers and they know about the frailty of creative underage children.

Susan Tepper
Sep 25, 02:46pm

Regarding your "gut" question Linda: Go for the gut

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Sep 26, 09:06am

Dear all, what wonderful responses! Thank you for giving what feels like seminar at a fine writing conference! I so appreciate hearing of your experiences and your thoughts on novel revisions. I am learning a lot, so thank you.

@James -- love 'sumurai synthesis', perfect description of your approach. I realize as I read your comments I am still in first draft mode, still grappling with the story and the characters and working it out on the page. Even the 'polished' stuff. I am anxious now to fill in the gaps as I rushed to the end, and then begin the laying out of scenes and characters to see what to excise. Finding the dispassion may be difficult, but that's what new novels are good for, I guess (or older ones which need more work).

I had the good fortune to have some of my work read by Peter Selgin, and he takes the same ruthless approach as you. I've also come to realize there is no rush, though it is difficult when you see writing group members getting agent responses and publishing contracts.

Your points on novel workshopping are something to consider; see below. I DO have a great online writing group that I trust and for whom I am grateful.

I may not be brutal (yet!) or a megalomaniac, but I am disciplined. I write every day, in the early morning, for an hour or so. I think I've missed maybe a two weeks since I started writing almost 5 years ago. It's my excuse for not exercising.

@Julie -- I've workshopped parts of novels, usually with the express purpose of working on a particular problem or section. But the one time I took a class (online) with no agenda, like James and Marcus, I got reaction from the instructor that pretty much crippled progress on my second novel for a good chunk of the year. She told me my main character did not have a 'good voice', which sent me in a tailspin on the entire enchilada.

@Ann -- My hand hurts thinking of pencil and pen drafts! Though through each rewrite using a different tool it forces you to think and focus on the word (especially the hand written). I hand write my shorts and my poems, but not my novels (for the most part). Edits are made in pen on hardcopy.

Think of George Eliott and her MIDDLEMARCH written in one year (I believe). Interesting -- it takes courage to chop a story to 30 pages.

@Marcus -- Yay for pulling your discarded novel out of the ashes!

Thanks all, you are all contributing to my 'virtual' MFA in so many ways! Much appreciated. Peace...

Linda Simoni-Wastila
Sep 26, 09:07am

@Susan -- When it comes to cut or not, I'll take notice of my gut and then apply dispassion! Thanks so much. Peace...
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