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Are You Ready to Edit Your Manuscript? by Jessica Bell

[I am ridiculously excited to play hostess today to a very special guest: poet, editor, musician, and all-around fascinating writer, Jessica Bell, author of Polish Your Fiction: A Quick & Easy Self-Editing Guide. Enjoy! — Julia]

ARE YOU READY TO EDIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT? by Jessica Bell

I believe that editing and revising are two completely different things when it comes to a fiction manuscript. Revising involves altering and/or amending your story. Editing involves checking and improving accuracy and clarity. So, before you begin to edit your manuscript, you need to make sure you have revised it to the best of your ability.

I’ve put together a revision checklist for you in order to determine whether your manuscript is ready to be edited for publication. If your answer is the opposite of what is in brackets after each question, then you need to revise your manuscript again before moving onto the editing stage. You also may like to ask your beta reader/critique partner these questions to get a more objective perspective on your progress.

PLOT & PACING
—Does it have a clear beginning, middle, and end? (yes)
—Do your characters evolve throughout the story, i.e. do they change? (yes)
—Do your characters encounter obstacles along the way which prevent them from meeting their goals? (yes)
—Do your characters eventually overcome obstacles? (yes)
—Are there any sections of your book which seem to drag? (no)
—Do you ever want to skip over some scenes to get to “the good parts?” (no)
—Do you feel there are any scenes which end too quickly? (no)
—Is your story driven by an underlying question that readers need to know the answer to? (yes)
—Are there any major facets of your story you could remove without affecting your plot? (no)
—Does the major thread get resolved, or at least come to a realistic conclusion? (yes)
—Does the big reveal come close enough to the end? (yes)

SHOW, DON’T TELL
—Can you visualize what you are reading as though it were happening right in front of you? (yes)
—Can you feel the emotions your characters are feeling? (yes)
—Do your characters seem flat and lifeless? (no)
—Have you made your characters real? That is, would your readers recognize your characters if they met them on the street—without you using a lot of explicit exposition to describe them? (yes)

INCORPORATING SENSES
—Is the imagery vivid? (yes)
—When a character touches something, can you feel it? (yes)
—Can you hear the dialogue (and dialects, if applicable)? (yes)
—Can you hear everything your characters are hearing? (yes)
—Can you taste and smell all references to flavour and scent? (yes)
—Are you constantly using the words see, hear, touch, smell and taste? (no)

BALANCING BACKSTORY
—Are there any instances where you feel you are being told irrelevant information? (no)
—Are there pages and pages of backstory all clumped together? (no)
—Does your story begin with the backstory of the protagonist? (no) If yes, are you sure it’s necessary to your plot? (yes)
—Have you peppered necessary elements of backstory throughout your manuscript in relevant places that move the story forward? (yes)
—Does your backstory offer significant insight into your characters’ personalities, and is it important to readers’ understanding of the plot? (yes)

ELIMINATING CLICHÉS
—Are the actions of your characters often described using run-of-the-mill phrases? (e.g. She is driving me nuts.) (no)
—Are your characters stereotypes? (e.g. an intellectual that wears glasses, or a blonde big-breasted lifeguard) (no) If yes, are you sure they’re vital to your plot? (yes)
—Have you identified a unique slant to your story? (yes)

What do you think? Are YOU ready to edit?

Bio:
Jessica Bell, a thirty-something Australian-native contemporary fiction author, poet and singer/songwriter/ guitarist, is the Publishing Editor of Vine Leaves Literary Journaland the director of the Homeric Writers’ Retreat & Workshop on the Greek island of Ithaca. She makes a living as a writer/editor for English Language Teaching Publishers worldwide, such as Pearson Education, HarperCollins, MacMillan Education, Education First and Cengage Learning.

Connect with Jessica online:

Whiskey and Me

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I’m feeling like Whiskey today. Not the alcoholic beverage, though you could be forgiven for thinking that, given the long, clichéd partnership between alcohol and writers.

No, I’m actually talking about a horse—this horse, in particular:

During my family’s recent vacation, we went horseback riding, and I was paired with a gorgeous horse named Whiskey. Once we were actually on the trail, Whiskey was a good-natured, responsive, reliable, trustworthy mount, and I really enjoyed our beautiful trail ride through the Sea Pines Forest Preserve.

I bet you noticed, though, that I started that last sentence with “Once we were on the trail,” didn’t you? Hope the placid picture didn’t fool you…

Though placid he was for the ride itself, when we were not on the trail, but waiting for others to mount or dismount inside the holding corral, Whiskey was a giant pain in the ass. Every other horse in the group—and there were maybe fifteen or twenty of us total—waited serenely and calmly and precisely on the dime where the handlers had “parked them.” But not Whiskey, ohhhh, no. He was ready to go, finished with this waiting crap. He kept inching his way backwards, trying to sneak out of line, and pestering the other horses. [Now I’m sure some vastly more experienced rider will read this and kindly decide to take it as an opportunity to instruct me in the finer points of horsemanship so behavior like this doesn’t happen with me and my next horseback ride, so let me take this opportunity to cut you off at the pass and say “Shut up. Not the point of my story.” But thanks for your generosity.]

The handler and I had to work hard (okay, maybe not so hard, more like, hard-ishly) to get Whiskey back into line while the other riders mounted, and I have to say, I was getting a little nervous. After all, there were alligators out there; what if he bolted, with me hanging on for dear life, and shot me right over his head into Lake Joe?

Fortunately, my fears were quickly allayed because, as I said, once we got going Whiskey behaved exceptionally well, which led me to conclude that earlier, he was just suffering from a surplus of exuberance and raring to go. Who could blame him? I mean, really, who wants to stand locked up in a pen when you can be out walking a beautiful trail on a beautiful day? Let’s go, already!

But of course, even though it was a lovely ride, I quickly realized when we returned to the corral at the end and had to line up and wait—again—for the other riders ahead of us to take pictures and dismount, that clever Whiskey had clearly lulled me into a false sense of security with his docile and accommodating trail behavior.

As the wait grew longer (Take the damn picture, already!), Whiskey grew even more impatient than he was before the ride, stamping and snorting, trying to butt in front of the other horses, blowing earthshaking raspberries into the dirt. He barely stood still long enough for me to dismount before bucking and galloping wildly, free at last, into the pasture where, apparently, his lunch awaited him. (Yeah, I get that way about food, too, Whiskey, I feel you.) Needless to say, I was immensely grateful that he had waited for me to get clear before he started sprinting.

Whiskey, dear friend, I so get you—you were tired of being confined, tired of standing still or plodding in a circle. You were ready to break free.

I’m feeling that now. It is, of course, what I mean when I say I’m feeling like Whiskey.

As you know, I’ve been working on my first M.A. in Fiction class for the last four months. It’s been an incredible experience, and I have learned more, and grown more, as a writer, than I’d ever dreamed I would, and I am looking forward with great anticipation to the next class I will take in the fall.

For the last four months, I’ve also only worked on reading and writing for school: creating pieces from someone else’s writing prompts, reading books and stories which, while edifying and largely enjoyable, I probably wouldn’t have chosen on my own (though now, and especially after his interview in the March/April 2014 issue of The Writer’s Chronicle, I am an ardent fan of Richard Bausch and will read everything of his I can get my hands on). While it was all part of necessary work that needs to be done, both as part of the degree program as well as of my pursuit of becoming a better writer, “necessary” takes away a lot of the joy and freedom I get from my own writing, to which I’m eager to return now. I’m ready to be free again, if only for a little while until my next class begins.

The writing I’ll return to next month includes finishing The Water Bearers, at last. This week, I’m thrilled to say, another thread of a Gordian plot knot I’ve been wrestling with has finally loosened, thanks to Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos, and a fascinating little critter called a Tardigrade:

I can’t share too much of what a Tardigrade has to do with my novel (not yet, anyway), but suffice it to say, that when I watched that episode this week with my youngest son, it was an AHA! of the greatest magnitude. Yeee Haaaaaa!

So now, with just one week of class left, the time to be placid and serene is drawing to a close.

I am Whiskey, stomping, pawing at the ground—and yes, forbid the pun, chomping at the bit. I am ready to go.

The Satisfaction of Closure

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Last month, I wrote a guest blog for author Jessica Bell’s weekly The Author Unleashed series, in which I discussed some of the reasons I’ve recently decided to finish my M.A. in Fiction. Since writing that post, I’ve realized that aside from the reasons I listed there, I neglected to include one of the most important purposes for embarking upon any course of higher education: It’s not only to learn about your subject matter; it’s also to learn about yourself.

Well, I’ve been back in class for about a month now, and lo, and behold, I’ve already learned something completely surprising about myself: I am, apparently, a closure addict.

I’m not alone in this disorder; in fact, one of the earliest victims I remember encountering was Roger Rabbit. “Shave and a haircut, two…” (Go ahead, I dare you, resist finishing that in your head.) At that time, however, I saw no similarities between the two of us and I ascribed his difficulties to the fact that he was a Toon.

It’s not only Toons who love closure, however: Recently, The Big Bang Theory spent nearly a full episode detailing Sheldon Cooper’s struggles with the problem. Oh, how I sympathized with Sheldon’s need to make that Jack-in-the-Box pop (we even had the exact same one for our kids when they were little). The unfinished Tic-Tac-Toe game, the prematurely cancelled television show—I truly felt his pain, but again, any similarities between us were, of course, merely coincidental and could be chalked up to the fact that Sheldon Cooper is a crazy television character.

No, I never really thought that I had a problem with closure, until this month when I read the short story “What Feels Like the World,” by Richard Bausch, for homework. [WARNING: SPOILER ALERT]. All through the story, I rooted for the character Brenda to reach her goal. I struggled with her, I somersaulted with her, I dieted with her, I agonized with her and her grandfather, and just when her moment arrived—her big moment, the ultimate event Bausch had been building us up to with his every paragraph, the Holy-freaking-Grail of moments in this tiny, little story—that’s when that sadist Bausch decided to end his story, right there, with no resolution, no closure, no answers. Needless to say, that’s when all hell broke loose.

Fire rained down from the heavens. Fault lines heaved open. Killer tsunamis roared destruction along every coast. Women and children wept.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a teeny bit. But boy, I was pissed. I can’t remember the last time I read an ending that left me feeling so angry, so abandoned, so betrayed, so bereft. How dare he leave me hanging like that, without knowing what happened to Brenda? I griped about it on our class discussion board. I whined about it to my kids (who yawned and changed the TV channel). I fantasized about finding Bausch and forcing him to “finish” the story. I wrote alternate endings in my head, ending them all with “Harumph. That’s how you should’ve ended it, you tosser.” I’m even still blogging about it now, a week later.

Why?

Well, the answer to that is what I was saying earlier, that I’m already learning valuable things about myself in this class (which is why I’m going to school in the first place) and one is this: I am, apparently, as addicted to closure as any Sheldon Cooper or Roger Rabbit, and it’s the short writings I’ve been doing for class that have proved it to me beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Oh, I’ve read a few short stories in my life—you can’t get out of any high school lit class without them. But it was never my favorite form. I think it’s because normally, I read so fast that the escape I seek from reading doesn’t last long enough (or take me far enough away) with a short story; I can get so much farther reading a novel.

So when everyone tells me (as they tell most other writers) to write what I love, naturally, I started with novels. That’s not to say I haven’t written any short stories; I have: One took second place in a writing competition in my online writers’ group—I think I mentioned that in this blog when it happened. Just last month, I learned that the next book in the Open to Interpretation series, Love + Lust, will include my short story “The Navigator,” to be published this summer. I can write short stories; I just didn’t realize, until this class, that I like to.

In just these few weeks, I’ve already cranked out four stories. Four! In a month! How is this possible? Well, all I know is that an idea pops into my head—in class, from homework, from a writing prompt, even from a classmate’s first line as part of an exercise—and wham-o!—out pops a story.

It’s so different from the years-long processes I’ve endured while writing my novels (partly, I think, because I also suffer from HFD—High Frequency of Distractions. It’s different than ADD or ADHD, because my lack of focus is due to external distractions: kids, dogs, phone calls, appointments, etc. No pill can cure that). Completing something good, even if it’s short, has been a delight, each and every time it’s happened. Now, a mere month in, I feel I’m a goner in the truest sense of the word.

My writing teacher keeps asking for “scenes” or “segments,” but my brain resists and cranks out a complete story each time. As part of a class exercise, she just asked for a description of a woman, a room, a place; I wrote a first draft of a story. She asked for a first line from each student in class; mine arrived with a full story attached. (Imagine how peeved I was when she told us the assignment was to use someone else’s first line. But even that was okay, because I already had stories for all of those lines, too.)

I don’t know if these stories are any good, but once they grab hold of my mind, I’m helpless before the compulsion to write to completion. I simply can’t stop, so I can only conclude that I must be a closure addict. I’m assuming my condition has gone undiagnosed to this point because until now, I’ve spent my time slogging through novels, spreading out my closure fixes far enough that I didn’t have a chance to get hooked on those multiple Endgasms writers love so much.

So there, I’ve said it. Now I’m out in the open about my problem, which, as everyone knows, is the first step towards getting help (though just what form that help might take, I have no clue).

And to think, if I’d not gone back to school, I might never have known I had a problem (of course, one could also argue that it was this class that, with its weekly short writing exercises, has, in fact, served as my gateway drug…)

Will I stop working on my novels? Ha. Clearly, you don’t understand the concept of closure addiction. I have to finish them. But I will definitely be making time for a little short story closure action on the side. And if you’re very good, I might even share some of it with you.

On Fear

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Fear. It sucks. There’s no more accurate way to say it. I don’t think we’re born to fear most of the things we do. I really believe in my heart that many, if not most, fears are acquired rather than innate. For example, I grew up on a farm, and as a child, I was never afraid of spiders. We weren’t ever going to be BFFs or anything, but they didn’t terrify me—yet.

Fast forward to Girl Scout Summer Camp, circa 1978 or so. I bounced up the steps into my platform-and-canvas tent to find I was the last of the four girls to arrive. My tentmates had thoughtfully saved my very special cot just for me—the one with the live wasp and spider nests tucked in the corner above my head.

I turned to the junior counselor, Woodstock (names have not been changed to protect the innocent; these were their actual camp nicknames), and asked if we couldn’t knock the nests down. The spider nest didn’t faze me, it looked sort of like a big, fluffy cotton ball, but I was worried about all those wasps buzzing threateningly at their new, delicious neighbor.

“Sure, let me go ask if K-2 [the head counselor] has some bug spray,” she said, smiling reassuringly.

I started to unpack, keeping one eye on those nests the whole time. After a few minutes, Woodstock returned, an unhappy frown marring her very young face.

“I’m sorry, but K-2 said we can’t kill them. They’re part of nature, she said, so you’ll just have to try not to disturb them.”

WTF?

I’m sure I didn’t actually say that—I don’t think I even knew the F-bomb back then—but I’m also sure my face expressed that thought pretty clearly.

“It’ll be okay,” Woodstock cooed soothingly. “You’re not going to spend much time in here anyway, and they won’t bother you while you’re sleeping. They get pretty quiet at night.”

I took her, skeptically, at her word, and the day did pass quickly, full of fun, sun, games, and activities. Before I knew it, it was time for bed. I stood for a long time beside the metal-framed cot, my flashlight shining directly at the two nests. I thought Woodstock might just have been right; there was not a wasp in sight, and the cotton ball nest was still just a cotton ball. I crawled into my sleeping bag on top of the lumpy cot mattress and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

As I tossed and turned, my dreams turned darker, and I soon began to see shadowy figures scrabbling all around me. One parted from the rest, growing bigger and darker as it began to chase me, faster and faster. My heart pounded as I raced through the darkened campground trying to outrun it, even as it grew ever bigger, ever swifter.

I glanced over my shoulder—big mistake—and froze at what I saw: an enormous, greasy-furred, blacker-than-hell’s-deepest-pit spider. Terror, futile and unreasoning, cut my legs out from beneath me as the monster reared up over me, fangs bared and dripping down onto me with the vilest of poisons.

I screamed. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed and I screamed and I screamed.

Hands, young and strong, grabbed my shoulders and shook me awake.

“It’s okay! It’s okay! It’s just a nightmare!” I finally stopped screaming and, shaking and sobbing, slowly became aware of Woodstock, my tentmates, and virtually every other girl in camp, crowded into our tiny tent. “It was just a dream, honey. It’s okay,” Woodstock was murmuring, full-out hugging and rocking my shaking body back and forth. “What a bad one. What was it? Do you want to talk about it?”

Haltingly, I explained what I had seen. When I had finished, Woodstock stood up straight, her face grim in the circle of flashlights surrounding her.

“That’s it. This is ridiculous. You shouldn’t have to put up with this.” Without another word, she marched out of the tent. Moments later, she returned, bearing a can of Off bug spray and a long, red broom.

“I don’t care what K-2 says, we’re getting rid of these. Now.” Woodstock hopped onto my cot and, brandishing the broom over her head, she took aim with the Off at the harmless-looking nests above my bed.

Now—up until this next moment, my fears weren’t real. They were dreams, things my subconscious had cooked up to freak me out. They simply weren’t real. But the moment that the bug spray hit, not the wasp nest, but the cotton ball spider nest—the nest became transparent.

Suddenly, what had looked so harmless, so innocent, so fluffy and so clean, turned into a wriggling, writhing, skittering mass of EWWWWWW. There were thousands of them, twisting and squirming. As their squirming became more aggressive, the nest tore open, and the spiders began dropping from the ceiling, a creepy-crawly shower straight from hell. I began screaming again (all the girls did, frankly) and ran from the tent. From the safety of the far side of the fire pit, we watched as Woodstock, Off in one hand and broom in the other, valiantly knocked both of those nests to the wooden floor and stomped on them, over and over and over again, until there was nothing left but a dark stain. In retrospect, I don’t think Woodstock was afraid of anything.

That, my friends, is how I acquired my fear of spiders.

I wish I could say that they’re the only things I have come to fear in my lifetime, but they’re not. Flying, meeting new people, being home alone at night, getting lost—I’m afraid of so many things, it’s a wonder I even get out of bed in the morning. (But I’m also afraid of muscle atrophy, so I do.)

That’s what I really want to say to you about fear, in the end. It’s that we’re all afraid of something, acquired or innate, but fear or not, we still have to DO—or we die.

When I first started writing, I was terrified to show it anyone. Once I did, I found it wasn’t so bad—most of the time. Fear conquered.

When I decided to try to enter grad school, I was scared they wouldn’t accept me. Guess what? It happened—I didn’t make it. But I didn’t die. I tried again. This year, I finally made it. Fear conquered.

When we first talked about relocating again after six years in Minnesota, I couldn’t sleep for fear of what the future would bring. But we did it, and while it has been tough at times, I would do it again in a heartbeat. Fear conquered.

Today, as I write this, I’m taking another leap that scares me to death. For over a year now, I’ve been complaining about my crummy website, but I lack the budget to hire a professional and the technical expertise to do it myself. So for the last three months, I’ve been teaching myself, step by step, and just this afternoon, I finally made the call to “point the name servers for my domain” (thank you, Technical Support Dudes, for the proper jargon and patiently answering my 122 support calls) to my new website.

Having said that, I confess: I’m in an agony of fear at the moment. They said it could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 48 hours before it will be live. I’ve already checked 22 times in the last 30 minutes—it’s not up yet.

Will it suck? Will it even work? Will it be completely screwed up? Will people know where to find me? And how do I do this whole redirect thing anyway? What if it accidentally redirects to a porn site? Well, some folks might actually like that better, but Argh! Hyperventilating! Fear not conquered, not at all. But at least I’m engaging it.

The thing about fear is that, if you let it, it can stop you from living the life you want to live. But if you face it head-on, with a can of Off and a broom, you can kick its ass. Afraid of something? Ask yourself: what’s the best outcome if I try? What’s the worst outcome if I try and I fail? Then, and this is the most important step, remember this: IF YOU DON’T AT LEAST TRY, YOU ARE GUARANTEED TO FAIL. I know, I went all shouty caps there, but this is important–I didn’t want you to miss it.

That not-even trying thing? That, right there, that’s the worst thing that can happen.

So—hopefully, as you’re reading this, you’re reading it on the New-and-Improved Justscribbling.com and it looks great! And you love it! (And you’ll tell me, so I know.) But, if you’re reading this on my normal WordPress blog site—well, then you know it didn’t go as planned. Or that it’s taking a lot longer than I hoped to find out. But at least I tried, and I will try again.

What fears are stopping you from doing the same?

The Write Before Christmas, 2013

Just Scribbling

Writer Julia Tagliere shares work and other stuff