Pushing Through the Final Edits

 am in the final (relative term) edit stage of WIP #1. I thought I’d be done sooner than this, partly because I am getting tired of working on this one story and want to move on, and partly because I didn’t know what else to do to it!

So when Kitty suggested we meet for a writer’s retreat I thought this would be the ideal time to knock out those final edits. (FYI–It’s scary just how many books two writers bring with them on a writer’s retreat!) I brought ALL my WIPs with me—notebooks, partials, outlines—just in case I finished the final edit on said WIP. Ha! HA!

Just when you think you can’t do anything else…you find out you can. You just have to stretch yourself a little further. Push through the hard parts and get it done.

My plot inventory gave me that big picture look. Then it became the tool that allowed me to systematically examine each scene a la Jordan Rosenfeld.

Then Kitty turned to her huge stack of books and handed me “Revision & Self-Editing” by my new BFF, James Scott Bell. His book is a great overview of all my favorite writing principles—all in one book. Chapter 16 offers the Ultimate Revision Checklist which helped kick-start my mid-week editing slump.

The tip I am working through now is the one that helps you set the mood or tone of the novel. Make a list of words you want your readers to feel when they read your book. Then come up with a list of sensory words that go with each word. His example is to take a word like “outrage” and come up with word associations like: red, fire, noise, crashing, screams, bitterness (p.247). Now you can go through your novel adding these sensory words like “spice”—“They work best when applied sparingly but for a purpose.”

Seems so simple and obvious, but why didn’t I think of it? Tips like this make Mr. Bell my new BFF.

So where am I now on this WIP? I am at the stage where I’m paying close attention to the words and word pictures I use. I’m reading (and studying) the language used in “The Book Thief” by Marcus Zusak. His words are simple but pack a punch. Do mine? Will mine?

Examples: p. 62 describing a marching Nazi Party: “…their faces held high, as if on sticks.” And then someone watching the march: “…who stood like a human-shaped block of wood, clapping slow and dutiful.” 

Or this on p. 80: “She was the book thief without the words. Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would ring them out like the rain.”

Madeleine L’Engle said, “Your goal is to make the book as good a book as you can possibly write at this particular stage in your life. And you don’t stop until you’ve done that, and when you have done that, it’s a mistake to play around with it because then you’ll just succeed in ruining it. You begin to sense the point at which you have done as much revising as you can do. It’s not exactly right, you haven’t served it as well as it should be served, but that’s as far as you can go.” – Madeleine L’Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life p. 224

I can still tell that I’m not done yet, but each time I force myself to do the hard work of editing, I get a little closer.