Revision Problems: Keeping the Pacing Regular

Irregular pacing is one of the battle cries of the critic; and I think it means that we know something is wrong, but can't quite put our finger on it.  We chalk it up to pacing.

To some extent, that's true.  Bad pacing can make a whole novel feel “off”.  It can ruin an otherwise good story—and it's got to be fixed.

And there's a way to do that.  But first, let's define just what pacing is. 

It's your novel's speed.  Sometimes readers describe novels as “fast-paced”—page-turners.  The pace of your novel is how fast the reader wants to read—and it's directly related to how urgent and tense the scene is.  The more intense the scene, the faster the pace.

So irregular pacing is where your novel alternates between a fast pace and a slow pace too often or too quickly.  A well-paced novel starts out with a certain level of tension and gradually increases the tension as the novel goes on, until it comes to a climax.  A badly paced novel starts out with a lot of tension, drops it, picks it up again—it's not measured and regular, which is where the term irregular pacing comes from.

Let me clarify that slow pacing is not a bad thing.  It can be very good if used correctly.  After all, what's a novel without a few conversations around the fire?  What about when characters are talking about their past?  What about all those deep moments that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?

Properly spaced, these deep moments can have a huge impact.  They develop the characters and endear the reader—and they give you a little bit of breathing space before going on to the next conflict of the story.  A story without slow moments feels rushed and hurried.  Even “action” movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier have slow moments where the characters just talk.

So that's good pacing—a story which ratchets up the suspense and tension, piece by piece, with slow intervals in between to give you some space and character development.  Bad pacing is where the suspense and tension runs wanders around the story like a three-year-old scribbling on a piece of paper.

So how do you fix bad pacing?

First, figure out where it is.  The biggest clue is a feeling that something is “off”, a little niggling at the back of your head that something feels wrong.

I recently encountered this while revising Chapter Ten of my novel.  My characters are en route to the worst prison in the country, and the scene I was rewriting took place shortly after a very intense conflict.

But for some reason, the scene wouldn't work.  I cut the excess dialogue (nearly three hundred of the fifteen hundred words), reworked the action beats, and did everything I could think of to make it interesting.  The dialogue was fine, the prose was fine, but it just didn't feel right.

It wasn't until this morning that I figured out what was wrong.  The pacing was off.   The fifteen hundred words of banter and character explanation just didn't feel right, sandwiched in between two high-tension action scenes.

Once you figure out where the pacing problem is, like I did, either cut or relocate the scene that's causing the problem.  In this case, I cut most of the scene,  which allowed me to maintain the tension level.  What was left of the scene, I rewrote into a separate scene that takes place after the tension drops off a bit more.

Sometimes a whole section of your story is causing the problem.  Find out why.  Oftentimes, things are too easy—I had that problem several times.  The solution?  It's easy: brainstorm ways your characters' plans could backfire or go wrong.  Then, do it!  Nothing helps a dragging scene like an unexpected disaster.

Fantastic novels are well-paced.  If you can learn how to detect and fix pacing problems, you'll be ten steps ahead of everyone else.

What about you?  What's been your experience with the mystical concept of “pacing”?

How to Revise Your Novel - Without Burning Out

Last week I started my Tornado C revisions in earnest.  I set a personal goal to revise one chapter every two days—and so far I've stuck to it.  Today I'm on Chapter 5 out of 24.  Even though Chapters 1-5 are some of the shortest in the book, I'm still surprised at how quickly I'm moving.

And what's even more surprising is how I'm not getting tired of my revisions, in what's known as "burning out".

There are different stages of burning out.  The first stage is just getting tired of what you're doing.  The second stage is where the quality starts getting affected—you start slogging through the revisions, and rather than examining your work, you're glossing over your work.

And finally, you just get so sick and tired of looking at your novel all day long that you quit, sometimes for weeks on end.  I've had these symptoms before; we all have.

But what's remarkable about my Tornado C revisions is that, up to this point, I haven't even hit the first stage of burn-out.  Sure, sometimes I feel like Facebook is more fun than revisions, but I'm not tired of it, not yet.

So what's so different about THESE revisions?

I've noticed a few different things that help keep me from burning out—and I feel a list coming on.  Here we go!

1. Be well-rested.

Besides my Will Vullerman revisions last month, and a few small projects here and there, I have not done any heavy writing since NaNoWriMo last year.

And that makes a big difference.  I'm ready to get working on a new project, and I have all of that pent-up creative energy to spend.

2. Set a modest and achievable goal.

The reason I put "modest" in there is that "achievable" needs to be modified.  NaNoWriMo is achievable.  Yet few writing bonanzas have more burn-outs than that infamous contest in November.

Setting a modest goal makes you feel like you're getting stuff done—and you are.  Just keep going at it, steadily, but don't make your goals so high that you have to crunch to meet your deadlines.  That'll keep you from burning out.

This worked really well in my own revisions.  I set a goal of revising one chapter every two days—so far it's required one or two hours a day to get it done, which isn't bad at all.

3. Be prepared.

This is, by far, the most important of the three tips, and the one I've seen make the most difference in my own novel.

My personal preparations were a little elaborate.  I started out by refining my world-building and composing several long works on culture and politics, in addition to drawing supplementary maps.  (What can I say?  I'm one of those world-building geeks.  I love it.)

Then I wrote down all of the writing tips I've found most helpful in my own life, and ones that people have recommended to me.  After that, I reread my novel, making notes as I went.  I identified all of the weakest points—the characters that didn't make sense, the rockiest parts of my prose, the plot holes, the pacing problems.

After that (I see your eyes growing wider; don't worry, I'll be finished soon) I put my writing tips and weak points together and wrote myself a revision plan.  I found all of the questions I would need to ask to revise each chapter, and I put them into my plan.  It ended up being twenty-one steps, in order from the most general to the most specific—my beginning questions had to do with plot and character, and my ending questions had to do with passive voice and adverbs and telling.

For instance, my first question was this: 1. "Reimagine the scene.  What could go differently?  What could go wrong?"  It was followed by, "Determine the goal of the scene: add setbacks and tension."

One of my last questions was, "Examine adverbs and adjectives and eliminate where necessary."  That let me deal with the big picture first, and let me end on the nuts and bolts of sentence structure.

Obviously, to be prepared, you don't have to write yourself an elaborate revision plan.  But knowing just what's wrong with your novel, and brainstorming how you could fix it, helps your revisions go smoothly and quickly.  I found that "mapping out" my plots on paper was especially helpful, since I could see the plot holes visually and try to brainstorm ways to fill those holes—through setbacks and disasters.

Remember, good stories are not written—they are rewritten.  And good concepts, too.  Look at your novel with a critical eye and try to pick apart what's wrong before you actually start revising.

If you're prepared, well-rested, and you have a set goal—well, I can't imagine a better way to keep from burning out!

What about you?  Have you found any tricks that are especially helpful in avoiding burn-out?

Revision Isn't Just For Novels

...it's for plans, too.

So my late but great summer writing plan didn't exactly go as planned, so I've revised my goals to adjust to the onset of school.

First things first: Tornado C. Since I'm doing it with One Year Adventure Novel (albeit with a few adjustments), my mom and I are counting it as part of my language arts. Thus, I have a daily assignment – to write in Tornado C.

Since we were gone most of August, this week was my first week of the official school year. To balance out my pre-calc (insert shudder here) I've been working on Tornado C. I've hit 18,000 words just today and I hope to write more tonight.

And yes, my brevity is still feeling under the weather. I'm probably two thirds or three fifths of the way through chapter five (out of twenty-five outlined chapters). Chapter six is shaping up to be long, since it's the one-fourth milestone and contains a crucial turning point. The farther I get into the book, the longer it seems to get. It may even get as long as 100,000 words – by far the most massive thing I'll have ever written.

After school I'll have some spare time. I typically finish my homework somewhere between two and four in the afternoon, depending on how long I snoozed my alarm in the morning. The rainy season is still in full force here, so I'm spending a lot of my time indoors. That means I have plenty of times for writing; in the coming month, I'm hoping to work a lot on Tornado C and other projects.

However, there's two big problems here. First, since we do a lot of schoolwork on the computers, their batteries are usually dead by mid-afternoon. Why not recharge? Well, we don't turn on our generator until seven o'clock PM on most days, which means that we have no electricity during the day.

The second problem is that I arrived back from America to discover that my computer is pretty much fried. The keys don't work properly, probably because of the constant rain and humidity provided by the rainy season. Thus, that computer is as good as scrap now. (The day we left for America, however, I backed everything important up on an external hard drive, so I've lost nothing but some random pictures.)

These two elements are a big handicap to my writing, but I've been utilizing my mom's computer for the time being, and the arrangement is working well.

Further plans? Right now, I'm beginning to turn my attention to my Will Vullerman stories again. I hope that, after some rigorous rewriting and revision, I'll have those published as ebooks sometime in the next two months. (At LEAST before 2013. I hope. But sometimes these things take longer than you want them to.)

Before I publish them, however, I plan on offering these stories for free to all of my blog followers. I don't really like milking my blog followers for money, honestly. I'm aiming these stories more at the average Joe who happens to scroll by it while browsing Amazon, rather than making money off of family and friends.

When I publish my Will Vullerman stories, I'm planning on utilizing KDP Select. It's an Amazon program that lets my stories be available to borrow in the Kindle Lending Library, and also allows me to put my stories up for free for up to five days a month. Sounds good, right? It's free, but it does require one thing: exclusivity. That means these stories won't be available for Nook, iBooks, etc. (This means that I won't be able to give the file to anyone, since that would violate the KDP Select agreement. That's why I'll be offering my stories to you guys BEFORE I publish them.)

I didn't use the KDP Select route for The War Horn, though. Why do it now?

Well, honestly, my TWH sales through Smashwords (which distributes to Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, and others) have been next to nothing. Trading those meager sales for the opportunity to advertise my stories for free seems to be a good trade – for now. It's an experiment. If I do well with Will Vullerman, I may pull it off KDP Select and load it to Smashwords.

Depending on when I get my WV stories published, I've got more Will Vullerman stories brewing in my head that I want to write. One in particular has caught my attention: the tentative title is “Zero”. I'm having trouble keeping my self-control, though. I'm trying really hard not to write them before I get the others published. ;)

Oh, and by the way, I finally figured out, totally on accident, why I nicknamed my novel Tornado C. Today, I wrote this sentence: “A titanic beam of fire, wider than a man, hurtled down from the sky like a cyclone, and struck the ground with a thunderous crackle-BOOM.”

Trick word in that sentence is “cyclone”, or tornado. ;)

(And yes, that sentence needs lots of polishing, but you get my point.)

So what about you? How's school coming along? Have you written anything of note? Read anything good? Let me know. I always read your comments, even if I don't reply.

Some Thoughts on Revision

I've always prided myself in having high-quality prose. In my head, I knew that good books aren't written; they're rewritten. But still, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

Thus, I've felt that I didn't need revision quite as much as other people. I thought I could create good books without too much editing. I mean, I do use revision quite a bit, but in the case of my Will Vullerman stories, I've done little to no revision and they turned out pretty well.

Was I wrong? Absolutely.

I received a critique of The Thirteenth Call the other day that was pretty critical of the story. To the critiquer's credit, he told me what was wrong with the story with fantastic politeness and respect and really did a great job. Still, it hurt a little bit. Wasn't the story "good enough"? If that story wasn't good, what was?

I think, in a way, that critique was a bit of a knock on the head from God. Learn from my experience, fellow writer: don't get so puffed up in the head that you don't see mistakes when you make them! I was feeling pretty good about myself up until then. But I'm not supposed to feel good about myself; I'm supposed to feel grateful to God that He has used me to write such stories. I need to hold my stories to a higher standard, and cut off Pride's head while I'm at it.

Now that I've had some time to mull it over, I realized my mistake: I thought that The Thirteenth Call was good enough not to revise, in addition to that silly thing called Pride.

Here's my advice: always look for places to better the story. Don't settle for "good enough". And most of all, don't think that great prose makes a great story. That was the downfall of The Thirteenth Call. What I needed to revise was my plot and character, not my prose.

Revision means looking critically at EVERYTHING in the novel, not just the prose. The pacing of the story was good, the prose was good, the dialogue was good; but that blinded me to the fact that a few of the characters were shallow and one-dimensional, and that there was very little emotional difficulty in the story.

Now that I'm finished with The Immortal Man (finished it yesterday at 8.5k), I plan to set my Will Vullerman stories on the shelf for a while, and then pull them out to revise later on. I'm planning on some pretty heavy-duty rewriting for The Thirteenth Call especially.

Take it from me, writer. Your story always needs revision, no matter how good you think it is after you finish it. Send it to people and they'll identify your flaws for you. But send it to more than one person, and don't rely on critique from your family. (I've found that their critiques often amount to, "It was good.")

And as a side note, wait 'til the story's done to revise. Otherwise, you'll get distracted.

You'll find that revision will make your story shine. It'll turn out so much better if you look at everything with a critical eye and try to find places to improve.

And a great story that's been polished is what's going to get your name out there, not a decent story with little revision.

Want to Pre-Read The War Horn? Read This Post!

There comes a time where a writer gets so familiar with his work that he can no longer detect what mistakes may remain.  You can always keep revising, but the work in question will never be perfect.  Novels that are actually published aren't perfect, they're mostly perfect.

With The War Horn, I've done all the editing that I can do.  The final revision is finished.

So what do you do?

You get pre-readers to read the work in question.

And, my blog readers, those pre-readers are you, and this work in question is The War Horn.

Yes, readers, your wildest dreams have come true. (At least, I hope that this is your wildest dream. O_o) This post is the "READ THE WAR HORN FOR FREE!" post.

This'll be very simple.  There will be five lucky people who get to pre-read The War Horn.  However, before I go on to explain how these five lucky people shall be chosen, I need you to read something.  In order to pre-read The War Horn, you need to be able and willing to do three things:

First, you need to be able to read the War Horn within two weeks, if not sooner.  The War Horn is just over 110 pages print length, a quick and easy read, so this shouldn't prove to be any trouble for you.

Second, if you have any feedback whatsoever, please send it to me.  If you see a typo or an inconsistency or a passage that just strikes you as awkward, let me know.  This is the last polish before The War Horn is put for sale, so it's important. (This doesn't mean that you should do an in-depth critique.)

Third, if you liked the book, please write a paragraph of one hundred words or less telling why you liked the book, and send it to me in an email. This will be the equivalent of an "endorsement" and will go in the front of the book, along with your name or alias.  (If you're willing, you can also put your age in the endorsement, and your blog address, if you have one, but those are both optional.)

By participating in this pre-reading contest, you agree that you are able and willing to do the above.

Now, what do the readers get out of it?  You will, of course, get to read my novel before everyone else, and get your name in the front of the book with your endorsement.  Like I said before, the endorsement bit is only if you liked the book.  In addition, I'll mention all of the pre-readers - whether or not you actually liked the book - in the acknowledgments.

Here's how you can get your name in the hat:

Comment below (or email me) and tell me you want to pre-read The War Horn.  Include your email in the comment, or, if you're not comfortable with that, send it to me in an email.  That's it.  If you want to earn an extra "entry" in the hat, you can blog about it.  Send me the URL either through a comment or an email to validate your entry.

If you have a preference for format, let me know in the comment section while you're entering.  I can send it to the winners in either .doc, .pdf, or .prc format. (PRC is Kindle's format.  If you have a Kindle, all you have to do is hook it up to the computer and copy-and-paste the file.  You can then read it on your Kindle.) If you don't specify a format, I'll send it in .doc.

The contest starts right now and will close next Friday, on the 3rd of February.  Once the contest closes, I'm going to literally draw five names out of a hat. If you win, I'll email you a copy of The War Horn in your format of choice, as well as write a short blog post announcing the winners.

Let it begin!  Allons-y!

Back—In Blue

I'm back, but not in black. I'm wearing a faded blue Kansas shirt. (Faded because my poor *snif* Kansas shirts are slowly deteriorating. That's your cue, Darth Vader: "NOOOOOOOOOO!")

And guess what? It's another update. Not quite as exciting as something like "GET A FREE COPY OF THE WAR HORN!" (although that's coming soon, muahahaha!). However, I hope it proves to be informative, if not entertaining.

Right now, I'm still hard at work with The War Horn.

You see, I lost a day this past week, and I still can't figure it out. All of a sudden, it was Friday, and I didn't even know what had happened. I seriously thought it was Thursday. So that meant that schoolwork went in Blue Overdrive mode and also produced a vial of Stop Writer's Cramp because of some weird chemical reaction. Go figure.

See, that's much more interesting than "I was busy with school so I couldn't revise", wasn't it?

However, sources tell me that I said to my parents, "The War Horn will be finished on Sunday!" so we'll see what happens. If that's true, then the "GET A FREE COPY OF THE WAR HORN" post will be coming soon to a blog near you.

For a more serious update, here's a post-within-the-post in reply to some comments made on my previous post.

Firstly, I do eat one meal a day. And now I can't think of eating three meals a day. Meh. (And, while I'm on that thought, I find it funny that people say "How can you survive on one meal a day?", because it's perfectly normal here.) It's a wonder I didn't swell up and roll around like a soccer ball. Or football, as the locals call it. I think I'll forever eat this much in times to come. In all seriousness, though, our entire family is a lot healthier than we were two months ago because of our change in diet.

However, the conditions we live in are not as healthy. It's almost crazy, what's been happening. My sister, when we first arrived, had an extremely minor case of typhoid. But that was just the beginning, and it centers mostly on our pets. Every single one of our pets has had some sort of accident or sickness that could have proven fatal, or did.

So here it is: we got a dog, it died; we got a mongoose and it temporarily paralyzed itself and couldn't walk for a week; we got two more dogs, and they both died of roundworm; we got another dog, and it got bit by a dog that might have had rabies and is now quarantined; and we got a cat that jumped off a top bunk and had a seizure so bad that we thought it was going to die. It did, however, recover, and continues to attack us in the middle of the night. (There's a reason she's named Ninja.)

That is, in brief summary, some of the weird happenings.

But I digress: back to the questions.

Concerning life-or-death situations...well, I don't think so. We've had some situations that were tense and could have been dangerous (a drunk guy yelling at us, men smoking drugs nearby, a supposed plot to steal our welder), but I have yet to have a life-or-death encounter.

Belly-laugh? Nothing that stands out, although there are little family-related jokes here and there. :) There was that one time that some children were yelling "Chinese man!" at us, peppering it with "Ching change gong gong!". One white person is the same as another, I suppose. ;)

Similarly, I was driving one time with another white person once who had lived here for quite a while, and had married a Liberian. When we passed a group of white people, he leaned out the car window and shouted "White man! White man!" in Liberian English at them. They didn't even look up.

Something that normally wouldn't happen at home? Everything. Heh, it's such a large category. We go to an outdoor market for much of our food, we walk most everywhere we go (or catch a taxi), all of the children wave at us when we pass (oftentimes saying "White man!"); the list goes on. Anything more specific? XD

Oh, and we all (probably) had worms. :P That was fun. Dewormer is cheap here, thankfully. And I think my entire family is just waiting for me to come down with malaria. The mosquitoes like me too much.

As far as I know, there are no elephants. Liberian "bush" is basically a sub-Saharan jungle. There are, however, monkeys, mongooses, genets, various kinds of birds, lizards, and other fauna.

Cassava is one of my favorite Liberian foods. It's a leafy vegetable: cut up, and put with peppers and onions and garlic, and then mixed with the meat and cooked. It has a dark green look to it and is rather oily. (In fact, the first Liberian dish that I ever had was cassava with goat. It was in America, months before I came here, and I thought it rather weird.) I have not, however, heard of it being in cake. O_o

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I've got a storehouse of information in my noggin. I haven't even scratched the surface of my life here. Which is why I have trouble writing coherent blog posts. ;)

As for me, folks, I think I'm going to go swimming soon. :D

Au revior!

Concerning Chesterton and The Prophecies

Well!  It's been an interesting few days.  How's it all going for you?

Currently, I've just finished reading two books by Chesterton, and I've also been musing about my writings.  Shall I begin?

First things first.  Chesterton is amazing.  I've just finished rereading Orthodoxy, and now that I'm a bit older, more intellectual, and not skim-reading it, it's really a treat of paradox and imagination.  Here's a few quotes that I found particularly meaningful and/or funny.  (Feel free to skip ahead to the writing.  Few share my love for Chesterton XD and I completely understand.)

"The word 'good' has many meanings.  For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man." (G. K. Chesterton)

"Actors who can't act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay.  It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, if he believes in himself." (G. K. Chesterton)

"The poet only asks to to get his head into the heavens.  It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head.  And it is his head that splits." (G. K. Chesterton)

"A madman is not a man who has lost his reason.  The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason." (G. K. Chesterton)

"The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite." (G. K. Chesterton)

"To be sane is more dramatic to be mad." (G. K. Chesterton)

"Seriousness is not a virtue." (G. K. Chesterton) 

"For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point - and does not break." (G. K. Chesterton)

"There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied it was His mirth."  (G. K. Chesterton)

Also, the honorable Whisper the Spy introduced me to another of G. K. Chesterton's books, this one fiction: a tale known as The Man Who Was Thursday (A Nightmare).  It's a fantastic story of spies and plots and humor and philosophy and....weirdness.  The end is so deep/weird that I didn't really get it. XD  But the first three-fourths were fantastic.  Here's one quote I found rather humorous:

"What are we going to do?" asked the Professor.

"At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, "I think we are going to smash into a lamppost."

Now, on to writing!

A few nights ago, I decided (on a whim) to look at some books.  Only, these weren't ordinary books.  These were the books about which I had told my sisters, "I will never look at them again."

In other words, my first three novels.  Some of Ye Olde People can remember the days when I wrote those: the days when my writing was young, my technique inexperienced, and my plot a terrible mess.  Thankfully, I've improved.

But, back to the story.

I broke my own promise and took a look at the books.  (It was a nightmare, I assure you.)  One thing led to another, and I decided to count up all of the words I had written in my entire life.

Of course, I didn't have "all of the words I had written in my entire life" on this computer, so I sufficed to count up MOST of the words.  It includes all six of my novels, my poems, and my short stories.  However, it doesn't include the stories I had written on other computers and the handwritten tales of my childhood.

So, in total, I've written

284,712

words

in the last few years.  Which means that I've probably written over 300,000 in my life.  Over 200,000 words of that is in completed novels.

Much more than I expected.  It's no one million, but it's almost a third of the way there.  (They say it takes a million words to write a great novel.  Or a publishable one.  Whatever the quote was. >_>)

In the past few weeks, I've also determined that, after I finish the Prophecy of Einarr, I want to go straight ahead and write the last book in the series, instead of continuing with my rewrite of the Book of Shaldu.  So many things changed in the Prophecy of Einarr that need to be included and forshadowed in the Book of Shaldu; so I want to knock out two birds with one stone and make sure that, if any more plot twists come along, I don't have ANOTHER rewrite to do.  I'll also have a better perspective of what the Book of Shaldu needs to be like after I actually finish the series. 

And once I finish the series AND the rewrite, I'll revise all three books.  And after that...who knows.  But "after that" is a long time coming.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

How are your writings going, folks?  Good?  Bad?  If you're not a writer (and even if you are), have you read any good books lately?

If you aren't a writer or a reader, how in the world did you find my blog? ;)

And also, if you wanted me to write a blog post about one writing topic, what would it be?

The One Year Adventure Novel Workshop

Agent 42.

Lauffter Control.

A banana.

A name-tag.

A signed copy of Song of the Ovulum.

Scrawled, "To Jake, Bryan Davis".

Ninja battles.

Sword fights.

Lectures.

Writers.

Books.

All of them describe, but do not encompass, the One Year Adventure Novel Workshop.  It has been one of the most epic things I have ever done.  Undoubtedly.

And how to describe such epic things?  Epicness is hard to describe.  Very hard.  But I shall attempt it.  It shall be very lengthy.  So, if you want a summary; I have provided it above.  If not, try to make your way through this muddle.

The highlights of the first day (which includes the evening before the first day):

First, I met the one and only EaglesWings.  We (my entire Clan) had her and her mom over for supper, which composed of steak and rice.

I arrived the next morning just in time to see Mrs. S (one of the key people at the workshop) being herself.  Afterwards, Mr. S (also known as Daniel Schwabauer) lectured two lectures; he spoke first about Great Characters, using examples of Cyrano de Bergerac, Peter Pan, and Scrooge, I believe.

The second lecture spoke about common story mistakes writers make in their stories.  I won't go in-depth, but these were very helpful. :)  I took many notes. *nodnod*

Afterward, Mr. and Mrs. S acted out how NOT to critique and be critiqued.  Which was absolutely hilarious.

And then, lunch.

After?  

The thing that made my stomach churn.

Critique time.

Actually, it went quite well.  I was glad for the critiques. :)  

And then, break time commenced.  

After free time and supper, the OYANers packed back into the lecture hall for a surprise: which turned out to be a bagpipes fellow who played some absolutely fantastic stuff.  Cue much clapping!  

After that, a man named Mark Wilson came and gave a session called "The Lord of the Lord of the Rings", talking about how The Lord of the Rings was embedded with morals contrary to modern belief, and how it can apply to writing.  Great session, it was. :)

Afterward, the free time was labeled "Meet other OYANers who want to change and/or annoy the world with their words."

The Second Day:

Mrs. S was herself, for thirty minutes.  And she gave away stuff. O_o

And then, Mark Wilson again gave a lecture, this time about how storytelling impacts the world.  And I really liked this one as well. :)

After a short break, there was another lecture (this one by a judge in the OYAN novel contest) that talked about contest mistakes and how to avoid them.  

After, lunch, and then critique groups.  I gave them my worst chapter to endure. O_o

After this, there was scheduled a Doctor Who party-ish thing, which Eagles and I both went to, neither of us having ever watched Doctor Who.  So, I did, for the first time.

It was...strange.  And the fact that they watched two different episodes with two different Doctors made things confusing. >_>

The last two sessions of the night were very good as well; Mr. S talked about the four layers of truth in fiction, and how to communicate it; Mark Wilson talked about the need for community in writers.  We're not Lone Rangers. ;)

As for the time afterward, the OYANers were supposed to "Hang out.  Play Games.  Plot the destruction of the galactic empire."

Day Three:

Mrs. S was herself again.

Bryan Davis came to the Workshop to speak.  He gave us, in two sessions a crash-course in revision and advanced revision; from passive voice to foreshadowing to intimate point of view.  This was probably the most helpful part of the Workshop: I'm planning to do a Bryan Davis Revision soon. ;)

In critique groups afterward, we came up with the epic idea of Lauffter Control.  Defacing our name-tags, we hid the words "Lauffter Control" from view; and a plan to secure a banana was made.

After supper, Bryan Davis gave a fantastic "lecture" (better suited by the word speech) about writing for God and having a passion in writing.  It was amazing.  I cannot sum it up in mere words.

And after?  The Greenleaf Improv Team came to the Workshop and made us throw up our hands in laughter.  (Inside joke.  We had one of them "throw up their hands"...literally...)

The Last Day:

Mrs. S was herself, but only for 15 minutes.

After a lecture or two, a performance by some talented peoples, the critique group plot came to fruition.  And, chapter eleven of The War Horn was received very well, and they liked it. :)  And, Eagles' epilogue was bittersweet.

In the closing session, Mr. S addressed the topic he called, "Ack!  Where do I go from here?"  He did quite a good job. :)  And, some intrepid OYANers made an entire skit with the phrases like "His eyes were glued to the ceiling" and "he couldn't take his eyes off her" and "he threw up his arms", etc.  Complete with sound effects and a frantic person trying to grab the eyes off the ceiling...

After this, Eagles and I had a picture taken with Mr. and Mrs. S.

And then, as the schedule said, all OYANers packed as much last-minute fun they could into three hours.  It included a knighting, the pouring of Coke on one's head, capture-the-flag-ninja, lightning, and final goodbyes.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that I slept very little the entire week?

And now the OYAN Workshop is over.  It was epic, and the words I have spoken will never sum it up.  Post-Workshop depression has been cued for shipment.

BUT.  It was taped. >:)  I suspect they'll be making a DVD of the Workshop.  

So, that was my week.  My first conference/Workshop thingy.

If you've made it through this post, congratulations.  Hopefully, I've made you want to be there.  And if you weren't there and have never heard of OYAN, go and buy it.  And those of you reading this and were there...perhaps I've made you want to do it all over again.

Farewell, all, and hopefully I can get a writing related post up here sometime. If I'm not eaten by tarantulas first...

Procrastination Strikes Again!

Whenever someone mentions the word Procrastination, I flinch.  And then I say, "Procrastination is my arch enemy."

In the past week Procrastination has returned and sat upon my novel.  Remember that revision post?  I have it, more or less, worked out.  The plot can go on with a large tweak...but I haven't gotten around to actually revising.

Gah!  Procrastination has won this battle, but he has not won the war.

So now you know why I haven't been posting.  When my writing falters, so does my posting.

But there are a few bright things shining through Procrastination's fog.  For instance, resolution three on my list (see my post on New Years' Resolutions) has gotten a jump-start. Yes!  I have gotten a phenomenal idea in starting the story.  I won't actually write it until (at least) finishing the revision of the Book of Shaldu, but the idea is good and I hope the writing will be better than my previous novels.  I'm going to take this one at a slower pace and pour all of the skills I have into extremely good writing, character, plot, etc.

But mostly I'm tired.  I've been doing a lot of stuff, and I'm flying to Phoenix this weekend, so don't expect another blog post from Thursday on until Monday or something. :P

But here's a mug of egg nog (tis not just a holidays drink!) to getting some writing done in the next week.  And a rootbeer toast to the blessed snow that fell last night. :)

Revision, Part II

Yesterday I reverently put on my silvery cape of revision (soft to the touch!) and began my revision of The Book of Shaldu.  (I am a firm believer in strange writing habits.)

I had revised two or three sections--small sections--and was feeling pretty good about myself and my revision when I came to chapter nine.

Dun dun dunnnn.

Take a look at the picture.  Chapter Nine has a particularly tricky scenario--my characters were in a blocked-up Refuge underground, and I rescued them by pushing the Easy Button.  Instant save.  My characters got out by someone digging them up.

Way too easy.  Hey, that's why its called the Easy Button!  I pushed it so I could get to the other side of this brick wall I had, to smooth sailing, sunny skies.  I didn't have time to think up a clever scenario--it was NaNoWriMo, and the heat was on.

So now revision is threatening me.  "You push that Easy button again and I'll feed you to Frank," it says.  Revision is urging me to revise the situation, to beat back the brick wall--while the easy button is sitting pretty smack in the middle.  Procrastination, as you can see, is chuckling evilly on the other side of the brick wall.  "I've got him this time!"

Anyone else want to smack Procrastination?

But procrastination is winning.  You can't just beat back a brick wall--I'm clueless for ideas on how to revise this situation.  Procrastination is knocking on one end, while Revision is threatening me from behind.  What do I do?

Well, first off, I have to be stubborn.  There's no way this thing is going to budge--and so, armed with the Sword of Stubbornness, I'm racking my brains for answers.  But none are coming.

Okay, so the whole purpose of that disturbing illustration and its accompanying post is this: do YOU have any ideas?  Any way you can help me out?  I promise to write a post about this once I'm done! ;)  Honest!

To quote the illustrious Aragorn (aye, LOTR seems to pop up all of the time these days),

"What say you?"

Revision

Revision.  The very word strikes fear into the hearts of men and Elves alike.

What with NaNoWriMo finished, all the writers seem to be staring at their finished novel and asking themselves, "How in the world am I going to turn this piece of junk I've written into a novel?"  And then...procrastination sets in, and they shut down their computer and go to grab some egg nog.

As much as I'd like to be, I'm just like the other writers. I have a deadly fear of the ferocious thing known as revision, that thing that slays creativity in its tracks and promotes procrastination.  But is the deadly sword of revision really all that bad?  Or can it be turned against procrastination?

Another problem is this: I have actually never fully revised one of my novels.  This is because of two reasons.  1) I tend to go and start other projects.  Sorry folks.  Simple as that. ;)  Sure, I have four novels to my name, but none of them are fully revised.  2) And second, there is so much to revise.  The sheer number of mistakes and plot problems that needed correcting on my first novel overwhelmed me.  And permanent procrastination killed further effort.

I'm determined that things will be different with The Book of Shaldu, though.  I am not going to fail--not this time.  This novel's going to be published--or bust.  No egg nog!  Grab the pen.  Let's go.

Now, there are several things that I focus on when revising my novels.  Things that work. :)  I usually do them in the order I array them.

1) Read!

Read read read.  I read my novel so many times I practically memorize it.  I could probably quote the first paragraph of my prologue in Quest for the Kingdom from memory, I've read it so many times.  With The Book of Shaldu, I've converted it to Kindle format and downloaded it onto my Kindle.  More on that later--I have pictures. ;)  But right now--rather ironic, isn't it?--I'm reading my own novel on my Kindle and putting notes wherever I notice mistakes or places that need to be revised.

But you'll find that revision comes easily when you read your novel.  You'll see a mistake as you read and fix it.  An unnatural conversation.  A lacking description.  And then you edit, you revise.  It's easy to spot mistakes when you read your novel.

2) Individual Revision

I like to focus on individual places where I need to seriously revise, places I found when reading.  Sometimes the plot needs to be fixed.  This helps narrow down your focus and help you write a bit better--because, honestly, would you rather revise a chapter or an entire novel?  Focusing one chapter at a time helps keep procrastination at bay.  And sometimes you find sections where the wording just isn't 'right'.  Sure, it might be grammatically correct, but sometimes you just have to revise because you need to fix the wording of things.  I do this all of the time, and it makes the piece flow better as a whole.

3) Expansion

Sometimes I just need to expand.  A piece written in a hurry may not have the necessary description or I haven't spend enough time on it for it to flow well and long enough.  I especially focus on journeys--they are extremely hard to write when doing NaNoWriMo, but I try to take the time and majorly expand on them in the later stages of the novel.  After all, not all journeys are composed of teleports, and while teleporting from place to place when writing a novel is useful, it is sometimes necessary to give a feeling of time.

4) The Last Gloss-over

This is one stage that I have never quite gotten to, but one that I know will happen eventually.  Basically, all major editing is done.  I'm satisfied with the plot.  Contradictions are taken care of--and the story flows well.  But there's still those little things that give the story a raw feel.  So, when I get to that stage ;) I'm going to repeat the first step and read read read my novel until I am satisfied it is ready to be sent to a publisher. :)

What Jake has learned of revision in a nutshell, readers.  But I still need more help!  I have enlisted the assistance of a certain book on writing Christian fiction, but I have yet to recieve it, so, in the meantime, would you mind sharing your wisdom? :)

Over and away,

Tip; Kicking out the Adverbs

Adverbs are usually not good for your novel. Nope. Nada.

You should usually get rid of them. Before you cling to your 'wearilies' and 'strangelies' and yell, "NO! Never! I love my adverbs!" or think "About time someone told me how to do this!" or just an indifferent read-through of this post--let me show you a few things that I have learned.

1) Beef up your verbs. (Yes, I just HAD to use that word) ;)

Consider the following sentence, that uses an adverb. "He walked hurriedly along the sidewalk." It's what I'd call 'an okay' sentence. But it could be better--and it 'tells'. How do you defeat the adverb, though, keeping the meaning of the sentence, describing the same idea, and 'showing'? You 'beef up' the verb. "He hurried along the sidewalk." Easy! And which one sounds better?

Here's a few more examples.

With adverb; "The man looked carefully around the room."
Without adverb; "The man peered around the room."

With adverb; "Sam walked carefully because of the acorns on the ground."
Without adverb; "Sam crept through the yard, mindful of the acorns littering the ground." (By the way, this could use some clarification, but I won't go through the editing process.)

2) Replace the Adverb

Replace the adverb with an adjective or some other word.

With adverb; "The man peered around the room cautiously."
Without adverb; "The man peered around the room, careful to stay hidden from all eyes."

Note that I didn't say 'careful to not be seen' there--I originally did (when I wrote this section of the post), but I realized that I had unknowingly stuck a 'not' adverb in there. :P So I rewrote it, and it looks better.


But sometimes you CAN use them. Yep, don't throw them all away yet. Consider the following sentence from my novel;

"Aron chose his words carefully."

There's an adverb in there! But look what happens when I try to replace it (since I can't really do anything else to the verb).

"Aron chose his words, careful to..." To what? Ah, but that would be telling. But say I do 'tell'; what does it look like then? "Aron chose his words, careful to keep all his information hidden."

It's a rather unwieldy sentence, and I think you will agree that the original sentence is better.

And there are other examples as well; "'I don't know,' he said wearily." It would probably be best to leave that sentence as it is. Say we change it, and look what we come up with. "'I don't know,' he said, weary from...' We'd have to go into an explanation of why he is weary which is telling. Not a good idea. :)

A Question for Readers

Okay, so I've been having a bit of trouble with my novel. Two things, actually.

One; I am starting to run out of things to edit, revise, and rewrite in my first novel. I know there's mistakes lurking in there, and there's a lot of things I need to polish if only I can figure out a way to do it.

Two; My novel is short. Too short The previous paragraph is related to this, as I'm getting a lot of my length from my rewriting. I'm sure I can add several plot revisions somewhere- if only I could figure out how.

See the pattern? So my question to you, readers (those that write), is (you've guess it); How do you handle things like this? Some of you may not have the length problem, but I'm sure most of you have had trouble with finding the elusive mistakes.

So again;

How do you deal with stuff on the problems of length and revision? Or how do you do revision, editing, and rewriting in the first place? Comment or email me for an answer. I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks,