Karen S. Wiesner: Do I Need a Professional Editor?

 

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Do I Need a Professional Editor?

From CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Once upon a time, it was standard practice for every book to go through content editing, line editing, copyediting, and then one or more rounds of proofreading. Every book needs those steps, even those written by professional, highly skilled authors. It might surprise you to know that once upon a time even "vanity publishers" (i.e., those that charge you possibly exorbitant fees to publish your work) had rigorous editing requirements. But, while there are still traditional publishers around who enforce an in-depth editing process for all authors under contract, self- and indie publishers have little or no guidelines, let alone quality requirements placed on them. Far too many authors are cutting corners and self-publishing books that are as far from quality as it gets.

A qualified editor can see quality writing even if he or she doesn't personally enjoy the story. That's not up for debate. Good writing is good writing and free from as many errors as possible. I've read countless books in my line of work as a freelance editor, writing instructor, and contest judge that were wonderfully written. I didn't particularly enjoy them or engage and connect with them, but I could see they were well written (and well edited). So I stand by the fact that good writing is good writing and a true professional can be trusted to judge quality or lack therefore.

A professional editor will point out structural flaws, weak characterization, and bad writing--will absolutely content-, line- and copy-edit as well as proofread a book from start to finish (conceivably multiple times) before it's published. A professional editor won't ask you to revise something because of a difference of opinion, personal bias, or anything that can be considered "up for debate". Professional editors consider their work an art or even a science--and it is for those who have this very rare skill. I could open up yet another can of worms here concerning what makes a professional editor "professional" but that's not the point here. However, keep in mind that there as many unprofessional, unskilled "professional" editors out there who need solid professional credentials as there are unprofessional, unskilled authors who need a professional editor. Do your homework. Find someone who has the credentials (beyond being an author one distributor or a review publication calls a bestseller) for charging authors to edit.

A professional author trusts her editor or she walks away but, either way, an author can't afford to have an overinflated sense of worth or confidence about his work, let alone see every word as golden and therefore set in stone, not to be altered by a lesser mortal. If you realize you simply don't have the skill to do the revisions required to make a book quality, own up to it. Don't slap it up for sale and take money from poor, unsuspecting readers who almost never have an endless amount of money to spend on entertainment. The number of buyers of books is shrinking. Authors and publishers, respect yourself and respect the reader by making it a requirement that you'll only offer the highest quality stories to those readers still out there willing to pay for a good read.

That doesn't change the fact that far too many flawed, poorly written and edited books are being self-published by amateurs who are cutting corners and being lazy about their craft, taking money they haven't earned from readers whose only available course isn't to return the book but to write troll reviews at a distributor's website or never buy another book from that author (not exactly damaging unless riot mobs are amassing at an author's borders). Maybe it's true that these books are being sold in an author's own community and most readers aren't even aware they exist (and let's hope it stays that way). But shouldn't we start thinking about whether bad, sloppy, poorly written books should even be published? They're absolutely flooding the market so everything--good and bad--can only drown in the deluge. If we don't consider it now, when should we? When it's too late? Or is it already?

I would never want to be the one to judge whether a book is worthy to be published, but I've wondered countless times if the publishing industry wouldn't be a stronger place and readers wouldn't benefit immensely if authors and publishers and even distributors actually took the time to evaluate whether a book is quality apart from sales figures. I've also wondered if publishers shouldn't be more discerning. Is the fact that the publisher/editor likes the story reason enough to publish it? If a publisher doesn't have the skills to professionally evaluate and edit the material, or if the editor they hire is subpar (there are so many writer-wanna-be-editors without hard skills working at indie and small press publishing houses these days, it makes me want to cry), the publisher isn't doing the author or readers a favor at all--regardless of what either party believes about the quality of the story in this regard.

I know of an author who came into the indie market presumably because traditional publishers turned him down often and, through a series of what I consider unfortunate events, he went through several small ebook publishers--none of whom required him to do any serious editing of his work. Such a disservice was done to him! This author learned erroneously through these events that he was a good writer when, in fact, the opposite was true. If he'd been forced to do good editing and revisions from the very start, he might have gone on to become a good writer through practice and experience with the correct process for producing a quality book. Ultimately, when he got to the point of being required by a new publisher to do extreme editing of his severely flawed books, self-publishing became the easy out for him. I honestly don't know who to be more disgusted with: All the publishers who weren't discerning enough to turn this author away in the first place or require serious editing from him as a condition of publication, or the author who seemed to prefer not having to do the hard work of being a professional author and didn't mind offering readers low-quality books.

No one has any excuse for publishing bad, poorly written stories. Authors, publishers and distributors, listen up: The true test of a whether a story is quality is not because of any of the following:

1) Friends, family, colleagues, and maybe even a few strangers liked or even loved it (maybe enough to post a 5 star review in a public place).

2) It's published (self-, indie, or any other kind of publisher) or, for that matter, because someone agreed to publish it for the author.

3) The book has sold a lot of copies, whether legitimately or because you or your publisher used a discounted ebook marketing service or simply gave it away free or at a massive discount from a distributor's website.

4) It's a bestseller on any list. Mind you, it is possible to make a bestselling list by "ad stacking"--in other words, you have ads on as many of the discounted ebook marketing services as possible at the same time, which will probably cost more than you make in profit during this time, but your goal is gaining "credibility", not making money. Do an internet search to find out how this is done if you're interested (or, if you're like me, just want to be shocked that people actually do this--why and doesn't it make them feel dirty? because I would feel guilty using this kind of "publicity" to make myself sound more worthy than I actually might be). Bestseller lists are based on how many books are sold or are expected to sell. Is bestselling status retracted from a book that doesn't sell the way it was supposed to? Doubtful, but I can practically guarantee that the status will never be neglected in promotion by that author or publisher. They're absolutely no indication of actual quality of product, merely quantity.

The only true test of a quality book is whether readers found it worth the price they paid for it (or if they would have paid more) and enjoyed it, possibly enough to buy and read other books written by that author. This isn't something that can be adequately tested "in a laboratory" or statistically. Most writers may never know if they passed the quality test unless a reader sends them a note to tell them, puts up a review at a publisher's, distributor's, or the author's own website; or fans prove they love your work in some other definable, quantifiable way.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: Advice for New Authors

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Advice for New Authors

From CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

First, I don’t believe there are absolutes in writing. There are so many writing trends, no-no’s, and must-do’s. I admit I find most of them silly. The only rules are the ones you enforce yourself. Don’t let anyone else tell you differently. Here are seven pieces of advice for becoming a professional author:

1) Do your homework in learning to successfully navigate the extremely treacherous waters of trying to book writing and publishing. Don’t rely on anyone else to give you all the answers. Figuring out how all this works is your job and it’s vital that you learn all you can because you’re at the helm of your own career. Do you really want someone else who may or may not be trustworthy floating your boat? 

2) Learn how to use a critique. Get used to having your work picked apart ruthlessly by your peers now because I guarantee that even an editor who loves your work can rip it to shreds. And let's not even get into readers who live to destroy not only one book by an author by conceivably a whole career with their trolling. Develop a thick, tough skin before you get published, so you can handle it professionally when the time comes. But also keep in mind that an edit who’s rewriting your story the way he or she wants it isn’t helping you at all.

3) Even if--or more aptly, especially if--you're choosing the self-publishing route, good editors will make your books better, even if it feels like they’re destroying them in the process. Don’t assume a heavy edit makes you a bad author (and vice versa—a light edit doesn’t necessarily make you a good one either). One way or another, editing is part of the process.

 4) Don’t try to write what’s popular, what’s expected or what’s selling. How many more teenage vampire books do we need? Write what moves and inspires you, regardless of trends. In the same vein, don’t limit yourself to writing what you know. Honestly, I know nothing about what it's like to be a werewolf—but I love writing about them! Write the book of your heart. Be true to your story first. 

5) Develop self-discipline now, before your book is published. When you’re first starting out, it might work to write by the seat of your pants. A professional author knows the more efficient you are in the process of writing each book, the more momentum you build in your career because you can offer more high-quality books in less time. While not everyone can use a full-blown outline, some kind of a blueprint, however loose, is crucial. You can’t be a productive writer if you’re constantly going on blind treasure hunts, hoping that a story will eventually immerse from hundreds or thousands of pages of the written word (and may not). Be disciplined. Use a guideline instead of writing blindly and set goals for your writing so you're always moving forward with continuous momentum.

6) Be responsible for yourself as an author in as many aspects of your career as you can. I realized early on in my career that there was little a publisher could do for me that I couldn’t do just as well for myself. I try to make sure every book I turn in to an editor is of the highest quality (and ensure that my editors hardly have to do anything at all for me) so in that way I’m my own editor as well the author of the material. I can’t blame anyone else if I’m not disciplined or subpar. I’m responsible for my own success (or failure) in that way. Authors are also capable of designing quality covers with software and utilizing cover designer services available all over the internet.

7) There's a growing trend, especially with traditional publishers, for the author to "prove their worth" and become a social media star, if they aren't already, by doing all the promotion for every book they sell--in fact, often there's a requirement for the author to detail their aggressive marketing plans before a contract will even be offered. All of this means that most publisher don't do a whit of promotion for their authors (though, in my case, I got lucky with a publisher who's all over the social media blitz). Maybe it's true that authors can market their own books better than anyone else, but publishers need to do their part as well. In the treacherous waters the book industry has become these days, publishers have almost exclusively placed the weight of promotion solely on the author's shoulders in order to stay afloat in the shrinking marketplace. Many contracts signed these days force authors to promote in ways that may not be financially feasible for them (in that case, they probably had to forgo a contract altogether). Publishers have traditionally been the ones to make sure a book is available in all the formats readers use and to list the books at distributor websites. But publishers these days no longer want to be the ones to make the books move in those channels--and the publishers are the ones who can provide the biggest push and momentum. Without them, that means authors swim upstream right from the get-go. Because of this, it's not at all surprising that so many writers choose to self-publish or "indie publish" rather than deal with the drama and bad contracts that give them little or nothing in return for a piece of their soul and the absolute limits of their blood, sweat, and tears.

Make the rules for your own career as much as possible, but remember your first priority is to provide the best quality book you can that readers will not only want to pay to read but will feel is worth every penny they spent after they read it.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: Advance Your Career: Writing in Stages, Part 4

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Advance Your Career:

Writing in Stages, Part 4 

Based on CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships} 

This is the final of four articles with techniques to advance your writing career. 

In the previous part of this article, we talked about the steps 4-7 in writing in stages. Let's continue. 

Stage 8: Setting aside 

This latter setting aside, though, is slightly different in that this is usually a good stage to get critique partners and beta readers involved. Everyone knows writers can get too close to their own work. It’s an occupational hazard. While you're hopefully feeling you’ve got a story beyond compare, it may need a little more work and you simply can’t see it (or vice versa--you think it's manure, but it's actually really good, and you're too close to be able to see that). That’s why it’s so important to turn your beloved opus over to a trusted spouse, friend, or, preferably, a critique partner (or three) for a critical read. The opinion of others is very important. You’re probably not ready to send that book out to a publisher or agent until you’ve had enough reader reactions to judge the strength of your accomplishment.

During this project downtime, you might be sick of your book and/or stinging from some of the glaring holes others saw that you somehow managed to miss. I highly recommend that you give yourself this shelf-time time to digest the comments made about your beloved baby. When you return for the final editing and polishing, perhaps for the last time before you submit it, you might even agree with your friend on several points…but you may also disagree. Ultimately, what you decide is best for your book is up to you. You'll hopefully feel confident enough to evaluate, unbiased, what needs to be done to shine it up.

In Steps 4 and 6 mentioned in Part 2 of this article is pertinent here as well.

Stage 9: Editing and polishing 

What most writers call revising is actually just editing and polishing. Writers get excited about their stories at nearly every stage, since they have a picture in their mind’s eye of what will emerge. The "editing" portion of this task is called copyediting in publishing circles and entails the correction and enhancement of grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation details. Editing and polishing are a lot like turning a rough gemstone into a finished one. You’re cutting the bad, replacing it with the good, and polishing up what remains until it shines. A writer unquestionably does also need to remove clutter to make a story understandable, to prevent a reader from tripping over clumsy prose, and to infuse a story with vivid, interesting narration that speaks succinctly to the reader, concurrently bringing the whole story to life. Editing and polishing add a very definite extra layer to your story. Without it, your story probably won’t read smoothly, nor will it shine. The process of editing and polishing can also involve any or all of the following: 

·         Ensuring a completeness of three-dimensionality in character, plot, and relationship

·         Rearranging sentences or paragraphs

·         Showing (more frequently) and telling (at times), where these are most needed

·         Tightening sentences and individual words (such as changing passive to active and dull to impacting; cleaning up repetitiveness)

·         Smoothing out roughness and making your writing more natural or interesting

·         Punching up tension and suspense

·         Ensuring variation in sentence construction and length

·         Diversifying and enriching words 

Editing and polishing should be almost as simple as reading through the manuscript and making minor adjustments that allow the words to flow like music to the ear. A solid outline followed by a rich first draft virtually ensures that. The difference between revising and editing and polishing is generally in the amount of work you'll do for each. 

Stage 10: Setting aside (optional) 

While I’ll get into the in-depth reasons for continuing past Stage 9 in Stage 11, the basic reason for this shelf time for the project is obvious. You just finished editing and polishing. You’d have to be insane to want to read the book again right after you finished going over it from start to finish. You’ll have gained no distance from it if you jump directly into Stage 11 at this point. So give yourself another few weeks or more, if your deadlines allow, before moving on to Stage 11. See Stages 4, 6, and 8 for more details.

One other thing I alluded to earlier is that writers don’t want to get burned out when it comes to any specific project. When writers say they’re burned out, they mean they’ve been working too much and not taking the time off to refresh themselves and keep their creative energy flowing. (This is completely different from writer’s block, which can stem from situations like a story not ready to be worked on, not enough brainstorming or inspiration, or sheer laziness usually attributed to a fickle muse.) This is especially true if you're working on one project, doing all these stages back-to-back, without taking a break from the project or from work in general. You bring back your own love for a project each time you set it aside and then come back to it fresh. Don't underestimate the importance of doing that. You and your stories will suffer for it eventually if you skip over the setting-aside stages.

There's another reason for avoiding burnout whenever you can. The soil in your brain is like the soil farmers sow crops in. It needs rest and rotation (writing in stages, for the author) in order to become fertile and nutrient rich again. When you work up your yearly goals, you're not only deciding what you’re going to be working on during that year, but you're also planning your breaks from writing. If taking weekends off doesn’t refresh you, take a week, weeks, or even a month off during the year. Read, watch movies, relax, and reenergize your creativity. (This doesn't mean you can't be brainstorming or researching for upcoming projects during this time.) By the time your vacation is up, you’ll be raring to go on your next writing project. Take your scheduled vacations when you’ve planned them, unless something wonderful happens (an editor contracts a series from you, you're asked to write a screenplay of your book…fill in the blank for your own idea of wonderful) in your career or life, and you can’t let the opportunity pass you by. As soon as that thing is finished, take the vacation you planned. Reward yourself by allowing your creative soil to become fertile again. 

Stage 11: The final read-through (optional)

Following Stage 9, some authors may be ready to get the book out where readers can buy and fall in love with it. A couple situations prompted me to add two steps to my original nine-stage process, though, that I think even savvy, confident authors might want to evaluate before letting the book be released. First, we live in a digital world. Everything is started, managed, and completed on the computer. But the very real and inescapable fact is that human eyes are fallible. They aren't capable of seeing everything on a computer (or something similar to this) screen and frequently what you see on the screen isn't necessary what's in the hard copy--spacing, formatting, and other issues may crop up from one medium to the other. We need the hardcopy to truly catch everything that demands our attention (like typos and "Track Changes" errors) in the final draft of a manuscript. Our eyes may only see some of these things on the printed version of the book. This is essential, and I guarantee if you're not getting this hardcopy (from your own printer of the final proof after edits, directly from your publisher, or from another means like the one I'll describe in a second), you're missing a (possibly) tremendous number of issues that readers are going to catch. Do yourself a favor: Get a hardcopy to do your final read-through from.

Second, the current state of the industry--exploding with indie publishers and authors--requires another stage in which to find the errors that seem to creep into our stories like lice. The fact is, there are very few legitimately professional editors and/or copyeditors working at publishing houses these days--especially at smaller publishers--and authors who are self-publishing their own works may even skip the professional-editor-input altogether. For that reason, it’s even more crucial to have a stage where the writer sees his book in this final form (and this is true even if the book is only released as an ebook without a paper companion), where he can catch (probably not all but most) typos. We'll talk more about the current and future state of the industry in the conclusion chapter.

As soon as I'm done with the editing and polishing, and the story is as clean as I think it can get "digitally", I'll put the book into a value-priced trade paperback format (what I call my print test paperback) and order a copy. When I'm ready for this final read-through, I like to put myself in the position of being the first reader for this book. As much as possible, I try to ignore the fact that I have a very personal affiliation with the book and I simply read it--in both a critical and savoring mind frame This isn’t easy, but I consider this my very last chance to make changes before my editor sees it; I want her to find the finished product almost perfect. I take my time reading, as well, sometimes lingering for weeks if the deadline I have to submit it to my editor is way out there, to evaluate how the story goes over in this unhurried mode.

When I get to this stage in the process, I usually find very few changes are required. The story is brimming with life, and there’s almost nothing left to stumble over or smooth out. Most important, though, in nearly every case I come out loving the story more than I ever have before. It exceeds the expectations I had for it when it was little more than a spark that incited me to write. Truthfully, I don't consider that conceit. I'd worry if I didn't have that reaction. If you don't love your own work, don't become immersed in the worlds, characters, conflicts, and relationships contained in your stories, how can you expect readers to?

Each of these stages is a layer of your story--nine to eleven strong layers that, for career authors, should be the first step in ensuring multidimensional writing that has strong CPR development. Each time you add something new during these stages, you're creating another vital layer that makes the whole story stronger, richer, with almost guaranteed strong, three-dimensional CPR elements.

All of my projects are done in these eleven stages. I love that I’m never doing the same thing in terms of outlining, writing, revising, or editing and polishing a project. I move from outlining one book, to revising a different one, to writing something else altogether, layering and building and developing each project into something wonderfully three-dimensional.

I also love that I rarely have to start from scratch on any project. While I do set the book aside multiple times, the rest of the steps are done once. I can't remember the last time I had to outline, write a draft, revise, and edit and polish more than once for each project. I’m always fresh, always enthusiastic, always eager to complete a book a little more at each stage, knowing my work will be solid, lifelike, and ready to send to editors when I'm at last ready to let go.

One other thing I want to point out is that I generally spend each year (though the year isn't necessarily January through December) working on five novels--in some years I also write at least five novellas--all in various stages in this process. To give you a point of reference, visit my WIP page at https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/works-in-progress.html, which includes not only my accomplishments every year but also several past years' and the current year's works-in-progress. You'll see, broken down month by month, how I juggled each project through the various stages, to complete everything.  Note that my vacations aren't included on the monthly breakdown but, rest assured, I am taking long and short ones in between projects to prevent me from becoming overwhelmed and burned out on writing. I recommend studying my WIP page to see how I did this with individual projects. You can see the juggling act there of all my books over the course of a year or more, allowing every single project all the stages needed to get solid, three-dimensional stories with all the proper layering for CPR development every single time.

There's a quote by Orison Marden that says, "The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling." Obviously there's a lot I accomplish during the course of a year and all of that includes breaks and long vacations. People tend to assume I must work 24 hours a day based on my high level of production, but--if you've looked at my WIP page and read through all this--you know differently now, don't you? Writing in stages is more of a science than a phenomenon once you see how it works. I don't believe in trying to do too much. I've found a way to do all I can without becoming harried, overworked, or overwhelmed. Individual authors need to find ways to get maximum output without turning their creative soil into ash because they're so burned out.

An author who uses full-proof methods to create layered stories with strong CPR development and utilizes an outlines, allows for sufficient shelf time, and sets goals will never have to suffer from missed opportunities or deadlines let alone low-quality work. In fact, each book may get better than the last, and you may get far enough ahead that you can fit just-for-fun projects into your schedule or take longer breaks.

Finally, what I do and what you ultimately do will be completely different, and you want to find what works best for you. The point is to make progress. If you want to write quality stories for the long haul that are undeniably memorable to readers, there is no better way to get started.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html 

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Karen S. Wiesner: Advance Your Career: Writing in Stages, Part 3

 Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

Advance Your Career:

Writing in Stages, Part 3

Based on CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

This is the third of four articles with techniques to advance your writing career. 

In the previous part of this article, we talked about the first three steps in writing in stages. Let's continue. 

Stage 4: Setting aside the project 

You’ve probably noticed that three of the nine (four if you use all eleven) stages are setting the project aside. Letting your project sit, out of sight and out of mind, for a couple weeks--or even months--in between stages will provide you with a completely fresh perspective. Distance gives you objectivity and the ability to read your own work so you can progress further with it, adding more layers and dimensions to your characters, plots, and relationships. Another reason for setting projects aside between stages is that writers may reach a point where their motivation lags, and they want to abandon the story. Sometimes the author may not feel inspired to write a book he's just spent weeks or even months outlining (note that I've never spent more than 1-3 weeks outlining but other authors might not have the same experience I have), just as he may not want to revise something he's spent weeks or months writing.

Setting a project aside between the various stages it goes through also allows your creativity to be at its peak. The process becomes easier, too, and your writing will be the best it can be. Putting a work-in-progress on a back burner for an extended period of time will allow you to see more of the connections that make a story multidimensional.

To set your project aside between stages, return everything to your story folder. Keep this book on a shelf and on the back burner in your mind for as long as you possibly can. Get to work on something else so you won’t concentrate too much on this project, making it the center of your attention again.

As a general rule, every book I write gets a few months between stages, a break I really need from each project. I can't imagine going through all the steps in finishing a book back-to-back. I get so sick of a story when one stage carries into the next without pause that I can no longer see whether anything I'm doing is improving or ruining it. When one stage of a work-in-progress is complete, I'm eager to get away from it. Many times I leave a stage certain the whole thing is fit only for burning in the nearest fireplace, but, when I come back to it months later, I discover that all my previous hard work was well worth the effort.

Stage 5: Writing the first draft

Once you take the project out to begin writing the true first draft of the story, you’ll notice that you have everything you need to begin. The outline you created for yourself should contain everything your book will, only on a much smaller scale, and will include a scene-by-scene breakdown of the entire story, hopefully rich with dimensions and CPR development.

If your outline was solid when you finished it, that should translate into a book that needs only minor revision and editing to add a few more crucial layers once you write the draft. This isn’t to say that the book won't come to life, growing and fleshing out more deeply and vividly as you write the first draft. It does or should immeasurably. So there goes the argument that writing an outline will kill your enthusiasm for the book. If anything, it becomes even more exciting because you're taking the framework and foundation you set down in an outline and made it powerful, multidimensional, and cohesive with prose. I want to challenge those who say an outline kills your enthusiasm for writing the book to try this method anyway--a couple of times, if you’re willing. You really do have to experience this to understand it, but, when I write a book based on a “first draft” outline, magic happens because I watch the outline-skeleton taking on flesh and blood and becoming a walking, talking, breathing story right before my very eyes. If anything, it’s more exciting this way--and a whole lot easier. Life and soul are infused into the story and I'm free to explore possibilities that I may have only just touched on in the outline. It’s organic.

One thing I want to note is that at no time during my first draft do I ever, ever, ever go backward and start revising. Writing and revising are two very different processes and a simple need for revising can so easily become an outright overhaul. Not only does this stop your progress in its tracks, but you may not be doing your story a favor by trying to be in two separate mind-sets at the same time. But more about revising later.

Stage 6: Setting aside

Stephen King calls this “recuperation time”, and it really is that, considering the blood, sweat, and tears you’ve expended thus far (half done in the writing in stages process!). When you take the manuscript down again to begin revisions, followed by editing and polishing, “you’ll find reading your book over after a…layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience. It’s yours, you’ll recognize it as yours…and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else. …This is the way it should be, the reason you waited.” See Stage 4 for more details about setting a project aside.

Stage 7: Revising

Ray Bradbury described this stage as the time, after letting the story cool off, of "reliving" rather than "rewriting". Revision is, ideally, the process of reworking material in an effort to make what’s already there better and stronger. If an author jumps directly into writing a story without brainstorming, researching, outlining, setting aside before and after the first draft, this revision will be a mere second layer of the story and, inevitably, the author has left himself with the torturous work of untangling, organizing, reshaping, revising, and searching for three-dimensionality in three hundred or more disjointed pages. Many an author who employs this method of working may need to do multiple drafts or revisions to develop an editor-quality manuscript that is consistent, well layered, and mostly coherent. Whether or not it’s three-dimensional and the CPR elements are properly developed is up for debate.

In a midway version of best- and worst-case scenarios, revision may mean making significant changes to a draft, such as adding or deleting plot threads, completely rewriting certain sections, or fleshing out characters and relationships to make them three-dimensional. In a milder form (usually after the author starts with a solid outline he used to write the first draft), revision could translate into tweaking the three-dimensionality of characters, plots, and relationships to reinforce them, maybe incorporating last-minute research.

As I said previously, writing and revision are two completely separate processes that require different mind-sets, and therefore shouldn’t be done at the same time. While writing a book, a simple need to polish words, sentences, or paragraphs can become a complete rewrite. This isn’t a productive way to work when you’re attempting to finish the first draft of the book.

An unfortunate side effect of revising, editing, and polishing while you’re still writing (and, yes, so many writers attempt to do all four of these at the same time instead of separately, in their own distinct stages) is that you don’t get the necessary distance from the project in order to be able to revise effectively. You need to enter the revision phase with fresh, objective eyes once the first draft of the book is finished. In some ways, you need to view that first draft as if it's not your own work so you can perform the hard work that may be necessary. Only then can you see the story without rose-colored glasses, as it really is.

Let’s first talk about the difference between the revision process and the editing and polishing process, because these, too, are separate jobs that can--but ideally shouldn’t--take place at the same time. On the road to writing a book, you want to minimize major changes like rewriting an entire story thread; adding, deleting, or revising multiple chapters; and infusing three-dimensionality of characters, plots, and relationships. These kinds of major fixes will cost you a lot of time and effort (hence the need for an outline first). If you've utilized your outlined scenes while writing the first draft to make sure your story is progressing, the chance of detecting problems early will allow you to take corrective action in a way that isn't overwhelming. This prevents major revisions at the end of a project, when you’ve already committed hundreds of pages to a solid structure.

That said, yes, during this time you’ll be working on fixing more serious problems, but you probably will be doing some editing and polishing during this stage as well. You’re there; it wouldn’t make sense not to clean up some minor issue that isn't quite right, yet clearly needs a little elbow grease. However, what you’re really looking for during the revision is fixing anything in your story that doesn’t work or make sense. When you revise, you evaluate (and fix) any of the following: 

·         Three-dimensionality of characters, settings, plots, and relationships

·         Structure

·         Character, plot, and setting credibility, and the cohesion of these elements

·         Scene worthiness

·         Pacing

·         Effectiveness of hints, tension and suspense, and resolutions

·         Transitions

·         Emotion

·         Hooks and cliff-hangers

·         Character voice

·         Consistency

·         Adequacy of research

·         Properly unfurled, developed, and concluded story threads

·         Deepening of character enhancements/contrasts and their relevant symbols

Revision is a necessary, natural part of writing. Every first draft needs it. Revision will help you smooth out any rough edges in your first draft. Information dumps or illogical leaps (or critique partners that point out such things) will alert you to the sections that need to be reworked. You could put the information overload elsewhere in the book, break it up and scatter it throughout several scenes, or cut, condense, and polish it so it flows better and makes more sense. As for illogical leaps, you can fill in, tweak, or modify throughout a story to shore up weak areas and provide the justification for a specific element. You’ll also add layers as you do this, building on the three-dimensional qualities of your CPR elements.

I strongly believe that once an author begins this stage revision should be done as quickly as possible, with as little interruption from the material as possible. This won’t compromise the quality of your revision, I promise--just the opposite, in fact. Ideally, if you can set aside a block of time of about a week to work exclusively on revision, you’ll find that your story will be more consistent, and you’ll remember details much better. In my case, during revision days, I may be woken from sound sleep because a glaring error in some portion of the book will emerge from my subconscious. The whole book is quite literally laid out in my mind, ready to be accessed at a moment’s notice during this short revision period. If revision on a project is broken up by a period of weeks or months, especially if you’re working on other projects during this time, the book may suffer from consistency issues and possibly even structural and cohesion problems. If you can set aside a crucial, uninterrupted block of time (preferably one week) to focus on revision, your story will benefit from it immeasurably.

The revision stage is almost always the point where I can see the finish line--essentially when I'm ready to let it go. I think that's an important part of the writing in stages process. Unless and until you feel you're ready to let the book go because it's as flawless as you can make it, don't let it go. You'll probably feel the same way as I do at the revision step if you follow the writing-in-stages method in the order I've laid out. Getting to the letting-go point might be much harder if you're not using this process.

In the next part, we'll talk about stages 8-11.

Karen S. Wiesner is the author of CPR for Dead or Lifeless Fiction {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships}

Volume 6 of the 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html 

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

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