Tackling Revisions

Since I'm currently revising a paranormal romance novella under consideration by one of my publishers (addressing changes the editor requested), naturally I've been thinking lately about the process of revision. Professional advice about revision and rewriting varies widely; writers can find many different approaches and suggested procedures. There's an often quoted precept to the effect that, "Writing is rewriting." One of Robert Heinlein well-known rules for writers, however, states, "Never rewrite except to editorial order." He seems to mean that it's better to devote time and energy to a new project than to undertake a massive rewrite of an old one. (I assume he doesn't include as "rewriting" the unavoidable polishing on the sentence level.) At the other extreme, I've read advice from a bestselling fantasy novelist that assumes a fledgling writer should expect to produce multiple, extensively overhauled drafts before allowing a work to see the light of day. That expectation risks the author's turning into one of those aspiring writers who spend years on a single novel in a quest for perfection and never get around to submitting it, much less starting any other work.

Among many resources about revision available online, here's one example, very lucid and detailed:

8 Awesome Steps to Revising Your Novel

Some of the advice strikes me as well worth following, such as setting the book aside before one starts to edit (although not everybody has the luxury of "stepping back" for the month or more this article suggests) and then doing a preliminary read-through to list problems that stand out. Overall, the questions suggested for interrogating the work are definitely useful, too. Some of the recommendations, though, seem mainly directed at "pantsers." When the article explains how to evaluate such elements as plot complexity and consistency or character arcs and motivations, I instantly react with, "Why didn't you take care of all that in the outlining phase?" To me, "pantsing" would feel like an exhaustingly time-wasting method of producing a book, although I realize many writers can't work any other way. Stephen King and Diana Gabaldon, to name only two bestselling examples, demonstrate what amazing creations sometimes result from that approach.

Some writing-advice articles explicitly recommend a separate read-through for each element of editing (e.g., plot, character arcs, grammar and style, spelling, etc.). If I tried to do it that way, I would get sick of the story long before completing the process, as well as getting so familiar with it that I would probably cease to see errors. Also, the not uncommon advice not to bother with minor corrections during the first editing pass, because you may scrap or entirely rewrite that scene anyway, doesn't apply to me, for two reasons: I've already planned the story or novel scene by scene in the outline, so if a particular section didn't fit, I would have noticed before writing a full draft of it. Second and really primary, I'm constitutionally unable to read a chunk of prose without noticing and correcting errors as I go. No doubt that's a side effect of having worked as a proofreader for over twenty years.

Anyway, all writers, after seeking out and absorbing the advice most relevant and helpful for their own temperaments and stages of growth, develop their own individual revision processes.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Shadow of the Beast

My first published novel, SHADOW OF THE BEAST, a werewolf urban fantasy with romantic elements, is back in print after a few years of dormancy, being recently re-released by Writers Exchange E-Publishing:

Shadow of the Beast

This wasn't the first novel I completed. That was the true book of my heart, vampire romantic urban fantasy DARK CHANGELING, first published not long after SHADOW OF THE BEAST and currently available in an e-book duology called TWILIGHT'S CHANGELINGS:

Twilight's Changelings

And as a Kindle e-book here:

Amazon Page

SHADOW OF THE BEAST was originally published by a small horror press that produced numerous attractive trade paperbacks for several years before closing down. My novel was later picked up by Amber Quill Press, which had a fairly long run before it, too, went out of business. I was lucky to find Writers Exchange, which sells its products in both electronic and trade paperback formats, to adopt most of my Amber Quill books. (It's somewhat disheartening to contemplate how many of my works have been "orphaned" by the disappearances of publishers over the years. Fortunately, we now have self-publishing as an alternative in case switching to a new publisher doesn't work out.)

I lightly revised SHADOW OF THE BEAST before the Amber Quill edition was published. The text of this latest version hasn't changed from that one; only the cover is different. The story follows the template of one of my favorite tropes, the Ugly Duckling. The heroine discovers she isn't what she always believed herself to be, and traits that first seem like flaws turn out to be gifts. I've retold that basic story multiple times over the years. My first professionally published work of fiction, "Her Own Blood" in FREE AMAZONS OF DARKOVER, fits that pattern, as does DARK CHANGELING.

Because SHADOW OF THE BEAST retains the text from the previous edition, it features technology that has become obsolete. Since only one scene is affected (where the characters use a VHS camcorder and tape player), the editor decided it wouldn't be a problem and didn't need a disclaimer at the beginning. As far as the plot goes, SHADOW OF THE BEAST has some undeniable flaws. The editing for Amber Quill corrected some of the original version's problems but didn't amount to a major rewrite. The "because line" is weak in places; back then, I didn't realize I was sometimes making characters do things for my convenience as author, rather than from solidly established motives. I've learned better since then, I hope!

What's your philosophy on rewriting older books for re-release or leaving them alone?"

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript, Part 6 - Should You Ever Rewrite Your Previously Published Novels

When Should You Give Up On A Manuscript

Part 6

 Should You Ever Rewrite Your Previously Published Novels

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series indexed here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/04/index-to-when-should-you-give-up-on.html

With all the "remakes" of old movies, and of course the long history of stage plays being re-mounted by new players, how could any writer resist the urge to completely rewrite the earliest versions of their works? Well, some do resist, and with good reason. Others dig in and do a complete rewrite, and others just polish out the typos or change wording for smoother reading.

With New York Times Bestselling writers retrieving their rights and self-publishing their backlist titles in e-book, paper and sometimes audiobook, you have to wonder how close the newly re-published version may be to the original.

Some writers (me, for example) consider the original (sans typos, of course) is valuable in its original form because of the awkward sentences, dated values, unskillful scene cut-aways, drifting point of view, run-on-descriptions, and other mechanical errors.

In among those mechanical writing craft errors lies the key to the charm, vibrancy, inspiration, and maybe even the "message" or theme.

These older novels, for any writer, become an embarrassment, but the more-so with a series that has become a towering success, an icon of the field.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's first published Mass Market novel, Sword of Aldones, became, for her very cringe-worthy. With time, the novel that had been published (and reprinted a lot as more and more Darkover novels were published to increasing acclaim) became not at all the novel she wanted as part of the Darkover series.

So when the opportunity arose, she rewrote Sword of Aldones into a novel that could form a cornerstone for the series she had been trying to write. And so, she retitled the story -- which had morphed considerably -- to be Sharra's Exile.

Sharra's Exile covers the same time period, but is not at all the same novel. So I recommend reading both.

Reading this long series, in publication order, gives you a good understanding of why the first published novel needed to be rewritten -- and then, actually, re-created as a different novel.

Many writers of series, especially sets of novels written over a long number of years (with many other projects between them) -- series not written as a single story, but many stories flung against the tapestry of a common background, are going to suffer from having the early novels that enchanted so many readers just not stand the test of time.

Even if a writer's craftsmanship does not improve much over the decades (because it didn't need much improvement), the writer herself will mature, grow, and the readers will likewise be growing older.

Original fans will be pointing to the earliest novel to try to hook younger people on the series -- but it won't work.

If the time span is thirty or forty years, that is about two generations. And the world has changed.

If you are writing contemporary Romance, well, suddenly your novels are Historical Romance -- pre-cell-phone. Or pre-smartphone.

Historical Romance novels which had a genuine historical setting will suddenly seem "dated" because the Characters' attitudes and problems are not the attitudes and problems of the current teen readership. For older readers, the attitudes of the Historical Characters are just fine -- they fit the ostensible period, and how people thought then. But for younger readers, those Historical attitudes are offensive, wrong, illegitimate, and just plain not-fun-to-read.

Futuristic Romance is even trickier. The current readership is firmly convinced that today's attitudes and values will become more firmly entrenched, more widely respected, and taken for-granted in the future.

An older readership would know better, having read the Greek Classics, Roman Classics, and novels from the 1800's and so forth -- social progress surges and retreats, staggers, and zig-zags, and never permeates all nooks and crannies of a society at once.

If you are working in an interstellar society, you can lure your readers into suspending disbelief by showing how cultures on isolated planets tend to diverge -- months travel from each other. And Aliens are the wild card.

We have discussed what to do about FAILED writing projects, but the bigger problem is what to do about successes.

We have a new example of approaches to the problems posed by success in the famous, ST:ToS fanzine series about Spock's illegitimate son, Sahaj, a series now retitled Gematria.

Buy it here: https://sahajcontinues.com/ebook/the-forging-2018-version/

THE FORGING - 2018 VERSION by LESLYE LILKER

Gematria 11.8 - Continues the story of the developing relationship between Spock and his now 11.85 year-old-son, Sahaj.  389 pages; 189,685 words FanQ winner, 1978, best writer, best artist (Alice L. Jones) $10.00

Join the Sahaj Continued Group on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/996258333717617/

Many Romance novels today focus on the "Single Mom" -- after divorce or widowhood, or perhaps just unmarried, with a child to raise.

Most of those Single Mom Romance novels focus on young women struggling to launch a career, maybe doing college courses on the side, aspiring to go to Law School, or become a doctor. The Sahaj fan novels focus on Spock, Second Officer, Science Officer, top of a career he finds satisfying and rewarding, suddenly discovering he has a young son who has had a traumatic beginning to his life, and whose abusive Vulcan mother is now dead after trying to use the son as a weapon to murder Spock.

Spock's struggles to deal with his mostly Vulcan son, and all the human elements in that son's early years, all the ancient Vulcan tendencies left to flourish without a modern Vulcan upbringing,

The original fanzine publication of the novel, THE FORGING, hit Star Trek fanzine readers like a tornado, and created a new alternate universe for other writers to play in (with permission of the author). The Forging won fanzine fandom's highest award the year it came out -- the Fan Q. And it well deserved it, too!

So decades later, with all the modern online tools available, and old printings on paper now deteriorating, becoming collector's items, it was time to issue Sahaj in electronic form. New fans were curious.
But what to do?  It just didn't read as smoothly as it once had, and wouldn't relate to the new readers.  

With the support of the Sahaj Continued Group on Facebook, Leslye Lilker set out to rewrite and upgrade this famous novel to speak to the modern audience.

I think she succeeded.  And in the process managed not to obscure the fresh-faced-earnestness of the mostly-Vulcan kid fostered by a human family.

You might not understand this single, stand-alone, novel as a Romance, but the series will deal head-on with Sahaj's Vulcan arranged marriage, and his ambitions for his life and career.

The Forging sets the tone for Spock's desperate efforts to raise his boy -- after his own conflicted upbringing.  He is so determined to do right by Sahaj that he messes up, big time for every major success.

One core element in every Romance is the "backstory" of the Characters. Where did they get these emotional problems?  

Following Sahaj from his inception (angst fraught as it was) through his urgent/earnest 5-year-old's needs being filled by humans, gives us the perspective to understand the Human/Alien love story innate in his Vulcan family choosing him a Vulcan bride.  

Just how Vulcan does Sahaj want to be?  And why?

The author says of the rewrite: 

-----quote--------
I decided early on that the story centered around the forging of relationships: Sahaj's relationship with himself and every other character; Spock's relationship with his son and how being a father changes his relationship with everyone else. ; with Jim and Bones' forging of a new relationship with everyone else and a smattering of Sarek and Amanda thrown in.  In short, the events in this novel set the stage for everything that is going to come in the future.
------end quote------

That's why I want you all to read this novel.  As with the first-published Darkover novel, it sets a foundation for a modern adult story.  And that is why the original (to be re-read and cherished) had to be updated, even rewritten, to firm up the foundation of the broader work.

This updated, polished, refined, edition of The Forging is more insightful than the original.  This edition adds depths and facets to Sahaj while showcasing all the original charm that captivated a generation of fanfic readers. 

I can't heap too much praise on this updated edition.  The rest of the series is likewise being organized and re-issued as a single, long, complex, work which beautifully showcases the way skills increase over decades.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com