Treating Your Manuscript
Issue 12.3
This issue of “Do you know where YOUR story is?” is the third of three issues dealing with approaching the problem of sizeable revisions. The first issue offered some straightforward methods to help you tackle the problem. Issue 12.2 provided a more whimsical approach. Here, in Issue 12.3, is writer and freelance editor Mackenzie Minnick’s opinion on handling developmental problems. All three issues will post the same day.
This material also appears, with a slightly different introduction, on my web site: “Finding Robin’s Story”.
You’ve taken the big step of completing your first draft. Maybe you even have a couple readers who have taken a look and provided some feedback. But now, you’re tasked with revision, and you don’t know how or where to start. The feedback doesn’t directly tell you anything, and the suggestions the readers had don’t work for what’s in your head. What do you do?
You need to treat your draft like you are a doctor and the book is your patient. A patient doesn’t visit the GP and have the doctor immediately schedule a gallbladder surgery. Instead, ask your book questions. Diagnose the exact problem, and work out a treatment plan.
Start out with your feedback. Where do the problems appear to reside? What are the symptoms? Even vague responses of “I didn’t get this” can be helpful. I often discard my reader’s direct suggestions of “What if your character did this instead” in favor of “I’m confused as to why your character didn’t perform this action.” This means either I did not characterize my protagonist correctly, or that I didn’t build the surrounding events to make that choice realistic.
Once I have the problem diagnosed, fixing it should seem relatively straightforward. “I need to build up my character’s flaw so that this inaction seems reasonable” “I need to change the response my character has” “This scene needs to be removed”. As with all aspects of writing, remain flexible. You may hit upon a solution that is messy to implement, but strengthens the piece overall.
Here’s a short list of questions to ask yourself as you go through.
What does this scene do narratively?
Is my character behaving how I want them to, or am I forcing them to act out of character?
Does this scene move my plot forward?
What would happen if this character didn’t exist?
Could this scene occur in another setting, at another time, or can it only happen here?
How does this scene serve my dramatic question?
for more on dealing with large revisions, see Issue 12.1, Dealing with Major Revisions and issue 12.2 An Analogy of Sorts
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