Reader Question: Book on Revising a Novel?
I wrote back: "I had similar problems with my book and found it helpful to turn to classic works of literature that have things in common with my book to see how they did it. Since your book is very plot-oriented, you might try something like Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen puts her reader at the heart of the plot immediately, and yet the dialogue's so revelatory that you never feel anything's missing in terms of character development. (If dialogue isn't your strong suit, look around for another writer who shares your strengths, to see how they use them.)
"Francine Prose has a good book about how to read books for this purpose. I know this sounds like a much more labor-intensive way of learning, but I don't know of a how-to book that really answers this question."
And yet screenwriters have Story, which seems to basically do this. I wanted to turn this question to a wider audience, in part to see if others had books that had helped them. But I also wondered if, as creative writers, we really want a formula? Screenplays have to be somewhat formulaic, right, but do we really want that for our novels?
Comments
Hi! Not sure if these books have the kind of advise you are looking for, but Stephen King’s “On Writing” and Albert Zuckerman’s “Writing the Blockbuster Novel” address these issues from different viewpoints. Above all, both are interesting and fun to read. Cheers.
I highly recommend Don Maass’s How To Write the Breakout Novel Workbook. You perform the exercises on your first draft and, if you actually do the work, the results are amazing. (In full disclosure, Maass is my agent but alas, I get no share of his royalties.) Also, Elizabeth Lyons has a good book specifically addressing this issue called Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore.
I’ve got a book at home called “Revising Fiction” that provides a good conceptual approach. Not exactly like having a workbook to follow, but I found the theories very helpful.
This worked for me, so I’ll throw it out there. When I started writing “Along Came A Fifer” I had 4 main characters to introduce, so I wrote a detailed bio for each- as if getting them ready for Match.com. When each was introduced in the opening chapters I used only the physical characteristics and basic open statements about their past lives to introduce them (1 or 2 paragraphs). As the mystery evolved, primarily through dialog, I related their actions/reactions to situations back to similar situations in their pasts (detailed in the bios). Other character traits revealed themselves as I wrote the story, which I added to the bios. When I went back to revise the completed mystery I had an even greater understanding of my characters, so I was able to insert the additional background information at the beginning in a more relevant way and without bogging down the story line. Just a thought. Cheers!
Hiya. I would also suggest reviewing how you view/observe people and form impressions. (I confess to being a chronic eavesdropper, too…). Things that stick in your mind (even trivial) and make a lasting impression can be quick to recount, but revealing, w/out feeling too forced. Rather than saying someone rushes everywhere, for ex., maybe they are breathless and their socks don’t match…
I’m a big fan of Sol Stein. Try Chapter 32: “Triage: A Better Way of Revising Fiction” in his book , and also Chapter 14 in his book .
Sorry–this is the first time I’ve left a comment, and I didn’t do it correctly. Chapter 32 is in Mr. Stein’s book Stein on Writing, and Chapter 14 is in his book How to Grow a Novel.
Don Maas’ workbook is excellent but I will suggest a caveat. I think he suggests so much to be done to a book that if it is all done it could change the book beyond what the writer might find acceptable. But it is excellent; both because it is a workbook and so you just follow the instructions, and because he really makes you think about your novel and plot and characers and how they all work together. I would recommend it to anyone as the best edit book I have seen but suggest you might want to have the final say on which bits you use.