Question: Where Can I Find Advice on a Book Revision?
A reader wrote asking for advice re book revision: "I wondered if you might be able to suggest a good book on revising
the first draft of a novel. It's already become clear to me that I need to develop my characters up front better, before racing through the story (which is pretty strong). But when I spent a lot of time
developing character, I ended up writing pages of biographical exposition right in the middle of the story! So I need to learn how to subtly interweave character revelation with storytelling, without letting it drag (which, to me, sounds about as easy as sticking an elephant through a pin hole!)"
Answer: 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."
