11 Ways Revising a Novel is Like Remodeling a House

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I’ve equated writing a novel to building a house many a time, but I’ve developed a new appreciation for that simile recently. Over the last twelve weeks I’ve been revising a novel while remodeling my house, and I’ve noticed a surprising number of similarities.

1. It takes longer than you expected it to.

You’re optimistic at the start, but little things creep in and aspects of the project take a few days more and before you know it—you’re weeks past your original due date. And then you look back and wonder how you managed to get so far off track. Probably because…

Shifting Between Drafting and Editing

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I recently had a conversation with a writer friend who was deep into a major revision on her novel. While a lot of the novel only needed editing, a large chunk of it had to be completely rewritten. She remarked that she’d been struggling with it, until she took off her “editing hat” and switched to her “drafting hat.” Then it became a lot easier.

Having just gone through a similar “the story works but the plot needed an overhaul” revision myself, I loved that image. We do look at our work differently when we’re drafting versus when we’re editing. We’re more forgiving, more open to ideas, more willing to write and see what happens.

What a First Draft Should Look Like

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Part of the Your Writing Questions Answered Series

Q: As a new writer, I always have the worst time writing first drafts. I keep expecting to write a finished product in one go, then I change the story by chapter three, and I never manage to finish the story I started. I get disheartened when I go back and read the sloppy, plothole-filled mess. Any suggestions?

A: First thing, don’t be so hard on yourself. First drafts are usually sloppy, plothole-filled messes, and nobody gets them perfect the first time (unless they have decades of experience as an author, and even then it’s rare). As the saying goes, writing is rewriting, and most of the real work on a novel is done after the first draft.

Tell Your Inner Editor to Calm the #$@! Down

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

In our crazy modern world, the desire (and expectation) for instant perfect is high. We want things to work right the first time, regardless of what those “things” are. They might be gadgets, relationships, or even our words.

This is especially tough on us writers.

A first draft is all about imperfection and getting ideas down. It’s where we make our mistakes and run down dead ends and cause a mess. It’s where the creativity happens.

Getting Beyond the First Draft

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Everyone’s writing process is different, but there are similarities—which is why writers are able to help each other even though we approach our writing in various ways. For some, first drafts are easy, and the hard part comes from knowing where to go from there.

Sometimes the issue is simply not knowing how to start a revision, but sometimes a writer will find they’re just too close to the work and can’t see what’s on the page versus what they know about the story.

Onward...No? Write to the End or Go Back and Edit?

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

At some point during a first draft, we're bound to ask ourselves if we should keep going or start editing. I've talked about some general reasons before, so now let's look at some specific instances we might face.

Chances are this type of editing urge will be prompted by reading a great article or finding some great writing advice, or even getting an exciting idea for the story. A light bulb might go off and you'll understand something you didn't before and want to go back and put that into practice.

But should you?

Revisionist Attitude: Mentally Preparing for Revisions

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I was talking with a writer bud once about something very nice my editor had said about me in an interview. This let to general talk about revisions and why I found it easy to revise, even when those revisions were a pain in the butt. I kept thinking about it, because I know from talking to other writers that revisions are rough on a lot of people.

But they don't have to be. Revisions are just the next step in the writing process.

Here are a few things to remember the next time you're faced with revisions:

Being Evil: Plotting From the Antagonist's Perspective

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

When working on a scene, we're almost always thinking what the protagonist will do and how they'll get out of it. This is just good plotting, but sometimes it can lead directly to the outcome you have planned and miss opportunities for wonderful situations.

I was working on a scene for Blue Fire and found myself in this exact situation. The general gist of the scene was, Nya has to get out of something and fights a bunch of bad guys to do it. She'll get away, but it'll be a tough fight. Since I know she'll get away, I had her acting to achieve that goal. Oddly though, it felt wrong, too easy, rather flat, and something was off. Then it hit me...

This wasn't about her trying to get out, it was about the bad guys trying to stop her from getting out.

Rhythm of the Words: Voice in Dialogue

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Aaron Sorkin is a god when it comes to dialogue. Seriously.

For those unfamiliar with the name, Sorkin is the writer and creator of such delights as "The West Wing," "Sports Night," "Studio 64," "The American President," and "A Few Good Men." Watch any of these, and you'll hear the style of his writing and how he puts words together so they hit the ear just right.

What does this have to do with writing, you ask? Everything.

Why Refreshing What Your Know About Writing is a Good Thing

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I love reading about writing. There's something about an article that looks at -- say dialogue -- in a new way and makes me realize I could improve it if I did X, that gets me all aflutter. It's one of the reasons I love reading writing blogs so much. They're a wonderful way to grow as a writer.

I often point these out to writer pals, and I've had some mention (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Yeah, that's a great blog, but it's all basic stuff. We're way past that." In a way it's true, but in a way, it's not.

It's easy to forget about the fundamentals when they're old hat to you. When you don't sweat over structure, worry over dialogue, fret over setting, you don't always look at them as closely as you once did. Sometimes, they suffer because of it. Or if not, they might not be as stunning as they could be, because they're good enough. It's all stuff you know. You're past all that.

Wait for it, Wait for it—Never mind: Building up and not Following Through

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Good stories have a lot of balance to them. The right combination of information and action, narrative and dialog, description and internalization. When that balance is out of whack, readers notice.

One thing that can tip the scales is a disproportionate focus spent on an event vs its importance.

Let’s say Bob and the gals are running from zombies, trapped inside an abandoned car manufacturing plant in Detroit. For ten pages, Bob is obsessing over what’s going to happen when they reach the other side of the assembly line and go through the exterior doors. Sally disagrees with going there, Jane wants to go somewhere else but Bob insists it’s the only option. Despite the dangers, it’s a lot worse to not go through the assembly line doors. They finally get there and…

All By Myself: Why Protagonists Need Friends

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

It can be lonely being a protagonist. You go about your day with all kinds of terrible things happening to you, and there's not always someone to talk to about it. But protags need friends and confidants. And not just because it's lonely.

It's difficult to write a character who has no one to talk to.

Solitary protag stories are hard to write. The protag is in their head all the time, internalizing, talking to themselves. Some of this is great (you really get to know a protag that way), but too much and your reader can wind up telling your protag to zip it and get on with things.

When Being Bad is Good: Creating a Great Antagonist

By Janice Hardy, @Janie_Hardy

A reader asked...

How did you get in the "mindset" of writing from the antagonist perspectives (assuming you wrote in third-person)? If not, what are your thoughts on how to decide between telling a story in first- or third- person?

For this example, I'm going to say antagonist and bad guy mean the same thing, even though your antagonist doesn't have to be a villain. It's just who or what is between your protagonist and what they want. Often that's a bad guy of some type, but not always. There are multiple kinds of conflict.

Cats and Character: Telling Your Characters Apart

Darwin

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Two of my cats are red tabbies who look identical if you don't know them. It often takes a guest three or four visits before they realize we have two of them and they aren't the same cat, even though they're as different as night and day personality wise. What does this have to do with characters? You can learn a lot about creating characters from my cats.

Throwaway Characters

At first glance the cats look the same. Red fur, long and skinny, short hair, similar weight. This is what first-time guests remember after they leave my house. "They have cats." They might remember how many (minus one) and they might remember the colors.

Words That Sound Like What They Mean

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I love onomatopoeia. Not everyone does, so it's something I have to use with care. But just because I can't use "thwack" as often as I'd like, there are plenty of words that sound like what they mean that aren't onomatopoeia. The sound of the word evokes its meaning.

There's a great exchange in The West Wing that illustrates this. (I tried to find a video clip, but alas, no luck).

Ivanovich : Sam, it is freezing too cold in Rheykjavik, it is freezing too cold in Helsinki, it is freezing too cold in Staad, why must every American president bound out of an automobile like he's at a yacht club, while in... comparison,  while in comparison, our leader looks like... I don't even know what word is.

Sam : Frumpy?
 

Ivanovich : I don't know what 'frumpy' is, but onomatopoeticly, sounds right. 

Frumpy sounds like what it is. You don't have to know its definition to get a good idea of its meaning. A quick trip to the thesaurus got me these other words that could have been used instead:  

Shake and Bake: Re-Structuring Your Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

When I got my critiques back for Darkfall I knew there were going to be a lot of comments. I knew when I wrote this draft that it was a bit "all over the place" because it was wrapping up the trilogy and I wasn't sure how some things were going to pan out. I needed to write it and see what happened, and then needed to hear what folks said about it before I went back and revised.

I knew I was setting myself up for some serious realigning. And I was right.

The biggest change I had to make was to align the goal structure so all my plot arrows pointed in the same direction. Nya was often being pulled in several directions, and not in a good way. It was like she didn't know what to care about from chapter to chapter, so her goals bounced like ping pong balls. This happened because her goals were plot goals, not personal goals.