with one leap

So today, in amongst the things already planned for the weekend, I will be editing "The Triangle", which is the fledgling novel from NaNoWriMo last November. I thought I would be at this point sooner, but once writing finished, the rest of my life quickly washed back in.

I need to find a way to keep the balance of interest in the story, rather than having the reader skimming lines and thinking of how much laundry they need to do. I'm justifying the time gap as distancing myself from what I wrote and now want to find the point where my own interest in the story begins to wane.

The style of writing in NaNo encouraged verbiage, so pruning will be essential. Usually when I blog, I re-read and chop and I suspect with this bigger work the same will be needed. The forward and backward references in a novel are a particular challenge. If I can't remember who a character is, then what chance have any readers got!

I expect I will be staring at a sleeker book by the end but, hey, Annie Proulk's book about cowboys was only about 60 pages and she had it made into a film as well!

So the rules for my editing include:

• Never write a 100,000 word story someone else could write in 10,000.
• Never let friends be the first readers, unless you know they can be impartial. Use someone who will be harsh, but honest.
• Never discard the removed sections.
• Save often, with revision numbers.
• Use time to get distance from the story.
• Don't be afraid to cut. Everything can be rewritten. That's the beauty of drafts.
• Listen to editors. They've been trained to spot things.

Where's my scissors?

Tag: novel, writing, NaNoEdMo