Tackling Revision: 3 Things to Keep in Mind
by Kimberley Allen McNamara
Revising your novel can seem a daunting task. It is very much like wrestling with yourself or at the very least a sibling. But if the wrestling is playful, if it has purpose or teaches you something then it ceases to be daunting and it becomes more manageable.
Your first draft is just that, it is your first draft. Start writing it and keep moving forward. Don’t get hung up on the first line of the novel, or the name of your character so much so you find yourself on baby name sites for hours, or searching for the perfect vintage car for your character’s father to be restoring. All this information can come later when you revise. Insert the placeholder TK for where you will need to add more specific details - (TK is used by English language writers because it is easy to search for in a document and the letters t and k very rarely appear next to each other in English or so I’ve been told.)
Understand that like your first road trip, you will make some wrong turns in your first draft even with a map (plot plan) to follow. Take those wrong turns: write a backstory that is five pages long single spaced with the knowledge you may only end up keeping 10 sentences. You need to spill it all out sometimes so that later you can sort through detritus, the flotsam and jetsam of elements that make up a novel, to find those pieces of gold.
Three things to keep in mind when you begin to revise.
1.
Your first draft is the getting-to-know-you part of your relationship with your novel. Your first draft is when you are telling yourself the story. But remember your Revision, be it your 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th draft, is precisely that: a RE-vision of your novel. The Revision process is the endurance part of the relationship. Recognize that your novel is different with each new draft and do this by naming each draft. Title these Re-visions the: Draft Where I add Setting, Draft Where I add more emotion, Draft Where I fine tune subtext - correction where I add more subtext, Draft where I add more Interiority ,...Just like an athlete in training, these titles will keep you on track with what it is you are supposed to be doing in a particular draft. Think of it as building core strength, cardio endurance and increasing flexibility.
2.
Take your novel to the movies. Watch movies of books that have been converted into movies or movies whose plots are similar to that of your book or movies that have elements you think your book is lacking (ie: suspense, romance, mystery). Watch these movies or a Netflix or Amazon series with the closed caption on! This will help you notice the beats of the dialogue, how characters are distinguished by catch phrases, mannerisms and dress, or when backstory is occurring. You will recognize (if it is a book-to-movie movie) where two characters became one or where pieces of backstory were blended or where sometimes a piece of the whole book was abandoned (and if it was a necessary piece of the book in your estimation as the Reader, you’ll undoubtedly cry Foul). Make note these differences. Is this something you should do in your Revision? Such elimination and reductions can guide you when you struggle to reduce your character count or delete some backstory. You will also see where the casting director was either spot on or if the producer/director/actor obviously didn’t read the book or where maybe the author failed to provide enough detail to conjure the character in actor form.
You will also clearly recognize the major difference between Novels and Movies: novels allow for you to be aware of the characters inward gaze, while movies not so much. Often movies have to tell you why a character is doing something, thinking something, is something; and this is accomplished through dialogue or occasionally voice over. Nuance on the silver screen sometimes needs to be stated. It is, of course, a credit to the actors/directors/set designers if such nuance can be conveyed without words. Consider: Paul Newman in the opening of Harper which is hailed as one of the finest openings given how much it reveals about the protagonist Harper without ever saying a word or Rachel Getting Married with Anne Hathaway - the loading the dishwasher scene speaks volumes! It is a testament to the actors in these clips (with noted direction from the screenwriter) for pulling off these feats of conveyance without the interiority accompanying them. The take away from these two cited movies clips is that had they been scenes in novel think of how they would have been written with the inward gaze and what a punch those scenes would have packed when coupled with such interiority that is the novel’s alone. Think of it. Wow!
While watching movies sprung-from-books, you will see where the interiority escaped the actors and the camera and therefore, you will see why the dialogue had to be so on point. In your first draft it is okay for you to be on point and you will want to over state so you can scale it back later in the Re-vision, because after all, with Revision comes the gentle art of scaling back and sometimes addition of more.
3.
Add some rhythm to your Re-vision. Movies/Series also have soundtracks which underscore what is occurring on the screen. The lyrics of the song sometimes fill in the missing information caused by the medium’s natural lack of interiority. With the closed caption On you will notice how the soundtrack “fills in” the empty space, in case the viewer was confused about what was happening on screen. The soundtrack has always been there, sometimes barely audible but nonetheless a part of the movement on the screen, underscoring the gist of what the character is feeling. There is something to be learned by acknowledging the role the soundtrack plays in the medium of the movie. Give your Re-vision, a soundtrack. Don’t insert the lyrics of a song into your actual finished novel (this can get costly with copyrights etc…) But when revising why not have the lyrics to the song you envision accompanying your Main Character as she leaves her apartment to walk to work on the actual page (in italics, of course, so you can go back and delete). These snippets of lyrics will add the rhythm to your character as she walks to work. They will influence nuance/interiority to her thoughts. You could also have an actual soundtrack you’ve culled for your novel playing as background music as you revise. This background music will filter into your Re-vision and add some rhythm you may not have noticed was missing but you will be so glad to have it show up.
The thought of revising your novel can feel overwhelming. By inserting an element of play into the Re-Vision process it becomes less taxing. Consider how tiger babies, like those depicted above, wrestle with each other to learn and practice the skills they will need to survive in the world. The same is true for your novel. It needs to survive which means it needs to be malleable. Sometimes you will need to adapt (reduce/eliminate/condense) and sometimes you will need to overemphasize/blow up to what it knows to be true. Only through the Revision process will your novel become its very best rendition.
