Sorry to be so late to post today, but had to do that Mommy Thing this morning. I’m back now . (Try to contain your excitement). It’s a half day at school though, darnit, so I’ll probably be off line this afternoon.

So where were we?

Revisions still. Yesterday someone posted a question about how do I tackle my fixer upper once I have all the “fixing” done and it comes to making it pretty. Well step one is “Save As.” Start with a newly numbered version. You never know when you’ll want to resurrect something you’ve axed. For me, the most productive method is to read it through, beginning to end and make the corrections I know up front need to be made. Fill in the blanks on those spots where I’ve noted to myself “change POV of this scene” or “move this scene to after chapter 5.” Cut out things I think are unnecessary and basically give it a “primer” coat of paint.

After that, I always print the sucker out and go through it with a red pen on hard copy. I do this for two reasons. The first is that I have a better sense of WHERE I am in the book when I’m looking at pages. I can see the stack I’ve read and the stack I’ve yet to read and have a better concept of how the story should be unfolding. On the screen, it’s like funny money–not real. Plus, it’s easier to cut things on hard copy for some reason. I think, again, it has to do with SEEING how many pages aren’t being cut. On the screen, 10 pages seems an awful lot. In a ream of paper, it doesn’t even make a dent. It’s all about perspective.

Another reason I work with hard copy is that seeing your words in a different format is helpful when finding typos. We all know how the human brain will record something and store it away and you can read the same sentence with the same omitted word a hundred times and not notice that it’s missing a word. But put that same sentence on paper and it jumps out.

Additionally, reading it from paper is what your agent/editor is going to do. You need to see it the same way they will.

I go through my novel from front to back at least 5 times. I’ve heard more experienced writers say they don’t need to do that anymore, but for me, it’s still necessary. I’m a stickler for perfection and I will rework prose or dialog until I get it right. And how do I know it’s right? When I feel sucked into the story even though I’m so familiar with it I want to burn the stupid thing. I also–and this is critical–read it outloud at least twice. In fact, this is so important, I now speak my story as I type it. I had a friend tell me that was amazing, but it’s second nature to me now and I catch things very early doing it this way.

If you have the slightest “bump” when you’re reading your novel, you can bet your reader will too. James Frey (of How to Write a Damn Good Novel, not of Million Pieces) said “If you think it sucks, it sucks.” I don’t think it can be any plainer than that.

Questions are grand, so please keep asking them.