Time To Reduce

As we come out of an SDCC@Home weekend where I probably ate about as healthy as I would at an actual con (I was going for the full experience) I thought it’d be a great time to talk about reducing things.

He said, in a blog post he skipped getting on the treadmill to write....

Anyway, back when I was doing the A2Q we broke down different types of editing, and one of them I touched on was reductive editing. This is when I start cutting and trimming to make my story lean and tight. Figuring out what needs to be there as opposed to all the stuff I threw down while I was working on the first draft.

And since I just finished doing this with my new book last week, I thought I’d talk about some of the cuts I made and explain why I made them.

The first cut was easy. I had a section where two chapters overlapped. I liked the overlap at first. It was an action scene with multiple characters, and I thought it kept things moving to show all of his fight and then all of her fight, even though they happened at the same time.

But when I looked at it again during my editing pass it just felt... slow. Also kinda repetitive, since I kept referring to the other fight in both versions to show how they overlapped. Also, it created an odd problem with ending the chapters—either one had to end flat or I had to repeat the cool end-beat and weaken it. So I cherry picked a bit, leaned more into his than hers (for a couple of reasons, but I feel pretty good about it for the moment) and then cut 750 words of overlap.

The next one was rough. Throughout the book I had a few chapters where we switched POV and checked in with the main antagonist—the big bad in charge. Essentially, that big voice going “Meanwhile, at the mad scientist’s lair...” Thing is, these chapters never sat right at any point in the process. Not in my first draft. Not in my second, “cleaning up” draft. I didn’t want to give away too much in these chapters (since my villain was much more in the know than my protagonist), but it was hard not to mention some things without feeling like characters were deliberately not talking about things.

I’m not sure exactly what did it, but I know during my second draft I had the realization that I could probably cut one of these POV chapters altogether. There wasn’t a lot of necessary information in it, and I realized what there was I could shift to other chapters and characters without any real trouble. And that made me suddenly wonder... wait, do I actually need any of these chapters? I mean, a big chunk of the first one was just backstory justifying the antagonist and their behavior... while not talking about anything that would give things away. Another one introduced a character I’d only created to make some exposition read better. The more I looked at it... yeah, I’d definitely have to rework some things, but for the story I was telling these chapters were really distracting and didn’t add anything. Heck—two of them I still hadn’t even fleshed out, even though they’d been through two drafts.

So that was another six thousand words gone. A little over six thousand, really. Only a few pounding heartbeats for that one. And now the knives come out. Time for the death of a thousand cuts.

I’ve talked before about looking out for overused words. So I did a couple passes looking for that, adverbs, a lot of the “somewhat” words and phrases I can’t help but use in train-of-thought mode. We all have them, and you might already be aware of yours. If not, feel free to borrow mine for now and see where they get you.

I also had some other things that I was worried about—words that might be showing up a lot by nature of this specific story and how it was being told. That was another pass or three through the manuscript. I was kinda surprised that one or two didn’t get used as much as I thought they would, but... one I included as an afterthought showed up way more than I expected. Think I deleted eighty-something uses of that one.

One thing that did strike me with this is I didn’t find a lot of my usual padding. The adverbs and the “somewhat” phrases. It was still there, yeah, but not as thick as I’ve piled it on at times in the past. After twelve full books, I’m finally improving. Maybe.

In the end not quite a death of a thousand cuts. With additions and rewrites as I went, it worked out to a little over 300 words less. A full page gone.

That’s how this part of editing goes. Word by word. Sometimes chapter by chapter. All of this added up about 7,250 words gone out of what began as a 124K manuscript. And I still may trim a little more when I get notes back from my beta readers.

Next time, if you’re up for it, I’d like to play doctor for a little bit. No, not like that. Get your minds out of the gutter!

Until then, go write...

Initial Incisions

Hey, so I know last time I said I was going to talk about twists, but...

This past weekend I subbed in for Jonathan Maberry at the San Diego Writers Coffeehouse and we talked about... well, all sorts of stuff. NaNoWriMo. Agents. Editing. One interesting question that came up was how do you edit? Which is a fair point. I’ve talked about editing here a bunch of times, but not anywhere near as much about what it is or how we do it.

First off, we need to be clear that there are different types of editing. There’s the type we’re going to talk about now (which I’m just going to call initial editing) but there’s also story editing and copyediting. I’ve talked about those a bit before, so I won’t go into them two much now. I will note that they exist and that all of these are very different things. So when we talk about editing—if we’re offering it, asking for it, or just doing it ourselves--it’s kind of important we’re clear what we mean.

What we were talking about at the Coffeehouse, and what I shall blather on about here, is what I’m going to call initial editing. There may be a better, more generally-recognized term for it, but that’s what I’m going with here. Really, I should’ve been calling it something like this for ages now because, like I said, they’re all different and I should’ve been as clear as possible.

Anyway...

This is the first real attempt at trimming and tightening my manuscript. If I was cooking, this would be the trimming the fat stage. Like, literally, trimming the fat. I can have a nice cut of meat (or a good head of cabbage, if you prefer) but that still doesn’t mean I’m going to use 100% of it when I cook. I’ll cut off that layer of fat and maybe that piece of gristle. I’ll peel off those outer, kinda banged up leaves of cabbage, but also trim them away from the really hard, solid stem at the core of the head. This is when I take thing that’s good or nice and make it into something great—something I want to impress other people with.

For our manuscripts, right off the bat this is going to mean having an open mind and a willingness to accept some possibly uncomfortable facts. If I refuse to believe there’s anything wrong, it’s really tough to fix anything. When I finally get to that first solid draft—usually the second draft, for me—it means things are very likely a little bloated with excess words Things that aren’t necessarily wrong, but my manuscript will almost definitely be stronger and cleaner without them.

I’m just going to list some words and phrases to keep an eye out for. To be very clear, this list isn’t complete and it definitely isn’t the end-all-be-all of things you should absolutely always delete from your manuscript. But I think it’s a good starting point, and as we go through maybe you’ll start to feel a pattern, a sense of the kind of stuff you should be looking for when you pull out the knives and start cutting. So fire up your word processor (or your blue pencil, if you’re hardcore old-school), find your Find function, and start looking for...

Adverbs and Adjectives—

Let’s just start with the big ones. A lot of folks have very strong opinions on adjectives, and especially on adverbs. Man, they hate adverbs. Some people think all adverbs should be ripped out of your manuscript while other people think all adverbs should be burned alive in your manuscript. And some people say adverbs are wonderful things and we should cultivate them like clover on a low-water front lawn.

I’m not a fan of adverbs. They have their uses, absolutely, and I'm not saying I never use them, but I also know a lot of the time they’re something I stick in quick to modify a verb rather than spending a few seconds to find the right verb. It’s an easy habit to get into, because pretty much every sentence is going to have a verb and I can pause for five seconds here, ten seconds there, and suddenly that’s an extra minute I spent on that paragraph. Five or six minutes on this page. It’s a drag we can feel, so it’s not uncommon to fall back on our first choice. Which is why people slowly run or quickly run or clumsily run when they could be ambling, dashing, or stumbling. A good rule of thumb I got years back that I try to follow is four adjectives per page, one adverb.

That—
That can be a killer. There are times when it’s necessary for comprehension, or maybe even grammatically required depending on how I’ve structured things, but on a guess I’d say 75-80% of them are unnecessary in a story. It’s not uncommon for me to delete around 200 thats during my initial editing, if not more. Think about it. That’s almost an entire, actual page cut from my manuscript just by focusing on one word.

Somewhat Syndrome—

An editor friend of mine came up with this a while back. It’s from a bad habit I had of modifying, well, everything. Even in a loose third person POV, it’d seem odd for someone to look across a room and say “Yakko was six-foot-two and weighed one hundred-ninety-five pounds.” It just feels unnaturally accurate, doesn’t it? Sure, some characters might have that sort of precision, but not many. So I’d soften it up a bit. “Yakko was somewhere around six-foot-two and weighed maybe one-hundred-ninety-five pounds or so.”

Over the years I’ve come to add a few other words to this list, but for starters just try looking for things like somewhat, about, around, maybe, might, sort of, a bit, and kind of.  I’ll also toss out that I saw a similar list from Benjamin Dryer recently and he suggested cutting very, rather, really, quite, so, of course, and in fact.

Heck, while we’re at it, let’s mention appeared to be and its evil step-siblings seemed to be and looked like. The thing is, these phrases aren’t supposed to be used alone. They’re almost always part of a literary construction where the second half of that structure is either an implied or actual contradiction.  So when I’m saying “Yakko seemed to be six-foot-two,” what I’m really saying is “Yakko seemed to be six-foot-two but really he was barely five eleven.”  And what I meant to say all along was just “Yakko was six-foot-two.”  So I should probably triple-check these and make sure I’m not accidentally establishing a contradiction I don’t mean to be (and wasting a bunch of words in the process).

Looking back over this list, it’s probably worth mentioning that, yeah, when I delete some of these words and phrases it might mean I need to spend more time rewriting other things so my dialogue or narration still makes sense. Sorry. It happens. Probably want to make sure I also don’t just repeat the problem. It’s all part of the normal editing process.

And again, I want to stress--these words aren’t always wrong. I can use multiple adverbs on the same page. I can say someone’s around six-foot-two. There are totally valid reasons for these things to happen. But the whole point of this initial editing is to look at how often I’m using these words and patterns. And to figure out if they’re really necessary.

Now, these aren’t the only things I tend to look for in this initial editing pass. There might be (will probably be) plot threads, descriptions, characters, and more that can use a little trimming. If any of you like, I could talk about editing those, too. But I think for now, this is long enough. We’ve all got things to do.

Speaking of which, to bring things full circle, this Sunday at noon is the Los Angeles Writers Coffeehouse at Dark Delicacies in Burbank. Come on by and talk with us about writing and publishing and all that sort of stuff. Or just lurk in the background and browse the store while you listen in. Either was, I’m bringing little danishes.

And next time, yes, twists. Finally. After that it’s up to you.

Until then, go write.

It Cuts! It Edits!

            It slices! It dices!  It makes julienne fries!  Plus, just add salt, pop the tray into the oven, and look—perfect hash browns, a great addition to any breakfast!

            Okay, I may have watched too many infomercials lately.  There’s been a channel issue with the television.  Don’t judge me.

            Over the past few months I’ve talked with a few folks about editing.  They’re almost always interesting conversations, but I noticed a while back they tend to skew in random directions. Well, not really random.  The questions cover a large range.

            One thing that catches some folks off guard is that there are different kinds of editing. They think of it as a general term, but it’s more of an umbrella that covers a lot of things.  Like how an oil change, brake work, and a car wash can all fall under “basic maintenance,” even though I’d probably have different people do them—and may even do some of them myself.

            For example, I have a regular editor I work with, Julian, and he helps me edit my story.  We dig through and find weak motivations, unclear dialogue, and the thing that doesn’t really match, tone-wise,for one reason or another.  His edits help improve the story.  When someone panics about “an editor making them change their story,” this is usually what they’re talking about.

            For the record, in almost ten years of doing this writing thing, and personally knowing close to a hundred professional writers with careers spanning most of that time, I’ve only ever heard of this happening once.  One time where the editor insisted on a major change that the author disagreed with.  And, no, it didn’t involve me or my editor.

             I also work with a copyeditor.  This is the person who finds spelling and grammar mistakes, inconsistencies that have slipped past everyone, and in some cases even a bit of fact-checking. The copyeditor help me improve the manuscript.

            And of course, neither of these are like the edits that I do myself before the manuscript goes to my editor.  Or even my beta readers. That’s when I’m trimming words, tightening the story, and trying to smooth out rough spots.

            Today I wanted to babble on (probably too much) about those easy edits.  The type of stuff that we all let slip though while we’re writing (and the experienced folks know to then get rid of in their first round of revisions).  I’ve mentioned some of them before in a broad strokes sort of way, but it struck me that maybe I could even boil this down further.

            So here are some words and phrases I can cut from my manuscript.  Not all the time, but a fair amount of it.  A lot of them lead to other words, too—they’re indicating a larger problem—so once I get rid of these it’ll probably mean a few others on either side go away, too.  Which means I’ll end up with a leaner, stronger story.

            One proviso before we dive in.  When I’m talking about these cuts, I’m talking about prose, not dialogue.  Dialogue gets a pass on a lot of this, because people have lots of odd tics and habits when they talk, and all my characters are people, right? Don’t worry about these suggested cuts too much, except maybe where they overlap with basic dialogue tips.

             This would apply to first person stories, too. They’re effectively dialogue—stories being told in a strong, specific character voice.  Just remember, characters and artful dialogue are fantastic, but it all needs to serve the story.  I don’t want my narration to collapse because of an all-too realistic narrator.

            Okay, so...  Ready?

            Adverbs--  As mentioned above, most of us get caught up in the flow of words, and what usually slips in is adverbs.  We try to pretend they're important—they spent valuable school-hours on them, after all, and school would never waste our time—but the sad truth is they can almost always be replaced.  I’d guess that three out of five times if I’m using an adverb, I just don’t need it.  The fourth time odds are I’m probably using the wrong verb, and once I find the right one, again, I won’t need the adverb.  If I’m using my vocabulary well, there aren’t many times I need one.

            While I was editing Paradox Bound I cut around 170 adverbs and adverbial phrases in my first editing pass.  That’s almost a solid page of adverbs, gone.  Search your manuscript for LY and see how many you find.

            Adjectives—Some folks use a lot of adjectives to make normal, average things sound interesting.  Coincidentally, these folks tend to have a poor vocabulary.  So when I don’t know multiple words for, say, sword, I’ll just use multiple adjectives instead of blade, claymore, rapier, saber, foil, or falchion.

            Of course, we all go a little overboard now and then  (anyone who says they don't is lying to you) because we’re convinced this person, this place, this thing needs extra description.  Yet we all know too much description brings things too a grinding halt.

            There’s an odd habit I’ve seen among fantasy writers—not only them, and not all of them by a long shot, but enough to make it worth mentioning.  They use dozens of adjectives per page, if not per sentence.  Often redundant ones like “gleaming chrome sword of pure silver.” 

            I was at a writing conference a few years back where writer/ editor Pat LaBrutto tossed put a pretty solid rule of thumb.  One adverb per page, four adjectives per page.  It’s only a guideline, yeah, but if I’m averaging fifteen to twenty adjectives per page... maybe I should give them all a second look.

            That—People tend to drop that into their writing a lot, and a good three out of four times their writing would be tighter without it.  I used to be a that junkie until someone pointed out how unnecessary it often is. Look at these sentences—it doesn’t add anything to them.

            Phoebe could see that the two of them were meant to be together.        

            He punched her in the same arm that she had been shot in.

            She knew that the Terminator would not stop—ever—until it had killed her.

            Use the Find feature, search for uses of that in your writing, and see how many of them are necessary.  Odds are you’ll find more than half of them aren’t. I cut 132 that's from Paradox Bound—just over half a page. 

            (I’ve gotten better about adding them in to start with...) 

            Useless Modifiers -- I've called this Somewhat Syndrome a few times in the past.  This is another one I wrestle with a lot, although I like to tell myself I've gotten better about it.  It's when I pepper my writing with somewhat.., sort of..., a bit..., kind of..., and other such modifiers. I’d guess nine times out of ten they're not doing anything except adding to my word count (not in the good way) and slowing my story (also not in the good way).  Use the Find feature again and see how much tighter and stronger your story is without these. 

            I cut over two hundred of these from that first draft of Paradox Bound.  That’s another full page gone.

            Decided—This word’s almost always filler.  Maybe not conscious filler, but it’s almost always filler that can be cut.  If Wakko decides to do something and then he does it, I’m just eating up words again.  We all make hundreds of decisions and choices every day, but readers want to hear about the action, not the decision to take an action.  The action itself implies the decision was made. 

            Listen/ Look—If I start a line of dialogue with look or listen I’d bet that almost 80% of the time it’s either an infodump or it’s stating something plainly apparent.  Which means this dialogue is adding something that could be expressed through actions or subtext or any number of ways.  Or it isn’t adding anything.

            Obvious—If something isn’t obvious, it comes across as arrogant to say it is.  So I shouldn’t use the word obvious, because the character (or writer) in question is going to look like a jerk. Which, granted, might be the point...

            On the flipside, if something is obvious, then I still don’t need the word.  Things that are obvious are... well, obvious, so it’s just wasted words for me to tell the readers about it.

            Seemed/Appeared/ Looked – I’ve talked about these words a few times before.  They show up in phrases like “appeared to be,” “seemed to be,” “looked like,” and so on. The catch is,  seemed to be and its siblings don’t get used alone.  They’re part of a literary construction where the second half of that structure is either an implied or actual contradiction to the appearance.  So when I’m saying “Yakko seemed like the kind of man you didn’t want to mess with,” what I’m really saying is “Yakko seemed like the kind of man you didn’t want to mess with but really he was a pushover who fainted at the sight of blood.”  And what I meant to say all along was just “Yakko was the kind of man you didn’t want to mess with.”

           If I’m not trying to establish a contradiction, using appeared to be and the others isn't just wasted words-- it's wrong.  So cut them

            As you know—I’ve talked about these three words a few times before.  They’re awful.  Just awful.  I won’t say this is the worst way to get the facts out to my readers—I have full confidence there’s someone out there now working on a worse way—but I’d put this in the 99-out-of-100 category. 

            If I’m saying “as you know” to you, it means you already know what I’m telling you... so why am I saying it?  Why waste words blatantly stating something that you and I both know?  Yeah, maybe you've got amnesia, but if you do then you don’t know... so why am I saying “as you know” to you?

            If these three words pop up together more than once in my manuscript, odds are I’m doing something horribly wrong.

            Was – I always search for was, because it tends to point at weak verb structures.  It’s when I’ve got “Phoebe was running” instead of just “Phoebe ran.”  It’s a small tweak, but it’s one that gives my writing punch because it makes all my actions read just a bit faster.

            The Word—This is a tough one, because it’s going to depend on experience and spending time going through my manuscript.  I’ve found that a lot of times I’ll inadvertently reuse a word or simple phrase again and again and again.  It’s not really that odd—in the rush to get that first draft out, there are a lot of places I’m going to pick the first word that comes to mind.  Might be a certain verb, might be a noun, might be an adjective.  In Paradox Bound it was glared.  Lots of people glared in the early drafts of that book.  At each other.  At objects.  Out at the uncaring universe...

            Keep an eye out for your word.

            And there’s eleven things I always search for and slice away.  Editing made simple.  Well, some of the editing. 

            One type of editing.

            And this was so much longer than I'd planned.  So sorry.

            By the way, if you're in the SoCal area, this Sunday is the Writers Coffeehouse.  We'll be meeting noon to 3:00 at our usual hangout, Dark Delicacies in Burbank.  Swing by, hang out and join us as we talk (this month) about creating great characters.  Or just lurk.

            Next time... I had a few thoughts about genre and devices and structures you might find kind of interesting.

            Until then, go write.

What’s In Your Arsenal?

            Y’know, while I was pulling links for this post, I realized something kind of amazing (and I’m glad I caught it).  This is the 300th time I’ve posted on this page.  Three hundred ranty posts about characters and dialogue and spelling and structure. Wow.

            I’m kind of surprised we’re all still here.
            But let’s get back to it...
            Odd fact—I’ve probably fired more types of handguns and rifles than anyone reading this.  You might be a firearm enthusiast, you might be former military, you might be in the military now... but there’s a very good chance I’ve got you beat.  I once compared notes with an Army weapons specialist and it turned out I could name almost twice as many firearms than him that I’d used, including a few obscure ones he’d never even heard of.

            The reason why I can do this is all my time in the film industry.  With the different procedural and crime shows I worked on, it was very common to have a new murder weapon every week, along with a red herring weapon and possibly some random thug weapons as well. Pistols, shotguns, rifles, bolt action, lever action, pump, semi-auto, full-auto...  And every one of these that was actually used on screen had to be test fired by me and then by the actors. 

            Even with some common weapons repeating, over the course of fifteen years... I fired a lot of weapons.

            Now, with all that being said, even though I’ve worked with a ton of weapons, I would never consider myself any kind of marksman.  Definitely not a sniper.  Because there is much, much more to being good with weapons then just being able to pull a trigger.  An AK-47 might seem like a ticket to badass-dom, but not if I don’t know how to load it. Or hold it.  Or turn the safety off.  I’ve heard some great (and kind of awful) stories from soldiers about gunfights with people who don’t know how their own weapons work.

            I bet a few folks reading this have an acquaintance who buys nothing but the most expensive, top-of-the-line tools yet still can’t put an IKEA bookshelf together.  Most of us have heard stories about some guy who spends a quarter-million on a car and then wrecks it within a week because “the car outperformed the driver.” Heck, we’ve all seen proof that giving a director access to grade-A actors and millions in film technology is absolutely no guarantee of a decent movie.

            Y’see, Timmy, having high-level tools doesn’t automatically make me skilled.  They’re two entirely different things.  Sure, I can keep jabbing at that bookshelf with my $300 DeWalt Max XR  20 volt hammer drill, but if I just need to tap in a few finishing nails it’s not going to help much. And the parts the drill would actually work for... well, a Phillips head screwdriver would do the same job.  It might even work better, all things considered.  DeWalt’s are great, but they can kind of suck when you need to work in tight spaces.

            Anyway... where am I going with this?

            I’d like to share something with you.  As I’ve mentioned once or thrice before, I used to work on a text-based online game, what some of you might know as a MUD.  Because it was text-dependent, it was a chance for some people to really show off their skills.  Or complete lack thereof.  A friend of mine still works there and sometimes she shares things with me.

            So, check out this sentence...

            (names have been changed to protect the horribly guilty)

"Lashes aflutter like the wings of a satin bird, Phoebe sets glaukosphaerite lagoons on the newcomer, a smirk glissading across twin folds."

             WTF...

            Now, I was going to try to sift through this sentence and break down all the places it went wrong.  To be honest, I did.  And I had a page and a half of notes, which is a lot more negativity than I want to have here.  So, instead, let me break all of that down into four simple rules for your writing arsenal.

            And yes, these would be rules, not advice.

            Know what words mean—It doesn’t matter how much my reciprocal saw cost if I keep trying to use it as a butter knife.  An elephant gun is not a sidearm.  And diffuse and defuse mean two entirely different things.

            This is the most important of these rules.  If I want to make my living with words, I need to know them intimately.   Not more or less what they mean or a general idea of how they’re used.  I cannot say words are the tools of my trade and then get repeatedly stumped by vocabulary questions on Jeopardy!. I’ve been doing this for many years, full time for over eight now, and I still pick up the dictionary once or thrice a week to make sure I’m using a given word correctly.  Because I have to know what they mean.

            This is also one of the worst rules to get wrong because it’s a mistake that’s hard to catch.  I won’t catch it because, well, I don’t know I’m using the word wrong.  My computer won’t catch it, because computers are idiots and will only tell me if a word’s spelled right, not if it’s being used correctly. Which means the readers will probably be the ones to catch it... and it won’t give them a good opinion of my skills as a writer.

           

            Don’t overcomplicate—Stephen King once said that any word you go looking for in the thesaurus for is the wrong word.  I’ve mentioned a few different versions of this rule at one time or another.  I’m not saying my writing can’t have some clever bits to it, but I should never confuse (or equate) overcomplicating my writing with complexity in my writing.

            If I have metaphors for metaphors (like using lagoons instead of pools because I don’t want to use eyes), I am pushing my audience away from reading and into analysis.  This is the kind of thing that destroys the flow of my writing.  And that’s the kind of thing that gets my writing set aside in favor of something else.

            Know how things go together—Remember that AK-47?  It’s not going to be half as effective after I force a lot of shotgun shells into the magazine.  They’re two powerful items that do not work well together.

            People can’t read my sentences if they don’t understand my sentences.  That "descriptive"sentence up above arguably has five completely different similes and metaphors. It’s spinning in multiple directions. This is when things go past overcomplicated and into full-on incomprehensible.  I need to have a firm understanding of the individual parts, how they'll be perceived, and how they'll work as a whole.

            Know what words mean—Did I mention this one already? Well, it’s probably worth mentioning again.  It is the most important of these rules after all.  And the one most people will ignore, because I need to be able to admit I don’t know stuff before I can learn new stuff.

            Have a big arsenal of words because you need it and you can use it.  Not just because you think it makes you look cool.  I can spend twenty minutes looking up glaukosphaerite and making sure it’s spelled correctly (because it won’t be in the spellchecker), but I could also just use green and then finish this whole page in that same amount of time. 

            And more people would understand what I was trying to say.

            Next time, I wanted to tell you about something I’ve felt for a while now...

            Until then, go write.

Draft Bored

            See what I did there?  A clever play on words.  Not quite a pun, definitely not a pop culture reference, but... well, it’ll do.

            It’ll do, pig.

            Also, random note—I set up a Tumblr a while back.  If you ever want to ask a quick question, send anonymous insults, or whatever, please feel free to stop by.

            Anyway, I’m about to wrap up this draft of my current project and it struck me that I haven’t blabbed on about the drafting process, so to speak, in a while.  A lot of folks hate doing drafts.  Some folks skip them altogether, convinced their words are gold the minute they’re set down.  And a few folks get caught in an endless loop of writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and...

            So, here’s a basic step by step of how I go from bare idea to something I’m willing to hand to an editor.  And when I say editor, I mean “someone who will pay for these words I’ve written.”  That being said, this is also a good time to bring up the ever-popular golden rule.

What works for me might not work for you,

and it almost definitely won't work for that guy.

            I’ve mentioned once or thrice before that we all have our own way of writing.  Working through drafts in this way helps me a lot, but it’s not a guarantee of success for anyone except me.  You might need to modify these steps a bit, or maybe a lot.  But I think this is a good baseline method.

            To begin...

            While I’m working on a book, I usually scribble down notes and thoughts about the next book.  Characters, dialogue, action moments, reveals... all sorts of different elements.  I’ll shuffle these around into more or less the order I think they’ll end up.  These notes serves as a very, very rough outline, just enough so I can start writing on page one and go when it’s time to start...

            The First Draft—In my mind, this is the "just finish it" stage.  I just want to finish this draft with a beginning, an end, and the majority of points in between.  I don't worry about catching typos or crafting every subtle moment in the plot. 

            Consider this... diamonds don’t come out of the earth as clear, faceted gems.  They come out as ugly blobs that need lots of cuts and polishing.  So if I dig up a ten-gram diamond, I can’t expect it to make a ten gram gemstone.  If I’m lucky, I might get three or four grams out of it.  It’ll shrink as I work on it, because that’s how I improve it (see below).  So if I’ve got a ten-gram diamond and I’m insisting on a 9.9 gram gem... well, that’s going to make a pretty crappy engagement ring, yes?

            At this early stage, I don't hold anything back.  I let dialogue, descriptions, and action scenes run on a bit longer than they probably should.  I know I'll be cutting eventually, so there's no reason to worry about length now.  For this stage, it really is quantity over quality. 

            If I get stuck on something (an awkward conversation or complex action scene), I'll just skip it.  Things might not be perfect right now, but I know I’ll be able to go into the exact details of that conversation or this sequence later, so I'd rather keep moving forward and leave that stuff for Future Peter to deal with.  Again, for me, the most important thing is to get the overall framework done.  It's a lot easier to think about the little things when the big things aren't looming over you.

            Depending on the book, this process takes me anywhere from two to three months. I had one book take about six weeks, but that was pretty rare for me.

            I don’t show this draft to anyone.  I may take a night off, work on something else for a day, and then it’s right back for...

            The Second Draft-- Remember all those problems I left for Future Peter to deal with?  Those need to be dealt with now.  Gaps get filled in.  Characters get fleshed out a little more, and sometimes renamed.  All those awkward knots get worked out.   Because I can see a lot of these elements in relation to the whole story now , I'll usually find the answers to these problems are more apparent. 

            The goal with this draft is to have a readable manuscript.  No more little notes to myself  or trailing paragraphs that need to get connected somehow.  Someone should be able to pick this up and read it start to finish without thinking they lost a few pages or only got my notes on a chapter.

            Keep in mind this doesn't mean I do show it to people.  It just means I should be able to.  Really, the only person who might see this is my lady-love, and not even her always.  Usually she has to wait.

            For some folks, this stage would really be the first draft.  Those people have nice pages of their own somewhere out there on the web.  This isn’t one of them.  Plus, breaking it up like this takes a lot of pressure off, which I think is a good thing when you’re trying to treat writing like a real job.  No one likes a high-pressure job.

            Okay then, so... now I step away for a couple of days.  Maybe as much as a week.  I’ll watch movies, work out a little, or maybe even scribble up a few ranty blog posts in advance.  The goal is to push the manuscript as far out of my mind as possible.  Don't look at it, try not to think too much about it. 

            I’m just into this now with The Albuquerque Door, for those who care about such things.

            The Third Draft—Time to make like a slasher and cut, cut, cut.  Two great rules-of-thumb I've mentioned a few times—

one adverb per page, four adjectives

2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%

            Yeah, the second rule goes off the previously mentioned assumption that my first clean, readable draft is my first draft.

            I spend this draft tracking down adverbs, adjectives, pointless dialogue descriptors, and so on.  If they can be cut, they get cut.  One thing I also go after here is common padding phrases that don't really do anything (sort of, somewhat, kind of, more or less).  One of my regular readers dubbed this somewhat syndrome, and I still call it that.  I like to tell myself I’ve gotten much better about it now that I’m aware of the problem. 

            Sometimes I also like to tell myself that I haven't gained that much weight since college...

            At this point I've gone through the whole manuscript at least twice, so a few larger cuts should be apparent, too.  Overcomplicated descriptions that slow down the narrative.  Awkward sentence structures.  Extensive character moments that really add nothing to the character, the story, or the plot.  Many of these things get tightened or cut altogether.

            I spend a week or two doing this.  This is usually when I let my lovely lady have a look.  She's my first set of eyes and lets me know I screwed up and I'm too close to see it.

            The Fourth Draft--This is the first big polish.  I go through sentence by sentence, looking for words that come up too often or stilted dialogue.  I also make sure all the cuts and swaps from the last draft haven't messed anything up.  Are the logic chains still complete?  Did I forget to change Pash’s name to Veek anywhere?  Does Arthur still have time to get that pistol?  Are there any odd character tics that I forgot to remove or add?  Does the whole thing have a good flow to it? 

            This draft doesn’t take long.  Just a day or two.  It’s just one slow, careful read of the story.

            Once I’ve got a solid fourth draft, I send it off to folks to get fresh eyes.   I generally use four or five friends I’ve know for years.  All of them are all professional writers and editors who know how to give useful criticism.  Not to beat a dead horse, but by professional I mean they get paid to do this for a living.  They have actual credentials.

            Speaking of which, some folks might hire a professional editor at this point. Nothing wrong with that.  The important thing is to get an opinion I can trust to be honest, even if I have to pay for it.  A few folks might argue that this is the publisher’s job, but I need to get a publisher first, and why are they going to bother with my crap manuscript?

            Anyway, this draft goes off into the world and it may be two weeks to a month before I look at it again.  The challenge is to resist messing with it while those people are looking at it.  I try to spend the time relaxing a bit, scribbling down ideas for later books (see above), or flexing different mental muscles.

            More than once, I’ve cleaned my office.

            The Fifth Draft-- Now I've gotten notes back from the folks I begged/ blackmailed/ paid to read this thing.  I go through the whole manuscript page by page with their comments.  If you’ve got multiple monitors, this is a great time to use them.

            Page one... what did everyone think?  What about page two?  How's page three look?  As I'm doing this, I've also got my own copy of the fourth draft that I'm using as a "master document."  This way I can see all the notes and make whatever changes are required. 

             I mentioned that I ask four or five people to make notes for me.  That gives me a broad sampling on each note/ issue that comes up.  If four people like something but one doesn't, odds are I'll call that good.  Nothing’s going to work for everyone.  If three don't and two do (and of course I do, or I wouldn't've written it), I'll sit and give it a good look.  If nobody likes it, well... I'm smart enough to admit when I've screwed up and something doesn't work.

            This draft can take another two weeks or more to finish with a full book manuscript.

            The Sixth Draft-- This one's another polishing draft, just like the fourth.   I need to make sure everything still works now that I’ve made those changes and tweaks from my reader's comments.  So, yet another line by line reading, adjusting as I go.

            And at this point... this is when I’m done.  There’s only so much a given writer—in this case, me—can do with a given story.  There comes a point when further work accomplishes nothing and I’m just rewriting for the sake of rewriting. I'm sure we all know someone who's just been working on the same manuscript for years and years because they've got another one or two drafts to put it through.  If my manuscript’s not ready for a publisher (or film producer) by now, it probably means I screwed up something big right at the start. 

            Maybe with my initial idea of rebooting the Laff-A-Lympics as a medical drama starring a gender-swapped, alcoholic Captain Caveman.

            Next time... well, if there’s anything next week it’ll be really quick.  I’ve got a flight on Thursday.  If you’re in Dallas next week, please swing by Texas Frightmare and say hi.  I’ll be in the Made in Texas room.

            Either way, go write.

Snip Snip Snip

            A few quick cuts.  A little off the top.

            Once again, I must make pathetic excuses for missing last week.  I wanted to post this Wednesday night before I left for Crypticon Seattle, but ended up bogged down in last minute preparations.  By the time I realized I never put this up, I was about two miles above San Francisco.

            Anyway, enough of my pathetic excuses.  Let’s talk about cuts.

            As writers, we all need to make cuts.  Our first drafts always have too much.  We put in every wild idea and detail and prolonged conversation.

            Before anyone says anything—no.  None of us write perfect first drafts.  Not one person reading this.  Not you.  Not me.  Definitely not that guy over there.  The only person who writes usable first drafts is Paul Haggis, and even he doesn’t think they’re perfect (Clint Eastwood does, though).  And Paul isn’t here, so we’re back to saying none of us.

            (Mr. Haggis—if you are here, thanks so much for the support.  You probably don’t remember, but I interviewed you twice for Creative Screenwriting and you were fantastic)

            All this means that in the second draft, third at the latest, we have to make cuts.  We want our books and screenplays and short stories to be lean and tight.  It’s a tough world out there, with a lot of tough publishers, and I can’t expect my story to get anywhere if it’s not at fighting weight.

            So, here’s a few quick, painless ways you can make some cuts and help your manuscript lose a thousand words or so...

            Adverbs--  As I said above, most of us get caught up in the flow of words, the impetus of a scene, and the thing that slides by most often is the all-but-useless adverb.  We try to pretend they're important, but they can always be replaced.  When it comes down to it, adverbs are the Shemps of the writing world.

            Three out of five times if you’re using an adverb, you just don’t need it.  The fourth time odds are you’re using the wrong verb, and once you find the right one, again, you won’t need the adverb.  And that fifth time... well, maybe it’s only one in six.  If you’re using your vocabulary well, there aren’t many times you need an adverb.

            I was at a conference a few years back where writer/ Editor Pat LaBrutto tossed put a great rule of thumb.  One adverb per page, four adjectives per page.  It’s only a guideline, granted, but if you’re averaging five or six adverbs per paragraph... maybe you should give them all a second look.

            In my recent editorial pass of the fourth Ex book, I cut just over 200 adverbs from the manuscript.  That’s almost a full page of adverbs, gone.  Search your manuscript for LY and see how many you find.

            Adjectives—People use a lot of adjectives to make normal, average things sound interesting.  Coincidentally, these folks tend to have a poor vocabulary.  So when I don’t know multiple words for shirt (like Henley, tunic, tee, blouse, polo, Oxford), I’ll just use multiple adjectives. 

            Of course, we all go a little overboard now and then  (anyone who says they don't is lying to you) because we’re convinced this person, this place, this thing needs extra description.  Yet we all know too much description brings things too a grinding halt.

            There’s an odd habit I’ve seen among fantasy writers—not only them, but enough to make it worth mentioning—to use dozens of adjectives per page, if not per sentence--often redundant ones like “gleaming chrome blade of pure silver.”  I’ve mentioned before that I used to help run an online fantasy game a few years back, and the other night I was talking with one of the staff members who’s still there.  And she and I hit on a wonderful turn of phrase that I think applies here.  Simply put, using more adjectives and adverbs doesn’t make me a better writer.  It just means I’ve got a weak vocabulary and I’m a very poor editor.

            That—People tend to drop that into their writing a lot, and a good four out of five times their writing would be tighter without it.  I used to be a that junkie until someone pointed out how unnecessary it often is.

She punched him in the same spot that he had been stabbed in.
He knew that the machine would not stop—ever—until she was dead.
Phoebe could see that the two of them were meant to be together.

            On that same Ex book, I cut over 130 that's—just over half a page.  Use the Find feature, search for uses of that in your writing, and see how many of them are necessary.  Odds are you’ll find that at least half of them aren’t.

           Useless Modifiers -- I've also called this Somewhat Syndrome a few times.  This is another one I wrestle with a lot, although I like to tell myself I've gotten better about it.  It's when I pepper my writing with somewhat.., sort of..., a bit..., kind of..., and other such modifiers. Nine times out of ten they're not doing anything except adding to my word count (not in the good way) and slowing my story (also not in the good way).  Use the Find feature again and see how many of these are doing anything in your writing, and look how much tighter and stronger your story is without them.  I cut another 200 hundred of these in the aforementioned Ex book manuscript.

            Appeared to be...   --This is one of those phrases some folks latch onto and use all the time.  Problem is, most of them don't understand it.  It tends to be used as an introduction of sorts, leading the reader into some purple-prose description.  This phrase sometimes disguises itself as seemed to be or looked like or some variation thereof.

            The thing is, appeared to be doesn’t get used alone.  It’s part of a literary construction where the second half of that structure is either an implied or actual contradiction.  So when I’m saying...

The creature seemed to be looming over us.

            ...what I’m really saying is something along the lines of...

The creature seemed to be looming over us, but it was just the shadows making it look bigger than it really was.

            ...and what I wanted to say all along was just...

The creature loomed over us.

            If I’m not trying to establish a contradiction, using appeared to be and its bastard stepchildren isn't just wasted words-- it's wrong.

            "As you know..." –I’ve mentioned once or thrice before that this is probably the clumsiest way to do exposition there is.  Really.  Ignore everything else I’ve said here, but please take this one bit of advice to heart.

            Just by saying "as you know," I'm stating that the character I'm speaking to already knows the facts I'm about to share.  So why repeat them?  Why would I have two people engage in such a useless bit of dialogue?

            When I put in "as you know" or one of its half-breed cousins, it's a poor attempt to put some exposition in my story with dialogue.  If I’m using it, I guarantee you there's either (A) a better way to get the information to the reader or (B) no need for it because it’s already covered somewhere else.

            I might be able to get away with doing this once--just once--if I've got a solid manuscript.  I mean rock-solid.  And even then, it shouldn’t be in my opening pages.

            Anyway, there's half a dozen quick, easy cuts.  Try them out and see if you can drop a few hundred words or more.

            Next time, I want to get back on schedule by quickly pointing out a possible problem.

            Until then, go write.

Cut to the Quick

            Two cutting references in two weeks.  Hmmmm...

            Bonus points and a vocabulary star if any of you actually know what that title phrase refers to.  No, don’t cheat and look it up.  Be honest about what you know and what you don’t.

            So, since I was away editing for a bit I though this would be a good time to toss up some thoughts on editing.  I’ve been doing this professionally for almost a decade now--full time for close to six years--and I still need to do lots of editing.  It’s just one of those unavoidable truths--99.9999% of us don’t write usable first drafts.

            For the record, that .0001% is Paul Haggis, so don’t think you’re the exception.  He is.  And it took him thirty years to become the exception.

            Cutting is painful, though, because it means losing lots of stuff.  I poured my heart into the first draft of 14, but in the end I still needed to cut over 20,000 words from it.  That’s a hundred pages, gone.  And it’s a leaner, tighter, stronger book because of it.

            Well, because of most of it.

            Knowing that my writing needs work is a strength.  It’s not admitting failure.  It’s admitting I can improve, and if someone can’t admit that they’re never going to improve.

            The thing is, so many folks think making cuts means lopping off entire subplots or removing well-developed characters or cutting out that three page monologue from a random guy on the street explaining how tax cuts for the rich are really good for the middle class.  Editing doesn’t mean cutting all that (although you probably could lose that monologue and not a lot of folks will complain).  It can mean just a general tightening and trimming of all the little things. 

            Think of those Olympic swimmers, runners, and bicyclists.  They know that shaving their exposed hair and wearing tight clothes reduces drag.  Not by much, but the little things pile up and can make the difference between a gold medal and a silver one. 

            So here’s a couple very easy, straightforward ways you can make cuts and maybe trim a few thousand words from your writing...

            That— Whenever I start editing, I always start with a “that” pass.  It’s a word we all drop into our writing in an attempt to be grammatically perfect, but four out of five times the writing would be just as clear (and more concise) without it.

--------------------------------------

            Phoebe thought that Wakko would love her new dress.

            He chose the same weapon that his predecessor had used.

vs

            Phoebe thought Wakko would love her new dress.

            He chose the same weapon his predecessor had used.

--------------------------------------

            On my first pass through 14 I removed over 600 uses of that.  That’s over two pages.  In Ex-Communication, I cut over 200 of them.  Use the Find feature in Word (it’s up there under Edit) and search for it in your writing.  See how often it shows up.  Check how many of them are necessary.  Odds are you’ll find at least half of them aren’t.

            Adverbs--  This is usually my second pass through the editing draft.  This time I use Find to locate all the places “ly” shows up.  I can admit it—as I get caught up in the flow of words a lot of adverbs sneak into my writing.  And they’re pretty useless...

--------------------------------------

          They all screamed loudly at the approaching psychopath.
          “Shut your damn mouth, bitch,” snapped Phoebe angrily.

          He eagerly grabbed the statue he'd spent weeks searching for.

-------------------------------------

            Do those adverbs add anything to their sentences?  Would a reader figure out that Phoebe was angry, or that the scream was loud?  I’d guess three out of five times I find an adverb in my writing I don’t need it.  The fourth time I’ve chosen the wrong verb, and once I’ve got the right one... well, I don’t need the adverb.  If I’m using my vocabulary well, there aren’t many times I’ll need one.  I cut over 500 adverbs and adverbial phrases out of 14 and 330 out of Ex-Communication.

            I heard a great rule of thumb from writer/ editor Pat LaBrutto that I've mentioned a few times.  One adverb per page, four adjectives per page.  It’s just a guideline, granted, but if you’re averaging six or seven adverbs per paragraph maybe you should give them all a second look.  And then a third look.

            Useless Modifiers -- I've also called this Somewhat Syndrome a few times.  This is one I struggle with a lot, but I’m getting much more aware of it.  It's when I pepper my sentences with  somewhat, almost, a bit, slightly, and other such modifiers.  They show up in dialogue a lot, and sometimes in prose when I’m trying not to sound awkward with a bunch of specifics.

            Nine times out of ten they're not doing anything, though, except adding to my word count and slowing my story down.  Use the Find feature again, see how many of them are doing anything, and look how much tighter and stronger your writing is without them.  I cut almost 450 of these out of 14 and over 200 from Ex-Communication.

            ...Of... --The word of can be a flag that something could be cut.  A fair amount of the time, of is being used to tack on an extra bit of description.  More often than not that description’s unnecessary and something the reader already knows.  Which means it’s dragging my prose down and slowing the pace.  There’s a reason we all tend to say United States far more often than United States of America.

            Check out these examples...

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Captain Lancaster of the Defiant is here to see you, sir.

The razor-sharp edge of the sword flew through the beast’s neck without hesitation.

vs.

Captain Lancaster is here to see you, sir.

The razor sharp edge flew through the beast’s neck without hesitation.

--------------------------------------

            It’s not a sure-fire thing, but once I went looking I found three or four of these in Ex-Communication that could go away.

            Appeared to be...   --This is one of those phrases some people latch onto and use all the time.  It slips into my writing, too.  It tends to be used as an introduction of sorts, leading the reader into some purple-prose description.  This phrase sometimes disguises itself as looked like or seemed to be or some variation thereof.

            The thing is, though, appeared to be doesn’t get used alone.  It’s part of a literary construction where the second half of that structure is either an implied or actual contradiction to the appearance.  So when you’re saying...

            --Phoebe appeared to stand six feet tall.

            ...what you’re really saying is...

            --Phoebe appeared to stand six feet tall, but she was actually closer to five foot five without her stiletto heels.

            And what you meant to be saying all along was just...

            --Phoebe stood six feet tall.

            If you aren't trying to establish a contradiction, using appeared to be and its bastard stepchildren isn't just wasted words-- it's wrong.  I cut thirteen of these that had slipped into Ex-Communication at one point or another.

            "As you know..." –I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  If you take nothing else from this little rant, take this one lesson.

            “As you know...” is probably the clumsiest form of exposition there is.  Really.  Think about it.  Just by saying "as you know," I'm stating that you--the person I'm speaking to--already know the facts I'm about to share.  As a writer, why would I have two characters engage in such a useless bit of dialogue?

            When a writer uses "as you know" or one of its half-breed cousins (“you may recall” or “if you remember” or many others), it's a weak attempt to put out some exposition through dialogue.  My lovely lady pointed out that a lot of these sentences tend to start with “Look...”.  If I’m using any of them, almost across the board there's either (A) a better way to get the information to the reader or (B) no need for this information because it ‘s already covered somewhere else. 

            If I've got a really solid manuscript--I mean rock-solid-- I might be able to get away with doing this once.  Just once.  As long as I don't do it your first ten pages.

            In Ex-Heroes it’s on page 98.

            Anyway, there's half a dozen quick, easy, and relatively painless cuts.  Try them out and see if you can drop a thousand words or more.

            Next time, I think we’re long overdue for a talk about spelling.  And I’ve got a great list for you this time.

            Until then, go write.