Cut It Out

A Roadmap to Revision (+ giveaway winner, and a publishing milestone)

My first goal in this whole publishing-a-book thing was to get to 90K words. It was that simple. An upmarket novel should be (I googled it) between 80-100K words, and I, being who I am, aimed right for the middle. 90K. Bullseye. I wrote the number on a post-it, stuck it to my computer.

Photo by Paper Textures on Unsplash

I pantsed the hell out of that first manuscript, and, because my goal was simply to do it, to get to 90k, every word counted. It didn’t matter if the scene fit, or if the plot was moving forward, or if the dialogue made sense. I cut nothing. I held onto each word for dear life.

And I did it. I got to 90K. 

But by now you know, that’s as far as I got.

Fast forward a few years—I returned to my computer, started again. Huh, I thought, after a year of writing. That first manuscript wasn’t a fluke. I could definitely write 90k words. I’d done it twice.

It was time to move the goal-post.

It was time to edit.

Truthfully, though, I didn’t know what it meant to edit a manuscript. In undergrad, I studied poetry, and editing poetry is playing with style—verbs and punctuation and line breaks. In grad school, I wrote position papers; the only things I tweaked were my thesis statements. My art reviews were similar to my papers, usually not more than 1000 words, all referring back to a single argument (is this good art or bad art?). As long as I stayed on topic, backed up my opinions, and crafted nice sentences, I didn’t need to rewrite much of anything. 

A novel is different. Very, very different.

Style (also known as voice) is a given—as is decent grammar, staying on theme, and persuasive language. A novel needs more, though, much more. It needs structure, setting, plot, stakes, and a major dramatic question. It needs a protagonist with a story arc, and an antagonist who gets in her way. A novel needs an inciting incident, a satisfying ending, and tension that rises steadily in between. 

I wish Matt Bell had published REFUSE TO BE DONE ten years ago, but he didn’t. And before I met my writing partners and signed my contract with CeCe, I felt lost. It took me a very long time to figure out how to rework my 90,000 darlings into a real story. I needed help. I needed people to talk to. I needed some direction.

I’m guessing a lot of you feel the same way—so without further ado, here is my Roadmap to Revision:

STEP ONE: BACK AWAY FROM THE MANUSCRIPT

You got your word count. Good for you. Now, close your computer. Walk away. Go to a bookstore or a library and find ~10 books in your genre. Take your time reading them. Do not look at your manuscript.

You are doing this because you have worked too hard and you are too close to your work. You need perspective. You need to walk away so that when you come back in a few weeks (or months, or years), you will see it with fresh(er) eyes. 

STEP TWO: DISSECT YOUR FAVORITE BOOKS 

Of those 10 books you read, pick 2-3 favorites and read them again. This time, pay attention to the scaffolding. How long are the chapters? What is/are the point(s) of view? What does the main character want? What is standing in her way? What is the inciting incident? How does the author up the tension after that? What is the midpoint? Is there a twist? How do the characters transform? How does the ending make you feel?

Get a notebook. Write down everything you learn. (Or, like my workshop partner Francesca King does, create a structural analysis spreadsheet.)

Francesca’s beautiful spreadsheet for one of our favorite books of 2021, Megan Abbott’s THE TURNOUT

Are there parallels to your manuscript? I bet there are.

STEP THREE: CUT, CUT, CUT, AND THEN CUT MORE

It’s time. Open your manuscript again. Reread it, pretending to be an agent. Be critical. Is anything out of place? Boring? Repetitive? Cut it. Show no mercy. If in doubt, cut. To make this process less painful, you can save your trimmings in a separate document. You probably won’t use it, but it can be reassuring—a little safety net of darlings. 

The good news is that you can do this. I know you can because you already have. You got your 90K words. It wasn’t a fluke. I promise. You can do it again.

Keep cutting. Be brutal. Nothing is too precious. Aim to go from 90k words to 50k. Or less.

STEP FOUR: REBUILD, THIS TIME WITH SCAFFOLDING

My preferred resource for structure is SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL: THE LAST BOOK ON NOVEL WRITING YOU WILL EVER NEED by Jessica Brody.  It breaks down novels into 3 acts and 15 beats. Get this book. I promise it will change your writing life. (There is also SAVE THE CAT software. I just purchased a 3 month subscription and I will report back when I start using it.)

Now, make your own spreadsheet with the 15 beats. Drop in your plot points. Be as objective as you can. They should be fairly obvious, so if you can’t figure out what each one is, leave it blank. Do you have a catalyst, a break into two, a dark night of the soul? Explain it on the spreadsheet like your dream agent or editor is going to judge your book on it. (Because remember—pretty prose, style, voice, all of that, is a given and a must.)

Okay now, check that each of your beats ups the tension, the stakes, the emotional response of your reader. If they don’t, ask yourself what you can change to elevate them.

Are the beats in the right order? No? Move them around.

Are any of them missing? Those are the new scenes you need to write.

Now, go back to your manuscript. Rebuild. 

You can do this. You have a map.

STEP FIVE: GET SAVAGE READERS 

Do you have beta readers? Are they objective? Are they willing to hurt your feelings to make your book better? 

If not, find new ones. (A good way to find good readers is to be a good reader. Don’t just read another writer’s work. Study it. Rip it apart. Analyze it. Help out. This is how karma works. The effort you expend will come back in two ways: The writers you help will help you back, and you will learn about your own writing as you read critically. In the comments, I’d love to see you all share what kind of book you are writing, and if you are looking for readers and/or looking to read. We are all here for the same reasons, and this is not a zero sum game.)

If you are really serious about publishing your work, you need critical readers. There is no soft option. Feedback should make you a little sick when you first read it, because it means more work. Sometimes (often) a lot more work. 

My advice: read your feedback, cry if you need to, then put it away for a day or a weekend, then read it again. It will probably feel more manageable the second time through. And the third, and the fourth.

Okay, now make a revision plan, and get back to work. 

Repeat steps 1-5 as necessary. 

Photo by Harry Gillen on Unsplash

Thanks to everyone who joined

CeCe Lyra

and me last week for our Instagram live! We got such great questions and suggestions—and, as promised, we have a winner for our 5-page critique giveaway! Emily Francis, you are our winner! Check your email for more.

Publishing a book can feel like you’re lost on a highway—it’s dark, it’s raining, cars are zooming by. Everyone else seems to know where they’re going. You’re trying to keep up while also frantically searching for an exit sign or a mile-marker, anything to tell you you’re still on the right track. It has always felt this way for me, from querying, to being on sub, to signing my first contract and beyond.

So today, I’m ending this newsletter with a little celebration. I just passed one of those markers—last week, my editor at Hyperion Ave emailed me 4 possible covers for TELL THEM YOU LIED and asked for my feedback.

Holy. Shit. Can I tell you how fast I opened that pdf?

That’s my title. That’s my name. All the work I’ve done. All the time I’ve spent. All my effort is going to live behind one of those four gorgeous images that someone else made in response to my work. I’m going to be able to hold it in my hands.

It’s real, you guys. It’s happening.

Laura