Jessica Ralston's Blog

I am trying so hard to resist cracking open the novel and plowing headfirst into it. I can feel it, calling out to me and tempting me with its misspellings and misplaced commas. It’s like the Sirens or something.

A friend of mine gave me some good advice: the longer you wait the better. It’s been two weeks, and I’m pretty fuzzy on about half of the thing, so I think another two weeks will do the trick.

Then the editing games begin.

There are articles and advice all over the Internet concerning editing. I’ve been doing some reading, just to see how other people go about it. I mentioned in my last post that yes, I’m a trained copy editor, but editing a 700 word news story is a different ballgame when you go about editing a 50,000 word novel. There are different things to worry about besides spelling, grammar, factualness, and coherency. Added to the mix are plot development, characters and character development, setting, and a whole laundry list of other elements that make a novel a novel.

Some methods I’ve researched:

• Notecards This method worked well for me when I was plotting out the story originally, and it might be worth re-visiting in the edits. Take every scene and put it on notecards, and lay them out in order. It gives you a visualization of your novel and makes it easier to see plot holes, or scenes that are just filler. You can also move as you please. Chris Baty (NaNoWriMo founder) advocates for this method in his book No Plot? No Problem!  and he makes a pretty good case for it. I’ll keep it on the list.
• Different Drafts I can’t remember where I read about this method, but your first draft is catching mistakes and correcting them, then a different draft for character development, a different draft for sensory details, a different draft for emotional things, etc. I think this would be useful if you’ve already seen to it that your story is complete and you’re satisfied with the arc.
• Lemony Snicket’s advice His advice is featured on the I Wrote A Novel, Now What? page on the NaNo website. “Put the book aside and listen, for the first time, to your insecurities. Do not pay attention to what they say but to where they are pointing.” I’m a very insecure writer anyway, so the ability to let myself listen to my doubts and the Inner Editor is freeing and encouraging.
• Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Revision I’m sorry, but I don’t think a whole novel can be edited in one pass. I know if you take your time with it and focus, it can work for some people, but definitely not for me. I’m wary of it, and I doubt I’ll ever try it.

I’m mostly positive I’ll be doing a step by step process, and it’s going to be difficult to resist fixing the little things before I fix the big things. A novel isn’t made just by deleting a few commas. I know that I’ll end up needing second opinions, and I plan on sharing with people who aren’t close friends or family first, but they’ll still be people that I’ve come to know and trust as writers.

In the meantime, while I wait for my novel to marinate, I’ve offered my services to fellow NaNo survivors as a second pair of eyes, using my copy editing skills on their novels. It’s a good way to pass the time until it’s time for me to work on my big, huge, scary novel.

And so, I leave you with these words from Oscar Wilde:

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.

…great day in the morning, people, victory is mine. I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land.” - Josh Lyman, The West Wing 102

I took some time to reflect on how November went before I started thinking about blogging again. The month ended in a rush that I wasn’t quite prepared for, which included an influx of social events, and unintentionally falling behind on my word count. Bottom line: I got it done, and I have a novel.

It was a tooth and nail fight to cross the finish line (with two hours to spare). I jumped tracks so many times I have to separate out the different things I started and didn’t finish. What I did end up doing though, is adding onto, and finishing, another NaNo novel, which is sort of against the rules, but if there are words for one project, I’m not going to force words that aren’t there. I feel like that’s the most valuable thing I’ve learned this month: if the words aren’t there, don’t force it. If the words come for something else, work on that for a while; inspiration might come afterwards.

I don’t have much else to say on the experience, except to say that I learned a lot abou the kind of writer I am, in terms of method and genre. I’m a mostly solitary writer, with fits of needing word wars and social interaction with others of my kind. It was an enormous help to unload on other Wrimos, and have a little friendly competition in the name of upping the word count. And I like to write fantasy…it cuts out the amount of research I have to do and I like to let my mind wander. I tried not writing it and I just ended up floundering in indecision and research and minutiae that I really didn’t want to deal with.

So now the completed novel sits patiently on my harddrive while I regain perspective and a set of fresh eyes. Then, in about two or three weeks, I’ll start slogging through the re-writes and the edits. And you better believe I’m going to share all of that with you.

Speaking of, I don’t even know how I’m going to tackle the edits. I’m a trained copy editor, but editing a novel is a whole different ball game to editing news articles. For one thing, the scale is completely different 700 word news article versus a 50000 word BEHEMOTH? It’s daunting to say the least.

Also, apparently my body gave out just as soon as the clock switched to Dec. 1: I’m now rocking an almighty cold that makes my head feel like it’s detached from my body, and has me hacking up a lung every half hour. I’m just happy my immune system waited until December to give up.