How to Be a “Bad-As” Editor

September 4, 2023 by Randy Ingermanson 1 Comment

Here’s an exercise you can do to make your current novel better:

Search your manuscript for the word “as”.
Remove it from every sentence that uses “as” to make two events simultaneous.

That’s it. very simple. Extremely effective.

A few examples will make this all clear. In each example, I’ll show you the wrong way to do it, followed by an explanation of why it’s wrong, followed by a better option.

Example 1

Wrong: Joe threw a punch at Eric as he approached.

Why it’s wrong: Your purpose as a novelist is to create a movie in your reader’s brain. This sentence throws up several speed bumps for your reader. Let’s break it down to see why.

The sentence has three events, and they happen in this order:

Eric approaches Joe.
Eric gets within punching range of Joe.
Joe throws the punch.

Now you can see three things that went horribly wrong.

First, the sentence puts things out of order. The sentence shows Joe throwing a punch and then it shows Eric approaching.

Can’t the reader figure out that things are written out of order? Yes, your reader can do that by using logic. But now you’re making your reader’s brain work much harder than it should. The reader has to cut the video you made, reorder it, and splice it back together. That’s a speed bump in your reader’s brain. Readers put down books that have too many speed bumps. They usually won’t be able to say why, other than “it just didn’t feel realistic.” Now you know why. It didn’t “feel realistic” because you made your reader edit your movie.

The second horribly wrong thing is that the sentence uses the word “as” to say that these things take about the same length of time. But they can’t possibly happen at the same time. It might take several seconds for Eric to approach. It takes a tenth of a second for Joe to throw the punch.

Can’t the reader figure out the timing problem? Yes, again your reader can use logic to mentally speed up the approach of Eric or slow down Joe’s punch. But either way, the movie looks all wrong in your reader’s brain.

The third horribly wrong thing is that the sentence uses the word “as” to say that these things happen at the same time. But they don’t. Eric has to approach and get within range before Joe can punch. Even if you had put them in the right order, that pesky “as” would still be saying they’re simultaneous when they aren’t. See how silly that looks: Eric approached as Joe threw a punch at him.

You know the drill by now. Yes, the reader can sort things out by mentally editing your hashed-up movie into something sensible. No, they should never have to edit your movie.

It’s your job to edit the movie so the reader can see it on the first reading without editing. Something like this:

Eric walked up and put out his hand. “Hey, buddy!”

Joe slugged him in the gut.

Example 2

Wrong: The front door swung open as Madeline strode in.

This one’s better. Things are shown in the right order. The two events take about the same amount of time. But Madeline can’t make her grand entrance until the door’s open.

Better: The front door opened, and Madeline strode in.

You might be thinking I’m just being persnickety here. I only changed one word. But it’s the one word that destroys the movie in your reader’s brain.

Wrong words matter. Your reader can’t picture the door swinging open at precisely the same time that Madeline strides in. The door has to start swinging open, and then the door has to move at least a foot, and only then can Madeline can get in, no matter how slim she is.

Example 3

Wrong: George clenched his teeth as his face slowly turned red.

The problem here is that clenching your teeth takes a tenth of a second, but your face takes several seconds to turn red. The events are shown in the right order, but they happen on different time-scales.

Better: George clenched his teeth. His face slowly turned red.

Again, it’s only a small change, but now the movie doesn’t need any editing. The reader can see it exactly the way it’s written.

Kick ‘Em in the As

In my critique group, we refer to this process as “kicking ‘em in the as.” Here’s the full process:

Search for the word “as” in your manuscript.
For each “as”, ask the following questions:
- Does one event start before the other? If so, remove the “as” and write them as two phrases or two sentences, with the events in the correct order.
- Do the events take different lengths of time? If so, remove the “as” and rewrite the sentence in an order your reader can visualize.
- Are the events actually simultaneous and do they actually take the same amount of time? If so, see if you can possibly remove the “as” and order the events from most important to least important.
- If the word “as” is not being used to say that events happen simultaneously, it’s probably fine and you can leave it in. Your job as a writer is to kick the bad “as” and keep the good “as.”

Try kicking one of your scenes in the “as.” It should take about 5 minutes. Then read it and see if the scene looks more like a movie in your head.

Congratulations. You are now officially a “bad-as” editor.

Revising Your Novel

December 20, 2018 by Randy Ingermanson 1 Comment

in Craft, Editing, Fiction Writing Tagged: editing, novel, revising

If you finished your novel during NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month—you may be wondering what comes next. How do you tackle revising your novel?

Amanda posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

So, NaNoWriMo is done. I won! Yay!

I now have a fairly “complete” story of about 96,000 words that is … a big mess! Where do I start with revisions? And how do I keep from feeling overwhelmed?

Randy sez: First off, Amanda, congratulations on winning NaNoWriMo! And you won very handily. To win, you only had to write 50,000 words and you did almost twice that, 96,000. That’s a very productive month!

Your question is a common one—how to tackle revising your novel. There are several ways to do that, just as there are several ways to generate your first draft.

First, a quick note on how to revise your novel without feeling overwhelmed. My general strategy is this:

Make a written document that tells what changes I’m going to make without actually making any changes. This gives me a chance to think strategically about my revisions.
Once I have a written plan for my revisions, I plunge in and actually start making changes. But I do this on a copy of the first draft, so I can always get back to the original if the revisions turn out bad.

Now before we talk about how to revise your novel, let’s review some basics on how we write first drafts, because there are a number of ways to do that. The method you choose will affect how you later tackle revisions.

Quick Review of Creative Paradigms

In my book Writing Fiction for Dummies, I talked about “creative paradigms”—various methods that novelists use to write the first draft of their novel. There are many creative paradigms that work. Here are four common creative paradigms that I identified in my book:

Seat Of The Pants—you just sit down and type your first draft without planning your story and without editing anything. You keep pressing forward until the first draft is done.
Edit As You Go—you sit down and type your first draft without planning, but you edit each page and/or each scene many times before moving on to the next.
The Snowflake Method—you use my wildly popular 10-step Snowflake Method of planning your story before you write it.
Outlining—you create a long and detailed synopsis (sometimes up to 100 pages). Then you write the draft following your outline.

There’s no one best method of writing a first draft that works for everybody. I think it’s worth learning how other authors do it, because that can give you ideas on how to do it yourself. But ultimately, you get to choose the method that works best for you. If it works for you, then nobody has the right to tell you you’re “doing it wrong.”

When writing the first draft, you are mainly wearing your creative hat. But once the first draft is done, it’s time to put on your editing hat. So how do you do that?

You Have Options

Just as there’s no one best method of creating your first draft that works for everybody, I suspect there’s no one best method of revising your novel that works for everyone.

I would bet there are a number of editing paradigms that writers use. I can think of at least two, and I’m sure there are many others.

The two editing paradigms I can think of are closely related to my Snowflake Method creative paradigm:

Work through the Snowflake Method in light of everything you learned by writing the first draft. Make a list of revisions you’ll make. I’d use this method to revise a first draft that is “not too messy”—that is, the story structure is pretty clear and the characters are reasonably consistent.
Work backwards through the first nine steps of the Snowflake Method, again making a list of revisions you plan to make. I’d use this method to revise a first draft that is “very messy”—this is, the story structure is very unclear and the characters are not yet well fleshed-out.

I’ll say a few words about each of these in the next two sections.

Revising Your Novel Using the Snowflake Method

If the large-scale structure of your story is pretty clear, then I suspect you’d do well by working through the Snowflake Method, making a list as you go of things you want to change. (If you already used the Snowflake Method earlier to write your first draft, then this should be quick. Just make a copy of the original Snowflake document and keep a running list of the changes you want to make to the story.) I’ve done this myself, and it’s worked well for me. Here’s what I do:

I start with my One-Sentence Summary that I came up with before I wrote the first draft. Can I improve it, now that I’ve written the story? And does my revised One-Sentence Summary suggest ways to improve the story on the next draft?

Then I look at the One-Paragram Summary. This breaks down into a Three-Act Structure, with three major disasters as turning points. Can I refine my One-Paragraph Summary in light of the actual story I wrote? And after refining my One-Paragraph Sumary, can I see things in my first draft that need to change in the next?

I continue on like this through the first nine steps of the Snowflake Method. At each step, I try to tweak my original Snowflake document in light of the actual first draft that I wrote. And after tweaking the document, I ask if the tweaks I just made suggest any changes that I need to make in the next draft.

Revising Your Novel Using the Reverse Snowflake Method

If the large-scale structure of your story is not clear at all, then you might do better by figuring out your story structure, working backwards through the steps of the Snowflake.

Start with the actual manuscript you wrote for your first draft. Analyze each scene using the tools in my book How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method. Is the scene Proactive or Reactive? What are the main parts of the scene? Does the scene work emotively? Can you summarize this scene in a single sentence? If you do this for every scene of your novel, you will have completed Steps 9 and then 8 of the Snowflake Method.

Read through the manuscript, taking notes on all your characters. What’s their physical description? What is their age? What do you know about them, their family, their friends, etc? What drives them? You can create a separate dossier for each character in your novel. By the time you finish this read-through, you’ll have a complete “character bible” for all your main characters. This is Step 7 of the Snowflake Method.

Go back to your list of scenes and construct a long synopsis (4 or 5 pages) in which you cover the high points of all the scenes. When you complete this, you’ll have finished Step 6 of the Snowflake Method.

Think about each of your characters, focusing on their backstory and how that affects them in your story. Write half a page up to a full page on each of your main characters. Or do an imaginary interview with each main character. When you’ve done all this, you’ll have finished Step 5 of the Snowflake Method.

Try to trim down your long synopsis into a 1-page synopsis that just covers the high points. It’s OK to not cover every single scene. Try to capture what’s going on in the main groups of scenes. This is Step 4 of the Snowflake Method.

Write a short summary of each of your characters, focusing on their role in the story and their story goal, their ambition, and their values. This is a caricature of your characters where you capture only the high points. When you finish, you’ll have done Step 3 of the Snowflake Method.

Summarize your story in one paragraph. Write a sentence that sets up the background of the story. Then one sentence for each of three main acts in your story. Then one sentence explaining how it ends. This is Step 2 of the Snowflake Method.

Write a One-Sentence Summary of your story that you can use as your “elevator pitch”—in case you ever find yourself on an elevator with an editor or agent. (This does actually happen sometimes.) When you’ve got a good One-Sentence Summary, you’ve completed Step 1 of the Snowflake Method.

Now that you’ve worked through all the steps backwards, zip through them all again from Step 1 to Step 9, making notes on what changes to make. What should you add to your story? What should you remove? What other revisions should you make?

I’ve never used this Reverse Snowflake Method to revise a novel. But I’ve used essentially this method to take a huge set of research notes and turn it into the storyline for a historical novel. (The problem in writing a historical novel is that history is not structured like a story, so you have to find your plot and your character motivations from a mishmash of dull historical texts. This is extremely hard.)

Actually Editing Your Manuscript

When you’ve made a list of the changes you want to make in revising your novel, make a copy of your first draft and rename it as your second draft. That way you aren’t editing the original, and if you don’t like your edits, you can always get back to the original.

Then get to work putting in the changes you listed. Start with the first scene in your new scene list. If it’s a brand new scene, then write it from scratch. If it’s an old scene that you’ve marked to delete, then delete it. Otherwise, make the changes that you decided to make.

Keep going from the first scene to the last, following your revision plan. When you finish, you should now have a second draft that’s way better than your first. It may not be perfect, but it’s better. Repeat the process as many times as you need.

Every writer is different, and it may be that the methods I’ve described above don’t click with you. That’s okay. But I hope they give you some ideas so you can invent your own action plan for revising your novel. Good luck, and have fun!

Got a Question for My Blog?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

How Does a Seat-of-the-Pants Writer Create Story Structure?

November 10, 2017 by Randy Ingermanson 6 Comments

in Craft, Editing, Fiction Writing

What if you don’t like the Snowflake Method? Is there a way to structure your story if you prefer to write by the seat of your pants?

Steven posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I have been reading your book “How to Write a Novel Using the SnowFlake Method” and first I would like to thank you for writing a book that shows how to properly write a story instead of making book that shows me what a story is supposed to be. In my adventures as a writer I have found myself preferring the “fly by the seat of your pants” writing style, but I feel that more structure is needed. However I feel that the Snowflake method stifles the unconditional inspiration that comes with “fly by the seat of your pants” writing. If you can walk in my shoes for a bit, what would you do to structure your story without losing valuable inspiration?

Randy sez: First, let me define some terms so we’re all on the same page:

The process you use to create the first draft of your novel is what I call your “creative paradigm.”

Your “story structure” defines the emotional journey that your reader takes when she reads the final draft of your novel.

So your creative paradigm and your story structure are two very different things. You can have a good story structure for your novel, no matter what creative paradigm you use. But you’ll find your story structure at different points in the writing process, depending on what creative paradigm you go with.

Creative Paradigm Options

You have a number of options in your creative paradigm. Here are some of the common ones:

Writing by the seat of your pants.
Editing as you go.
The Snowflake Method (this is the one that’s made me famous).
Outlining your novel.

It’s possible to write a well-structured novel using any of these creative paradigms.

It’s also possible to write a terribly-structured novel using any of these creative paradigms.

Writers who design their novel before they write it (Snowflakers and Outliners) are in theory supposed to be designing in a good story structure. That’s the main reason they design first. But if they don’t understand story structure, then they probably won’t design a good structure for their novel.

Good story structure is explained in many books, including the one Steven mentioned, my best-selling book How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method. This how-to book is written as a story, and it’s self-referential—the First Disaster in the story happens in the chapter that explains what a First Disaster is. The chapter on Proactive Scenes is written as a Proactive Scene and the chapter on Reactive Scenes is written as a Reactive Scene. The entire book is an illustration of itself. And of course I wrote the book using the Snowflake Method, and my Snowflake documents are included at the back of the book so you can see how it was done.

But What About That Pesky Story Structure?

Now we can answer Steven’s question. He recognizes that it’s possible to write a novel seat-of-the-pants and end up with good story structure. But his question is how to make that happen.

First, note that your creative paradigm is just a method for getting your first draft down on paper. That’s all. I recommend that you use whatever creative paradigm works best for you. Your brain is wired a certain way, and you shouldn’t try to change your wiring.

Second, you need to remember that your first draft is not your last draft. Only the last draft needs to have good story structure. Your first draft doesn’t. Your first draft is nothing more than a stepping-stone to your last draft.

If you use the Snowflake Method correctly, then your first draft will have good story structure, because you designed in a sound structure from the get-go. But you’re still going to need to do revisions on your novel. You may need three or ten or a hundred more drafts to get your story the way you want it. During those extra drafts, your story structure may evolve, but it probably won’t change radically. Other things will change. That’s why you’re writing multiple drafts.

If you write by the seat of your pants, it’s likely that your first draft won’t have good story structure. That’s okay, because that wasn’t your goal. Your goal was to get the first draft down on paper, and you achieved your goal. So it’s perfectly fine if your first draft has poor structure or no structure. The point is that it’s something, and you can work with something to make it better. You can’t work with nothing.

How to Analyze a Messy First Draft

So what do you do with a messy first draft? Well, you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.

First, read through the whole thing and make notes on any problems you see. Don’t fix the problems; just make a note of what they are.

Second, you’re going to need to analyze your story, and this seems like one reasonable way to do it:

Make a list of all the scenes in your novel. You can do this on 3×5 cards or use a spreadsheet or my software Snowflake Pro or whatever tool you like.
From that scene list, make a synopsis of about four pages that summarizes your story. One paragraph for each group of related scenes should do it.
Create a “character bible” that spells out all the details about each character.
Condense your long synopsis down to a one-page synopsis.
Write up the backstories for your characters.
Write a one-paragraph summary of your short synopsis that spells out the Three-Act Structure of your novel.
Write a one-sentence summary of your story that captures its essence.

You’ll note that the above analysis is sort of a reverse version of the Snowflake Method, where you are starting from a large document and reducing it down, bit by bit, to its essence. Along the way, you’re finding the structure of your story.

Once you’ve done all that hard work, you’re ready to write your second draft. It may very well be massively different from your first draft. (Or you might be one of those great geniuses whose first draft is golden stuff, ready to print. If so, tell nobody, because there are hundreds of thousands of writers out there who hate you.)

When you’ve got your second draft done, update your analysis to make sure you’ve now got a sound story structure. (Remember, story structure is essential. It’s what gives your reader emotional satisfaction, and the main goal of writing fiction is to give your reader a powerful emotional experience.) If your story structure is still broken, fix it and then write another draft to get it right. Keep doing this until it’s good. Then you can go on to the next step in revision, which is to make sure all your scenes are working. Then you can polish the novel, and you’re done.

Writing is Hard Work

Sounds like a lot of work? It is. I would be dishonest if I said that writing fiction is easy. Writing fiction is hard, and at some point you have to do the work of designing your story structure. Snowflakers and outliners do this work up front, before writing the first draft. Seat-of-the-pants writers and edit-as-you-go writers do this work on the back end, after writing the first draft. But everybody has to do the same work. It’s just a question of when you do it. In the end, the reader doesn’t care when you did the hard work. The reader just cares that you did the hard work.

Is all that work worth it? That’s for you to decide. If you believe that reading a powerfully emotive story has value, then writing a powerfully emotive story must also have value. And that requires writing a story with a powerfully emotive design.

I’ll say it once more, since this needs repeating. There is no “one right way to write a novel.” There is one right way for YOU to write your novel, based on the way your brain is wired. But the way that works best for you is not necessarily the same as the way that works best for your friend. Seat-of-the-pants writing works for some. So does edit-as-you-go. So does outlining. And of course, Snowflaking works for some. One of the things that makes me happiest in life is knowing that this simple process I created has helped many tens of thousands of writers around the world write their novels. Of course the Snowflake Method is not for everybody. But it’s for a lot of somebodies. And that’s kind of cool.

What If Your Story Is Unconvincing?

May 10, 2013 by Randy Ingermanson 7 Comments

in Editing, Fiction Writing

What if you’re halfway through your novel and it just doesn’t feel convincing? Do you scrub the project? Keep wallowing on through the muck? How do you know what’s right?

Annick posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I’ve had a story theme that I’ve wanted to write as a novel for 4-5 years. My first breakthrough was discovering your Snowflake method, which really helped me to get started, define where I wanted to go, and how I was going to get there (eternally grateful)…
The trouble is, now I’m half way through my second draft, and I believe that the last half of my story isn’t convincing. I know where I want to end, and I believe that I’ve told a good story to about half way along the road, but I’m really not sure that the last few miles are ones I can write as well about as the first.
Any ideas? Should I work on different endings to see if I get a breakthrough? Should I carry on regardless and edit like a devil once I’ve got some meat on the bone? Does it mean that my main characters are flawed in some way I can’t determine? Is the first part of my story misdirected in some way?
The snowflake seems to have melted…

Randy sez: First of all, congratulations on getting through the first draft! That’s a major milestone in writing a novel. I’m delighted to hear that my pesky Snowflake method played a role in your getting there. I hear from writers all the time who’ve found it helpful, and that makes me incredibly happy.

Be aware that many, many, many novelists reach the same point you’re at, midway through editing the second draft, and suddenly get hit with a bad case of the “crappies.” As in, “Uh-oh, my novel is crappy and my story is worthless and I have no talent and probably my best career choice will be sweeping streets with a toothbrush.”

I suspect the solution to your problem is pretty simple. Let me lay it out for you in three stages:

Finish this second draft you’re on. Sure, you feel a little wobbly about it right now. That’s common. It might possibly even be normal. If you’ve ever run a race over a mile distance (or 1600 meters), the third lap can be pretty rough, and that’s about where you are right now in your race to finish this book.
Get a second opinion from somebody you trust. Maybe a skilled writer in your critique group who has shown herself trustworthy in the past. Maybe a good freelance editor. But you need somebody to read the whole manuscript and give you an objective viewpoint. (“Objective” here means “somebody who isn’t you.”) You may need to pay something for this, but very good friends often do it for free.
Read that opinion, and then read through the whole manuscript as fast as you can, making a few quick notes on what you see, now that your eyes have been opened by a second opinion.

Once you’ve done all of the above (yes, it’s a lot of work, but professional writers work really hard), make the decision. Do you go on with the project? Do you walk away from it?

Either decision can be valid. If the story is fundamentally flawed and can’t be fixed, then walk away. If you’ve just lost all taste for the story and you can’t stomach working on it for one more second, then walk away. But if you see renewed hope for a way to make the story work, well then.

It might take you a month or two to get there, but when you do, email me privately on my Contact page to let me know how it turned out. I’ll be interested to hear what you learned and which way you decided to go.

Good luck!

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

Those Pesky Editing Paradigms

April 26, 2013 by Randy Ingermanson 5 Comments

in Editing, Fiction Writing

What’s the right way to edit your novel? Or … is there a right way?

Noah posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I am an amateur writer, and have no idea when to begin revisions. Should I start revising the first part of my writing part way through, or begin revision once I am finished with the whole work?

Randy sez: This is a good question, and there’s no one right answer that works for everybody.

If you’ve read my book Writing Fiction For Dummies, I have a chapter on Creative Paradigms. A Creative Paradigm is a method of getting a first draft down on paper. In my book, I mention four common Creative Paradigms:

Seat of the Pants
Edit As You Go
The Snowflake Method
Outlining

Each of these is perfectly valid, and there are best-selling novelists and award-winning novelists who use each of them. Depending on how your brain is wired, you’ll work best with one particular Creative Paradigm.

Different writers use different Editing Paradigms also. I haven’t put much time into polling writers to find out their Editing Paradigms, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn they’re as varied as the Creative Paradigms.

The “Edit As You Go” Creative Paradigm actually mixes in Creation and Editing very tightly. The author writes a bit (a page or a scene) and then edits it immediately. Sometimes this unit gets edited many times before the writer is ready to go on. But once the page is done, it’s pretty close to being final. Dean Koontz writes this way, and so do many other writers.

The important point is that whatever works for you is whatever works.

Here’s what works for me, and I gather that there are quite a few authors who work roughly this way:

I plan my novels in advance, working through my Snowflake method to create a Snowflake document that spells out at a high level how the story is going to go.

Then I write the first draft (usually quite quickly) using my Snowflake document as a guide. As I complete each quarter of the book, I revise the Snowflake document to be up to speed with the changing story. (A story is not fixed in stone, and neither is a Snowflake document).

During the first-drafting period, every day I do a quick ten-minute edit of the previous day’s work. (Usually, this is 2000 to 3000 words.) I fix any spelling and grammar errors and I tweak the wording. If there are obvious problems in the storyline, I fix them. That’s not common, because Snowflaking tends to produce stories that don’t have major structural problems.

Having done a ten-minute edit of yesterday’s work, I’m then primed to start work on the next chapter. I drill that out without doing any editing, and if I have time, I write another scene, up to my daily word-count.

This keeps me moving forward, and I never feel like I’m getting bogged down in a morass of words.

I organize my writing into folders. I have a main folder named “Books Written”.

Within that folder, I have a folder for each book, named with the original working title of the book.

Within each book folder, I have a number of organizational folders for Proposals, Research, Marketing, etc. The first draft goes into a folder named “Draft 1”.

When I’ve finished the first draft and am ready to start editing, I duplicate the entire “Draft 1” folder and name the copy “Draft 2”. Then I never change anything in “Draft 1” again. I work in “Draft 2” until I’ve done a complete revision.

I generally do 5 or 6 drafts, and for each of these, there’s a separate folder. When I look at the files, they’re ordered nicely and it’s easy to see what’s the current draft. It’s the highest numbered “Draft” folder.

As I mentioned, I’ve never tried to figure out what Editing Paradigms other writers use, but this might be a good time to do it.

So authors, please leave a comment and describe your Editing Paradigm! There’s no prize here, other than the massive fame you’ll get by leaving a comment on the Advanced Fiction Writing Blog. And what more could you want than that?

Organizing Your Writing

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