by Stephanie Morrill
Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and the Ellie Sweet books (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website including the free novella, Throwing Stones.
Last Monday I talked about the first layer of edits, which I think should be reading through your whole book and determining what needs to be kept, changed, added, researched, developed, and so forth.
Sometimes when I’m doing that initial read-through, I’ll decide to add a subplot or create a major plot thread. If I do, then I I follow the process I’ve detailed here. I’ve found it’s best to go ahead and add it before I do the scene-by-scene edits. That way when I start editing original scenes, I’m able to weave in the new subplot or plot thread.
If all I’ve noticed so far, however, is just a scene or two that needs to be added, I’ll go ahead and start my scene-by-scene editing and then add the scene when I get to that point in the story.
When I do my scene-by-scene edits, I start by reading the scene as a whole so I can evaluate the foundation. The first question I ask myself is:
Almost all my books are written with just one narrator, so sometimes this question is moot. But the book I’m working on now has two POV characters. I’ll use samples from it because I happen to have done this part of the editing process just last week.
When trying to decide if it’s the right POV character, you want to ask yourself “who has the most to lose in this scene?” Last week, as I was working on edits, I realized I had a scene from Paige’s point of view that needed to be switched to Graham’s. Paige was mourning the loss of her family business, so I initially thought we should see things from her point of view. But then I realized that Graham had more at stake in the scene, because Paige had already lost everything.
The next question I ask is:
We talk a lot about starting books in the right place, but you should also be evaluating if you’ve started your scene in the right place.
For the scene that I’ll show as an example, Paige has been having lunch with her parents after their family business imploded that morning. Her father has just told her that he’s not going to fight to keep the company. I chose to start the scene right after he’s said that to her for a few reasons:
- We don’t need ten minutes of idle conversation before her father drops the bomb. Let’s just get to it.
- In this situation, I didn’t even feel like we needed the bomb. This is a gut thing, not a science. But for this book and this scene, I felt like the critical part was Paige’s reaction, and that’s where I wanted the focus to be.
- The publisher I’m targeting has strict rules about word count, so I’m trying to cut words wherever I can.
And then I have a few more questions I ask … and I actually make myself write this stuff down.
I’ve found it pushes me past being lazy and makes me think about details besides what my characters are saying to each other. (In my first drafts, you would think that’s all that matters to me.)
Here’s a link to print out your own copy, if you’d like.