Category: Revising

Revising, Writing

Chop Chop: A Revision Tale

Michelle I. Mason

Last month, I posted about how I had finished my longest draft ever, ending up at 90,983 words. Quite honestly, I had no idea how I had written that much.

Even before I started reading through the manuscript, I was sure it was too long. So I went into my initial editing round with the mindset of reducing the word count. That’s never been a particular focus for me–more often I’m trying add!–but I still employed a number of the same editing strategies I usually do to ensure the manuscript was as streamlined as possible.

Some of my strategies included:

  1. Checking for scenes where information was repeated.
  2. Deleting weakening phrases such as “I know,” “I think,” “It seems,” etc. Most of the time these just aren’t necessary.
  3. Reviewing all of the beats. Were the characters shrugging, laughing, or smiling too much? Were two characters doing the same thing? Or even, were the only beats actions? Because it’s important to mix it up with other sorts of beats as well, like internal thought. And if it’s clear who’s speaking, you might not need a beat at all.
  4. Eliminating/replacing commonly used words. I didn’t actually do word searches this time to eliminate repeated words. I’ve gotten to a point where my crutch words jump out at me. Plus, I’ve been doing line edits on my 2021 novel, and all of my editor’s notes were fresh in my mind.

By the time I sent the manuscript off to my critique partners, I had it down to 87,453, so I had cut about 3,500 words on my own. Not too bad!

When the comments returned from my critique partners, it was clear I still had work to do. In varying degrees, they all said the manuscript felt long. Some had specific suggestions on what to cut, while others weren’t sure. It’s easy when a comment says “This chapter feels long” or “This chapter feels unnecessary” to make a decision about it. I started with those and then tackled all the other feedback I received. I thought I was done revising when I went back and read through all the comments again and realized I needed to actually rearrange a key plot point in the manuscript. Once I did that, it allowed me to cut even more. Ta da!

When I finished revising from my CPs’ comments, I was at 80,260, so down more than 10,000 words! All that was left was my final reader: my husband.

I had moved A LOT of things around in this draft after my critique partners read the manuscript, so I was mostly concerned with whether the book still made sense. Fortunately, he said it did! But he also still pointed out two scenes that he thought dragged on longer than they should. So… more cutting!

I trimmed the last two scenes and sent the manuscript off to my agent. The final count was 79,932 words. When all was said and done, I cut 11,051 words. Whew! But I know it’s a much stronger manuscript. And, of course, I’m by no means finished revising. There will be much more to come! But I’m up for it.

What are some of your tips for trimming manuscripts?

 

After the Book Deal, Revising, Writing, Your Life Has Been Delayed

After the Book Deal: All the Doubts!

Michelle I. Mason
Elizabeth, Me, Allison

Hey, friends, I promised I would give an update once I had gone through another round of edits, and I just finished on Friday. Boy, was I glad to send those edits in! But, first, let me just share that I got to do something very exciting earlier this month, which was to meet my editor, Allison Moore, in person. Here we are in the Bloomsbury offices, along with my agent, Elizabeth Bewley. I also had the privilege of meeting many other Bloomsbury team members, in marketing, publicity, design, and editing. I am so excited to be working with all of them!

On to the editing process! A lot of life had happened for me since I turned in my first round of edits (broken foot! starting a new book! kid stuff!), and so when I received the second round, I had to completely realign myself to YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED again. Even though I had been in a cycle of writing a book, querying, starting a new one for many years, this still felt different. In any case, my second round of edits was nowhere near as extensive as the first. My editor included some overall notes plus line edits. We set a deadline for me to turn them in three weeks later, and it seemed like no big deal. In one sense, it wasn’t. But here’s where the title of this post comes in: a huge wave of doubt and second-guessing myself hit as I was going through the notes.

Why now? Perhaps it’s because my editor said my book was in pretty good shape–not that I think this means I’ll be done after this round of edits–and that means everything is REAL. Before, even though I was super-excited, it still felt unreal. But people will actually be reading this book and have opinions about it at some point in the near future. Winter 2021 doesn’t feel nearly so far away in that context.

So, suddenly, I started re-checking every fact, even things my editor hadn’t flagged for me to double-check, out of my own self-doubt. If you aren’t aware, my book is about a girl from 1995 who travels to 2020, so while it isn’t set in the nineties, it’s still about a girl whose world view is the nineties. Even though I grew up in the nineties, I did not rely on memories alone. When I first wrote the book, I went through yearbooks, watched documentaries, did a ton of internet research, talked to people who were teens in the nineties, watched movies and read books from that time. And… I did that much of that all over again during this draft, just to confirm what I already had. I did end up making a few tweaks, but still.

So here’s a funny story about redoing my research: As you know if you’ve been following me, I use Scrivener. One of the features I love is that I can pull all of my research into the same file where I’m writing and just scroll down to it as a reference. Well, when I went to import some of this new research into Scrivener, I found that I’d already imported that same information the first time I researched.

Ah well. In the end, I came to the conclusion that when people ultimately read my book, there will probably be some adult readers who take issue with particular points regarding the nineties based on their own experience or think “Clueless” is an accurate representation of technology in 1995 (sooo not life anywhere but Hollywood and I bet not even there). Like anything else, my book is about how my character experienced technology and the world up to that point. And that’s always the trick when writing, right? That not everyone has the same experience.

What I do know is that with every round of edits my book gets better. Despite the doubts, I’m excited for it to be out in the world and love the team that is helping me get it there!

So, now that my second round of edits are off, I am diving back into my new project and gearing up for the craziness of that time between Halloween and the holidays.

Stay tuned for another update soon.

After the Book Deal, Revising, Writing, Your Life Has Been Delayed

After the Book Deal: Next Steps

Michelle I. Mason

So, it’s been a couple of months since my book deal was announced, and invariably I get the same question from friends and family when I tell them my book will be coming out in winter 2021:

Why is it so far away???

Um, do you know how much goes into publishing a book? If you haven’t been through it, probably not. I’m learning as I go along, so I will share my experience, which won’t be the same as everyone’s.

What I can tell you are the steps so far.

First, there was a ton of celebrating because I HAD A BOOK DEAL!! There are times when this still doesn’t feel like a real thing. After querying agents for so many years, then signing quickly with Elizabeth and then Bloomsbury for this book, it was quite a crazy ride. However, I will never forget–and I don’t want anyone else to either–that there were seven years of learning and building up my skills that happened before that whirlwind. Sure, there are writers who get there with their first book, but it’s not the norm. Sorry if that seems like a downer, but even though I’m an optimist, I’m also a realist. Thus the feeling of unreality.

Next, there was the waiting for the announcement. Oh, did you think the deal got announced the day we agreed to it? Nope, that’s not how these things work. You have to keep it SECRET until things are all tied up and ready to be announced publicly. Let me tell you, it’s really hard not to hire a skywriter to fly around with a huge sign saying “I HAVE A BOOK DEAL.” But then, once the announcement is out, there’s a whole other round of celebrating with all of the writing friends you’ve made along the journey, and that’s a ton of fun.

Then, it’s time to get to work. Woohoo! I mean, you didn’t think revisions were over once a publisher buys your book? Personally, I love revising, and I’d talked to my editor before we signed about what she had in mind for the book, so I had an idea what to expect. There was just one teensy little glitch. My editorial letter arrived the same day as these:

Yep, I’m the cookie mom for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop. Now, lest you think my editor is a horrible task master, I never told her this was happening at the same time–or that my daughter’s talent show also got rescheduled during this same window and I was running rehearsals for her act. Or planning friend and family birthday parties for my son. Um, yeah, February and March were absolutely CRAZY. And the weather didn’t help, as things kept getting canceled and rescheduled, including the cookie season getting extended an extra week so that I ended up having to finalize cookie sales the same day I turned in my edits. I was leaving for vacation the next day, and I was about to lose my mind. But, the thing is … I like deadlines. And I REALLY wanted to turn in my first-round revisions before I left for vacation. Because when I did leave on vacation and had nothing left hanging over me, it was AMAZING. It felt like a huge reward for everything I’d finished. I’m so glad I didn’t ask for an extension (which my editor totally would have given me because she’s awesome).

But anyway, back to the edits themselves. I’m sure you’re wondering what it’s like to revise with an editor. It’s fantastic but challenging–as it should be. When you get to this point, your book is going out into the world. It’d better be ready for that. My editor asked in-depth questions and told me this was just the beginning of what we’d be working on, so I know there will be more work to do. I read through her notes, and then we talked on the phone before I started revising. How did I tackle my revisions with all those other distractions going on?

First of all, I kept my online activities to a minimum during the five weeks I was revising. If you were here on my blog you saw reviews every week, but that was misleading, as I scheduled all of those before my edits and the cookies arrived on Feb. 13. I even took photos and drafted captions for Instagram posts in advance so I could just post them on the days the reviews went live. I was on Twitter some the first couple of weeks, but after that it was mainly just to lead people back to my reviews on the blog or give updates on my revision progress as I didn’t want to disappear completely. I actually turned my phone upside down so I wouldn’t see notifications.

Next, in case you’re new here or just need a reminder, I do EVERYTHING in Scrivener, so I imported the document from my editor into my Scrivener file. It included all of the questions from my editor, the notes I’d made in response, plus the notes from our phone conversation. Then, I made a revision checklist. This checklist was a compilation of both little items I could check off quickly and major things I needed to fix–like rewrite the ending :). What works best for me is to start with the biggest items first and work down to the smaller items for a couple of reasons. One: they will take the most time and then they are out of the way. Two: I will have the most distance from those items when I get to the bottom of the list and am reading back through everything to see if I nailed them or they still need more work.

So, as you perhaps guessed from what I stated above, I did not revise linearly, by reading straight through the manuscript and tackling items as they popped up. Instead, I addressed each big-picture item individually, which Scrivener makes so much easier to do than, say, Word. I’ve blogged about this before, but the way that I did this was by using the Collections feature. I had already created collections for various subplots in the book (the love interest, the best friend, the antagonist, etc.), so it was easy to click into those collections and revise just those sections. Sometimes notes on these areas overlapped and so when I went into another subplot I’d already tackled something, and that was just a bonus :). This worked really well because by the time I got to the read-through, I had some distance from those big-picture items and could ensure the continuity was working.

Another feature I made use of during revisions was the split-screen option, for several purposes. I could pull up my notes from my editor while working on a scene to compare what I was doing to what we’d discussed. Or sometimes I would pull up two different scenes to compare how I was foreshadowing a particular incident or if I wanted to move something how it impacted the other scene. Or just keep my checklist open while I was working through scenes. Super helpful!

Does this mean my book is ready to go? Ha ha ha! There’s the answer to that question: Why is it so far away???

Because next I will have another round of edits. If you were reading closely, you saw that my editor said this was just the first round of changes she wanted to address. As I was working on the edits, I could totally see that there were areas we weren’t touching yet, and maybe that was because they were fine, but maybe that was because they were for the next level of edits. Plus, once you make a round of changes, you always open yourself up to potential new issues. It’s the nature of the beast.

But I’m excited because I know this book is getting better and better. I’ll continue to update here as I go through the publishing process. I’m not sure if I will approach revisions any differently the next time around, but if I do, I’ll be sure to share. At least I shouldn’t have cookies to deal with. But you know what? There will probably be something else, and that’s okay because I actually thrive on that sort of pressure. Bring it on! The payoff is worth it.

Critiquing, Querying, Revising, What I've Learned, Writing

What I’ve Learned in Seven Years of Querying

Michelle I. Mason

A few weeks ago one of my writing friends posted a wonderfully inspiring tweet:

And I replied:

Technically, this statement isn’t true. If you’ve seen my posts on tracking my queries, you’ll know that I do keep track of my rejections. However, I’ve never totaled them up for all the manuscripts, and as I thought about this post, I realized it might actually be helpful to share that information. I always figured I’d save these numbers for a dramatic How I Got My Agent post, but since that hasn’t happened yet, let’s do it! But also, as I’m still querying my latest manuscript, I’m not tying any of these numbers to specific manuscripts.

Manuscripts: 6
Queries: 594
Query Rejections: 500
Partial requests: 31
Full requests: 75
R&Rs: 4

So there it is. A nice even 500 rejections. But wait! That’s only query rejections. When you add in the fact that those submissions and R&Rs didn’t turn into offers, I’ve squeaked over 600 (some of those requests were from contests rather than queries). Now, I did include queries and submissions for the manuscript I’m currently querying in these numbers, and I’m still waiting to hear on a number of those. Plus, there are a few agents who haven’t responded on a couple of my older manuscripts. Who knows? Maybe they’ll find it in their inbox and still make an offer :). (I am an eternal optimist.) Which brings me to my first and always lesson:

PERSEVERANCE

Basically, I’m not giving up, no matter what. I will keep writing until one of these manuscripts sticks. I mean, this is my What I’ve Learned in Seven Years of Querying Post, and it’s a tradition. I’ve written one for each year, so if you’re new here, that’s already going to tell you something. If you want to go back and read the others, here they are: What I’ve Learned in One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six Years of Querying.

But on to the other things I’ve learned this past year.

Being in a major contest like Pitch Wars doesn’t put a magic spell on your manuscript. Now, I want to be clear that I did not assume being in Pitch Wars would result in an agent. It’s more that I thought this manuscript would be more ready than any of the others and I would feel super-confident in my materials. I’d had multiple writing friends participate in the contest before, which is much more than an agent showcase, by the way, and so I understood going in that the main benefit of Pitch Wars was the mentoring. I’d entered Pitch Wars with three other manuscripts in the past and not been selected, with feedback varying from “You should go ahead and query!” to the sort of responses you get from agents: “Not right for me.” So when I was selected by a mentoring team (Hi, Beth and Kristin!), it felt like I’d done something right with this manuscript. I knew it wasn’t ready to query yet, and that’s why the timing of Pitch Wars was so perfect. I would work with my mentors to shine up the manuscript and start querying after the agent showcase. I was thrilled with the final product and happy with the requests I received during the agent round (I never expected to be one of the entries with dozens of requests). Where my expectations have stumbled a bit was in the querying afterward. As with every other project, I’ve questioned pretty much every aspect–query, first pages, the overall manuscript. So being in Pitch Wars didn’t magically erase all those doubts. Oh well. Fingers crossed the right agent is still considering it!

Participating in a mentoring contest brings your revision skills to a whole new level. As I started drafting and am now revising another manuscript, I’ve seen the benefits of working in-depth with two mentors. I have amazing critique partners, and they’re very honest with me when they spot issues in my work, but the difference with mentors is that they go even deeper, suggesting cuts and additions that a CP may not. As I started writing my latest project, I felt like I had two extra voices in my head asking me if I was addressing those weaknesses I’d had in my last manuscript. I believe this latest first draft was stronger because I went through the Pitch Wars revision process.

Seeing your name on the Acknowledgements page of a critique partner’s book for the first time is an amazing high. Several years ago I noticed there was a group of writers whose work I love who always thank each other in the acknowledgements page, and I thought, “Someday I will have a group of friends like that!” My group of critique partners and beta readers isn’t so close-knit that they’re all trading with each other, but several of them do chat with each other and share excitement over releases.

In any case, this spring marked the first time my name was in a friend’s book, and I definitely walked around the house making sure my husband and kids saw my name in there. There are two more coming up in the next year that I will get to celebrate as well. I don’t know how long it will be before my name is on the cover of a book, but for now I will cheer on my friends and continue reading the amazing work of the writers around me. There’s so much more to this writing journey than my work. I feel like breaking into a chorus of “We’re all in this together … ”

Find creative outlets with more immediate returns. I actually do a few creative things, but one creative outlet I’d missed recently was playing the violin, so last fall I joined a community orchestra. It was hard work. I hadn’t played classical music in years (I’d been playing only at church), so I had to practice A LOT, but experiencing the payoff of performing challenging music was very rewarding. Now that I’ve found it, I’m not giving it up. I need that opportunity to express myself creatively and see the end result.

So that’s what I’ve learned this past year, and I’m hard at work revising the next manuscript I plan to query. Because of that lesson I already shared but it doesn’t hurt to mention again …

PERSEVERANCE!

To those of you who are persevering with me, keep at it! I’m cheering for you.

Revising, Writing

A Love Letter to My Work-In-Progress

Michelle I. Mason

As I sent my latest manuscript off to first-round readers today, it occurred to me it’s a lot like how you feel when you start dating someone and you’re so anxious for all of your friends to like that person as much as you do. You want their opinions, even though you secretly want them to tell you this person is perfect already. Of course, no one is perfect, just as no manuscript is perfect, particularly not an almost-first draft. Anyway, here’s the note I mentally–and now physically–drafted to my WIP :).

Dear Work-In-Progress,

I think you might be the best thing I’ve ever written! I am so in love with you right now–and so happy you’re finished!

I’ve told my writer friends about you, and they love the idea of you. Sure, they haven’t read you yet, but I’m positive when they do, they’ll love you as much as I do. They won’t rip you to shreds. They won’t nitpick about your character inconsistencies or point out where you’re completely unbelievable or zero in on your weaknesses–because in this moment you don’t have any of those. You are bright and shiny and beautiful.

Okay, I have to be honest. You probably aren’t perfect. I’m probably blinded by the glow of first love. But that’s all right. When the notes return and I must tear you apart and kill some of your most darling lines, I will return to this note so I can remember how much I loved you at the beginning. Because love is a commitment, and we are in this for the long haul.

Until we meet again, dear words …

Michelle

 

Revising, Writing

A Revision Plan of Attack Using Collections in Scrivener

Michelle I. Mason

I intended to write a celebratory post when I finished drafting this latest work-in-progress, but I never got around to it. I’m now nearly through my self-imposed month of letting the manuscript sit, but I certainly haven’t been idle. Even without reading through the manuscript again, I already have a ton of notes jotted in my Scrivener file. I spent several days brainstorming a title for the manuscript, but it took a morning sitting in the airport, the airline sending me constant updates about our flight, to make a light bulb go off in my brain.

“Your Flight Has Been Delayed,” the email said over and over. And while that would be pretty on the nose for my novel, it needed a slight change.

YOUR FLIGHT LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED

I guess this title would make more sense if I told you what the manuscript is about, huh? Here’s my working query, which I’ve also added to my Writing tab.

When seventeen-year-old Jenny Waters boards Flight 237 on Aug. 2, 1995, in New York, she has two main goals. First, convince her parents to let her apply to the journalism program at Columbia University. Second, woman up and kiss her boyfriend of three months.

But when Jenny and the other passengers disembark in St. Louis, the airport manager informs them their plane disappeared—25 years ago. Like the universe hit pause on their plane while the rest of the world kept moving. In 2020, newspaper reporter isn’t exactly a top career choice, and as for her boyfriend, well, all his kisses belong to Jenny’s best friend. His wife. And they’re both in their forties.

As if trying to adjust to a new century isn’t hard enough, a conspiracy group called the Time Protection League sets out to prove Flight 237 is a big hoax. When Jenny’s not dealing with rumors she’s a clone, she’s fighting her attraction to Dylan, who introduces her to everything that’s good about her new present, like Harry Potter and late-night texting.

Too bad Dylan happens to be the son of Jenny’s former boyfriend and BFF. Yeah, that’s not awkward.

ONCE UPON A KISS meets Lost in YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED, a 75,000-word young adult contemporary novel with speculative elements.

Obviously the word count will change once I start revising, but it’s a start.

One of the Scrivener features I plan to use as I revise is to create Collections so I can analyze certain areas of the manuscript in smaller chunks. For those of you who aren’t as familiar with Scrivener, a Collection is a group of scenes/chapters that you tag to belong to a group–or Collection–and can then view separately. Any changes you make to the scenes while viewing in the Collection are updated in the main manuscript. It’s simply a way to view them differently. This screen shot shows how I used Collections to separate out the two viewpoints in my YA contemporary, AS SEEN ON EVIE. The Evie scenes are grouped together, and above there’s a separate collection for the Justin scenes.

For this manuscript, I only have one point of view, but there are several subplots I want to analyze for various reasons. I plan to create Collections so I can go through the plot points for each of those subplots and do several checks–character descriptions and dialogue, plot progression, consistency, and other details. Creating the Collections is pretty simple.

  1. Click on the scene you want to include in the Collection.
  2. Click on the little arrow next to the settings icon at the bottom of the Binder.
  3. Select Add to Collection, New Collection.
  4. Type in the name of the Collection.
  5. For any other scenes you want to include, right-click and the name of the Collection will pop up. You can then view all scenes in that Collection by clicking on its name in the Binder.

           

I anticipate separating out the love story, friend drama, conspiracy group, and interactions with other people who were on the plane with her will help ensure those plots all have their own mini plot arcs and then fit into the overarching story. I love that Scrivener makes this easy to do.

What tricks do you use to ensure your subplots hold their weight within the overall story?

Agents, Querying, Revising

Tracking Agent Responses & Knowing When to Revise

Michelle I. Mason

If you read my posts on Creating a Detailed Spreadsheet and Querying Strategy and Hitting Send, then you know I’m a bit of a statistics freak. Well, I actually take my statistics even a bit farther once I’m querying. I track how agents are responding to my query and pages so I know whether they’re working and I need to revise anything. It’s not an exact science because a rejection could be entirely based on premise and have nothing to do with the materials themselves, but if the numbers start adding up against a particular submission package, it’s worth taking a second look. Obviously I’m hoping that none of this will be necessary this time around thanks to the fabulous assistance of my Pitch Wars mentors, but it’s still smart to be prepared ;).

So here’s what I do.

1. Add a new sheet to my spreadsheet called Stats.

2. Create tables for Queries, Requests, and Submissions. Leave several columns between each. The total should be a sum.

 

 

 

 

3. Make pie charts for each of these. I’ll use one as an example.

a. Highlight everything except the total.

b. Select Charts, then Pie, and choose whatever type of pie chart you like, and voila!, a pie chart will appear. If you want it to show percentages, right click on the pie and select Add Data Labels. If you then right click on Format Data Series, you can choose whether those are the numbers or percentages. I personally prefer to see percentages.

 

 

 

 

 

c. A note as to how I fill these tables out: Queries start as No Reply Yet and move to requests, rejections or personalized rejections–just because it’s unique if you get a personalized rejection on a query. Partials sometimes get moved to the partial to full category because I like to track if a submission is upgraded. The third category is to track responses to the requests. If a request turns into a rejection, I move it there so that my total always stays the same as that total in the Requests table.

But this isn’t the only thing I’m tracking. Remember I said I tracked the types of materials as well?

4. Track what the agents are rejecting by creating a table and pie chart of submission materials. I usually add to the table with what the agents are asking for as I go, but I copied this table from my last MS, so it’s pretty comprehensive. You can create the pie chart following the same directions as above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a. You may be asking: Why the heck do you want to know this information, Michelle? So, I didn’t include the numbers in the table, but you can see in the pie chart that the two biggest chunks are 5 and 10 pages for my rejections. I ended up doing a major revision on this manuscript, and my pie chart for the revision rejections looks quite different. There’s also the factor that I received an R&R from an agent, but having these statistics to review factored heavily into deciding whether to pursue it.

5. Track positive/negative comments. If agents reject a partial or full manuscript, they sometimes send feedback. It’s not a guarantee, but when it happens, it’s golden. But it’s important to remember one agent’s opinion may differ from another’s, and so I also try to track this graphically. Sometimes it’s not possible because it doesn’t line up at all, but other times the comments will start matching up, and that’s when you know you should stop querying and revise. I make two tables as below.

Then, instead of a pie chart, I make clustered bar graphs so I can compare. In this example to the left? I was getting conflicting opinions on X and wanted to chart agent opinions. Ultimately an agent asked me to rewrite it without X and I did. Actually, now that I look at this chart, I’m realizing the second R&R I did addressed a couple more of those negative comments. Hmm …

I realize this post may seem like a downer because it assumes you won’t land an agent as soon as you start querying. Well … the odds of that just aren’t very high. It could happen, but if it doesn’t, don’t let it deter you. There are so many agents out there, and if you’re smart about querying, your yes may still happen with your fiftieth or hundredth query. There are many stories like that!

Contests are amazing. I’ve been involved in several over the years with various manuscripts, and each time I was hopeful, but even when your entry is a hot property (and I’ve been there!), it’s still your actual materials that have to keep the agent’s interest. No matter how sexy your pitch and first page are, every page then on has to hold the agent’s interest for them to offer representation, so it’s a good idea to have a strategy in place to keep an eye on whether you’re on track. It doesn’t have to be my strategy–because I realize I’m a bit over the top ;)–but be aware of what you’re sending out and if you’re getting positive feedback.

Good luck as you go forth and query. And to my fellow Pitch Wars mentees, whether it’s your first manuscript, your sixth (like me!), or your tenth, you have so many cheerleaders ready to applaud your successes and pick you up when a rejection comes. Some of my closest writer friends are from a contest I participated in five and a half years ago–The Writer’s Voice. It’s actually why I started this blog :). I’m so grateful for those friendships and the new ones I’m making every day in this community.

Contests, Revising, Writing

Tackling a Major Revision, or How I’m Revising for Pitch Wars

Michelle I. Mason

In addition to promising to talk about my Pitch Wars mentors’ books (I’ll feature Kristin Smith’s books next week!), I said I’d share my revision process, so here goes.

A week after the Pitch Wars announcement, I received a thirteen-page edit letter from my mentors, as well as an invitation to view a Google Doc with line edits on the full manuscript I submitted for consideration. Neither of these documents were really as overwhelming as they might seem. I have two mentors, so the length of the edit letter had a lot to do with two writers making comments on it, I think. Both mentors wrote an introduction, followed by comments on chapters as they saw issues (some chapters didn’t have comments–yay!), and then there were character notes and miscellaneous thoughts at the end. As for the line edits, they’re super helpful as I’m revising because many of them point out places my mentors love and I should definitely keep, not just areas I need to fix.

So how have I approached this?

1. A huge sigh of relief. My mentors are amazing! I knew this manuscript wasn’t there yet. It’s why I entered Pitch Wars. Kristin and Beth’s recommendations for enhancing my manuscript and taking it to the next level were fantastic. We emailed back and forth on a couple of suggestions where I had reservations and brainstormed alternate solutions. But the thing was, I wouldn’t have come up with alternate solutions if they hadn’t pointed out they had an issue with the way things currently stood.

2. Create an outline listing how I proposed implementing the suggested changes in the manuscript. The nice thing here is that I already had all of the outline information in my Scrivener file. I set it up before I drafted the novel, so all I had to do was export my outline and update it according to the changes I planned to make.

In addition, I included extensive revision notes. For the few new chapters, the revision notes were pretty much a step-by-step guide through the chapter. This outline took me about four or five days to complete. Here’s an example from an early chapter, since I don’t want to give too much away :).

3. Send the outline to my mentors for approval. Even though my outline addressed all of my mentors’ suggestions, either incorporating them or explaining why I felt another solution worked better, sending in the outline had me biting my nails. Was I suggesting enough? Would I need to go back to the drawing board and come up with different solutions? But it turned out I had nothing to worry about. My super-supportive mentors loved my outline, and while they had a few tweaks and additional suggestions, they gave me the go-ahead to start revising.

4. Input the outline changes and revision notes into Scrivener. It may seem like extra work to output the outline and then put it back into Scrivener, but it took maybe an hour of cutting and pasting, and I like to have everything in my Scrivener file as I’m working. So as I’m revising, that same chapter you saw above looks like this in Scrivener. (When I’m tackling a revision on my own, I skip straight to this step and put all my revision notes into Scrivener, except with this particular manuscript I did go through this outline-with-revision-notes process on an earlier draft with two of my critique partners. That’s how I knew it was such an easy way to approach explaining what I planned to change.)

5. Start revising! Once I had my Scrivener file all ready to go, I started revising chapter by chapter. My system is:

a. Tackle chapter revision notes.

b. Incorporate line edits from my mentors.

c. Complete a repeated word search for the chapter. Yes, this slows down my revisions a bit. However, everyone who’s read this manuscript has commented on pacing as a strength, and I think one factor is that I weeded out repeated words chapter-by-chapter early in the revision process. Since I’ve done it before, I’m not doing it as detailed during this revision, particularly on the chapters that don’t have a ton of changes. But for the brand-new chapters (I’ve already written two), you bet! Because I still tend to use the same words over and over, and searching for those repeated words ensures each character sounds unique and that I’m using the best word in each instance. Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now, but you can refer to my post on why you might want to change a word, even if you only use it twice in a chapter.

So where am I now?

Making great progress and excited about how the changes I’ve already made are positively impacting the manuscript. This process is fantastic, and no matter how the agent round pans out, I’m confident YOUR SECRET’S NOT SAFE WITH ME will be a much stronger manuscript. I’m so thankful for Kristin and Beth’s insight and support, as well as all of my CPs who got me here in the first place.

While I’m applying this process to Pitch Wars revisions, it could be used to tackle any major revision. As I mentioned above, I used it with my CPs when working through some issues on an earlier draft. Also, if you have a revise & resubmit with an agent or editor and they’re open to seeing what you plan to do with the revisions before you start on them, you could use this sort of system. It just depends on how much detail they want.

Now I’d better get back to revising!!

Contests, Revising, Writing

I’m a 2017 Pitch Wars Mentee!!

Michelle I. Mason

Based on this title, some of you are probably wondering whether I’ve been drafted into an a cappella group (I was tempted to break into song) or some sort of strange cult. Don’t worry–well, the a cappella group wouldn’t be cause for concern–it’s an amazing, wonderful, exciting opportunity! (I could continue adding on adjectives, but I’ll stop.)

Basically, Pitch Wars is an annual contest to which writers submit a not-quite-there manuscript to mentors for consideration. These mentors are industry professionals (usually agented and/or published authors or editors) who provide detailed feedback on the manuscript and work with you to get it ready for querying. But not only that, there’s an agent showcase at the end of two months, and because of the mentoring aspect of the contest, it holds a lot of weight with agents.

Friends, I am so thrilled to be selected this year with YOUR SECRET’S NOT SAFE WITH ME. I’ve tried before, with three of my previous manuscripts, and I’ve gotten close. I know because I received emails afterward from mentors telling me I was among their top choices. I even had a potential mentor tell me I should probably go ahead and query, and that project ended up getting really close with agents too, but as any of you who follow my blog know, I haven’t yet found the right fit. So I’m absolutely ecstatic to have this opportunity.

Even better, I get to work with TWO fabulous mentors–Kristin Smith (CATALYST and FORGOTTEN) and Beth Ellyn Summer (AT FIRST BLUSH). I can’t wait to see what plans they have for my manuscript, but I know I’m in good hands because I read their books (technically still reading Kristin’s sequel :)), and you should too! Don’t worry, I plan to tell you more about their books later because, of course, that’s what I do :).

I’m sure I’ll end up blogging about the revision process too, because that’s also what I do. For now, I’ll leave you with a picture of my new puppy, Rey, playing with bubbles. Because why not?

Revising, Writing

Why You Might Want to Change That Repeated Word

Michelle I. Mason

I just finished a chapter-by-chapter repeated word search of my manuscript, and it was brutal. I started at the end of March and have been working on it diligently since then. That’s right–for six weeks! You may think that’s dedication, but I would never have had the patience for it if I hadn’t been participating in a weekly chapter swap with another writer.

I’m not sure how you would do this if you’re working in Word, but I described how I went about the actual process for Scrivener in an initial post titled Quick Tip: Check Frequently Used Words by Chapter. As I mentioned in that post, previously I searched the overall manuscript and spent about two weeks weeding out my crutch words. This process was so much more in-depth. It took me about three hours per chapter because I searched almost every word that appeared even twice in a chapter to ensure that it actually needed to be there twice. Often it did. I’m not by any means suggesting that you should only use a word once per chapter–heck, sometimes you need to use a word fifteen times in a chapter!–just that it’s worth the effort to examine every word and make sure you’re using the best word. Because as writers we all have a tendency to fall back on familiar words, and they may not be the words that are most appropriate for our characters or the particular scene.

Here are some reasons you might want to change a word, even if it only appears twice.

It shows up within two paragraphs, and it’s not for emphasis. This happened quite often in my chapters. A word I’d never have noticed otherwise (like “interrupt”) would appear in one paragraph and then again in the next. Particularly if it’s not that common of a word, it really stands out if you repeat it too close together, even if you aren’t using it the same way.

Two different characters use the same term, and it fits one voice better than the other. Think about the voice. Maybe it’s an innocuous enough word that both characters would say it, but perhaps there’s a stronger choice for one of them.

Characters are shrugging, sighing, laughing, nodding, etc., more than once. I check for beat words in an overall manuscript search, but they were thrown into sharper relief in a chapter search. It forced me to carefully observe each character’s movements within the chapter to ensure I wasn’t doubling up on them–or if I was, that it was purposeful.

It highlights a vague word/phrase that you could make more specific. I’m not sure how to best describe what I mean here, but I found that highlighting these commonly used words made me really think so that I’d dig deeper and improve on vague phrases. Often it was when a character used words/phrases like “something,” “what we’d done,” “thing,” “everything,” etc., in thoughts or dialogue. Sometimes those catch-all words were appropriate, but in other cases I needed to replace them with a more specific description. For my current manuscript, it was often a lot funnier for my characters to say something more specific. For example:

“You found us, and considering our history, I couldn’t tell you what had happened.”

Became:

“You found us, and considering our history, I couldn’t tell you we ran away because we’d lost our dead babysitter.”

You’ve used the exact same phrase more than once in the same chapter. Maybe I would have caught this in a broader manuscript search for common words, or maybe a CP/reader would have noticed it, but it definitely stood out when I was searching within a single chapter. Since I fast-draft, I generally write a scene and/or chapter within a day, so it’s not surprising an exact phrase would pop up more than once. And when you’re just reading through, it’s easy to skim over it if it’s a common phrase. By completing this concentrated chapter-by-chapter search, I’ve eliminated these types of brain blips :).

A WORD OF CAUTION: I always include this caution because it’s very important. When searching for and replacing commonly used words, it’s easy to get happy with the thesaurus and write out voice. So my next step after completing this process is to read through the whole manuscript again. I expect that I’ll change some of these words back to the original words I’d used, even if it results in some repeated words. Sometimes that’s necessary for voice. I recommend reading the manuscript aloud for a voice check, either reading it yourself or having the computer read it. I do both at some point while revising.

How detailed do you get checking for repeated words?