Tips for Editing a First draft: A Solo Episode
“And remember that phrase that we hear a lot in the writing world writing is revision. And I really believe that getting that first draft down is only part of the process. It’s a big, huge, important part of the process to be celebrated. ”
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🎙️ Ever wanted to know how to edit a first draft? In this week’s solo episode, @pamelacookwrites focuses on the craft of editing, sharing all of her insider tips–from structural elements, point of view, voice and more. With resources and insights galore, this episode is like a free mentoring session with one of Australia’s best-love writing coaches 🎧📚
🎧👉 https://pod.link/1275851144
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Acknowledgements
00:46 Current Events and Personal Updates
01:45 Episode Focus: Editing a First Draft
02:04 Upcoming Writing Retreats and Courses
04:26 Puppy Sitting and Background Noises
04:46 Strategies for Editing a First Draft
27:49 Finding Your Unique Writing Voice
29:05 Structural Editing: The Big Picture
29:51 Scene-Level Editing: Cause and Effect
30:38 Character Development and Emotional Arcs
31:43 Balancing Light and Shadow in Your Story
32:30 Effective Use of Backstory
35:31 Refining Scenes and Chapters
42:24 Line-Level Revisions: Polishing Your Prose
47:33 The Importance of Beta Readers
49:39 Final Thoughts and Resources
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Transcript
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.
Pamela: Welcome to Writes for Women, a podcast all about celebrating women's voices and supporting women writers. I'm Pamela Cook, women's fiction, author, writing teacher, mentor, and podcaster. Before beginning today's chat, I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Dal people. The traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is being recorded, along with the traditional owners of the land throughout Australia, and a quick reminder that there could be strong language and adult concepts discussed in this podcast.
Pamela: So please be aware of this if you have children around. Let's relax on the convo couch, and chat to this week's guest.
Pamela: Hello, and welcome to another episode of rights for women. Today is Tuesday, the 26th of November. It is a scorcher here in the Illawarra where I live. And I think we're in for a pretty warm week. I've got a horse show coming up this weekend state quarter horse show. Yeah,
Pamela: not the best weather to be getting ready for her show. Pretty hot for the poor old horses too, but anyway, we'll take it easy and do what we can. Today's episode of rights for women is a solo episode, had a little guest gap. In the schedule. So I put out a call on sub stack to to our subs, text subscribers on rights women. Asking if there were any topics or issues or anything to do with writing that people would like me to discuss. To talk about and thank you very much to Meg done. One of my lovely sub bistec subscribers. For asking if I could talk about strategies and tips for editing a first draft.
Pamela: So that is what this whole episode is about. It's an audio only episode cause you don't really need to be seeing me. Hopefully listening to me will be enough. And don't forget that the transcript of the episodes also appear on the rights for women websites. Under the blog and transcripts tab. Just before I get onto that, a couple of things I wanted to mention to you. The first is that my next chapter, writing retreat scheduled for the 10th to the 13th of April in 2025 is now open for bookings. There are only 12 places for this retreat. It's at. Kerwin a house.
Pamela: Beautiful Cora winter house encouraged young at the foot in the foothills of the blue mountains, same place where the 2024 retreat was held. You can go onto a Pamela cook.com.edu, go to courses and then click in the appropriate place. There. And find out all about the retreat. Three places have already been sold. There are a couple of single rooms still available.
Pamela: There are limited single rooms, but that didn't seem to be a problem this year. A few people that initially wanted single rooms came along. With very open-mind and shared with people they'd never met before and ended up forming some fantastic writing relationships and friendships. I have to say a great writing community came out of that retreat. I'm sure that's going to happen again in 2025 and shout out to the people who have already registered for that. But if you would like to find out more, definitely go to Pamela cook.com.edu courses and all the information is there. There is a payment plan.
Pamela: You don't have to pay for everything upfront, but if you do want to secure your spot, it is. Pretty important that you get on there and Register. Really excited about that. Another thing I wanted to let you know about is that writing new south Wales have now announced their January to April program.
Pamela: And I am going to be doing a couple of things there next year. The first is that I'm going to be. Providing manuscript feedback through their manuscript feedback. Program, you can go to writing new south wales.org to find out more about that. All the information for the early part of the year courses are up. And I will be teaching another online course a little bit after that, which I'll tell you more about down the track. Just quickly my turn up.
Pamela: The tension course is still available at the reduced price of $199 for eight modules. And it is well worth the. Money. There is plenty of material in there for you to take your writing to the next level, which is what the course is aimed at. And you can go to the same place@pamelacook.com.edu.
Pamela: The courses page. To grab hold of that.
Pamela: Just a heads up to them. Currently, puppy sitting my daughters. 1110 week old Portuguese water dog. If you've never seen one, the absolutely gorgeous little black gremlin. Barack Obama has them apparently. If you hear any strange noises in the background, that will just be definitely probably chewing on something that she shouldn't be chewing on.
Pamela: So let's get onto the topic for this week's podcast.
Pamela: As I said, Meg done asked if I would talk about strategies and tips for editing a first draft. So I'm just going to go through roughly in order, but not necessarily in order. Like everything with writing the way that you edit and revise is. Partly a subjective process. Just as the way that we draft a book is quite subjective in terms of some of us like to write all the way through before looking at anything, not reversing anything as we go, some writers like to plan some, like to.
Pamela: Fast, other slight, right slower, and be more considered with their drafting. So justice, that is a subjective process. Editing that first draft is subjective in a way. You will develop your own process. The more that you complete drafts and the more books that you are going back to edit, you will find the process that works for you. So just remember that all the tips that I'm giving a things that I have found work for me. And also things that when I've been mentoring other writers and doing manuscript assessments, things that I feel would have would benefit that manuscript, if it was part of that revision process.
Pamela: So that's the place that I'm coming from. So to start with, you need to, when you finish your draft, Pop the champers or whatever it is that you do when you celebrate, and give yourself a huge pat on the back. Completing a first draft is a huge achievement. You think about how many people start novels and never finish?
Pamela: How many people think about writing novels or, say, oh, y'all want to write a novel one day and never even get to the starting blocks. If you finish a draft of anything, whether that's a short story and Avella a poem. Or a novel. And particularly a novel because that's a long form project. Definitely congratulate yourself and celebrate. It's not going to be a perfect finished product.
Pamela: It's not meant to be a draft is for you to get all of your ideas out on the page, then to see what you've got then to rework it and come up with what down the track will be your final version. So the first thing to do is celebrate.
Pamela: Definitely, share the fact that you've completed it with friends and family, social media, if you like you'll often see posts on Instagram with writers, typing the end and feeling extremely excited about that.
Pamela: And that is definitely something to be excited about. So celebrating your draft is first on the list.
Pamela: Secondly. Leave the draft for as long as possible after writing it. Now, when I say. As long as possible. I don't mean three years or five years. Sometimes we do take that long to get back to a finished manuscript and that's just life gets in the way, or we go off on a tangent, write something else, and then we come back to something that we'd written earlier. Generally the longer that you leave something. The more objective you are going to be about it.
Pamela: The aim when you are reading through your first draft is to be able to read that manuscript as if somebody else had written it. So to read it with a critical eye. We do editor's hat on with your Peaky brain. Operating. So when we're drafting, we don't want any of those things. We just want our creative. Process happening.
Pamela: We want the words to be flowing in any particular order.
Pamela: And we don't really want to be stifled by any kind of editing or revision. Unless we are someone who stops and edits as they go. As long as that doesn't stop you continuing with your draft. That's fine.
Pamela: So leaving your manuscript for. At least a few weeks, I would say if possible. A month or six weeks would be great if you can do it. The trick is to find that balance between losing the energy and the excitement that you have for completing the manuscript and going and getting so distracted that, you don't really want to go back to it. If your aim is to complete that manuscript to a publishable standard. Then you want to find that balance between. Living at long enough that the excitement is still there and you really want to go back to it and you really want to improve it. But also trying to achieve that. Reader objectivity. Now it's not going to be a hundred percent possible to be objective about your own writing.
Pamela: You can't possibly be. We cannot be objective or about our own work. We're too invested in it. We're too involved in it. The stories in our head, even parts of the story that are not on the page are in our head. So that makes it very difficult to be completely objective. We might also come to it with the feeling that it's great because we're so excited or proud of it.
Pamela: We might feel it's great. I don't need to change anything. It's almost good. Ready to go. Conversely, we might come to it with that real critic side going, oh, this is absolute crap. Why am I bothering? This is unsolvable salvageable. I don't believe that any manuscript is unsalvageable. Some of them need more work than others.
Pamela: Some of them need a lot of work. But in the end, if you've got the bare bones there or even flesh on the bones, You can definitely do something with that manuscript.
Pamela: So the second thing is leaving it for. A decent amount of time before coming back to revise it. Let's say four to six weeks now. If you are writing to a deadline and you don't have that luxury. You might only be able to leave it a week, even if you are in a short timeframe, try and leave at a minimum of a week. Because as I said, your brain is going to be holding all of that up there, and it's going to be very hard to be as objective as you need to be.
Pamela: When you come to reading through the manuscript, if you haven't had at least, a little bit of time, Preferably a lot.
Pamela: Okay. So the first read through. Of your manuscript.
Pamela: I read something in a book on revision awhile ago, and I can't remember the name of the book or the essay that I read, but it was something that really stuck with me. And that was that revising your novel is re visioning. Your novel. So not just correcting it, but seeing the whole thing, the whole concept, the whole story through new eyes. You aren't, revisioning the story.
Pamela: You're giving it a new vision when you're revising it. Now for some manuscripts that might take a lot of changes. There might have to be a lot of work done to characterization. There might need to be a lot of restructuring. A lot of there might be plot holes that need filling. For other manuscripts, there might not be many changes to create that new vision for your work.
Pamela: But if you think about your revision process in terms of revisioning at least to start with. It really emphasizes what I think is a good place to start. And that is starting with the big picture. And for that reason, it's good. If you can to read it through first on paper, before you do anything else, now you may have already done a quick read through on screen.
Pamela: If you do right on screen, most of us do these days. That's okay. But when you actually sit down to do that very first full, proper read through. For your revision.
Pamela: Try and do it on paper if possible. A lot of things, I don't know. It seems like a lot of things are easy to miss on screen when things are written in print. They just seem to be more obvious. The words look different on the page somehow in real life than they do on a screen. My advice would be to print out the whole thing.
Pamela: Now you can either, if you've got the facilities, you can print it out yourself. You can go to places like office works and they'll actually print and bind them for you too. So it makes it a little bit more. Easy to manage. You don't have kind of pages flying all over the place. It's a little bit of a layout of money, but it is worth. I think to have that printout that you can hold.
Pamela: The next thing I would say is to set aside some time that is going to allow you to read through it as quickly as possible.
Pamela: So if you can read through, it would be probably hard going in a day, but let's say over two or three days so that you can get a sense of the whole story. If you stop and start and do an hour now, one day, nothing. The next day, half an hour, the next day, three hours, a few days later, it's going to be quite a disjointed read through. You want to try and get a sense of the whole picture of the story? And to do that, try and set aside some time to read through the whole thing. Reasonably uninterrupted, just so that your mind is fully focused on the story and the words on the page in front of you. So reading through it in print. Reading through it as quickly as possible. Not rushing it, not scanning or skimming, but just so that you get through the whole thing in a reasonably short amount of time.
Pamela: For this first read through, I think it's a great idea to have a pen and notepad handy, but you don't want to be making overly detailed notes.
Pamela: If you make a note of, on either on the paper itself on the manuscript itself or , in your notebook about every mistake that you pick up. Every typo, every thought that you have about it.
Pamela: It is going to be quite a disjointed read through. Make a note of the big things or put asterisks on your page with just a little bit of shorthand as to what you need to do there.
Pamela: And just try and absorb the book as much as you can absorb the story as much as you can, just, as you would read through any book that you pull off a shelf or pick up in a bookstore. Knowing of course that it's not a complete version. But trying to get a sense of it as a story.
Pamela: Okay. So when we're looking at the big picture of the story, we're looking at things like overall characterization, overall plot. Voice.
Pamela: Beginnings endings, the circular movement of the story. I'll let me go through some of these things. One at a time.
Pamela: First of all, does it start in the right place often?
Pamela: You might've heard the stories that publishers tell that sometimes or editors that. They'll read a manuscript. And the first thing that they tell the writer to do is to chop off the first chapter or get rid of the first three chapters. And that's often particularly with beginning writers.
Pamela: I think this feeling that we need to. Tell the reader, everything that we need to give the whole backstory of the character to the reader. So remember that you want to start at a point of interest. You want to start with something that is going to grab the reader and hook them from the very first page.
Pamela: Now that doesn't mean that you have to start straight away with the inciting incident, but we want to start fairly close to the character, the main character having. A major problem or conflict to deal with. So think about the fact that you want to grab the reader, you want to hook them and think about if you've started in the right place.
Pamela: Similarly in terms of structure, you want to think about ending in the right place.
Pamela: So it's often good to think about having a kind of circular movement to the story, that where we see the character and who she's with at the beginning is mirrored in some way. It doesn't have to be an exact mirror, but a mirror or an echo of that at the end. And what that means is that we're going to see the character in the similar situation. But she, I'm going to say she for the course of this discussion, because I'm not going to say she, he all the time So she is going to be. Noticeably different, a noticeably different person at the end to who she is at the beginning in that. Similar scenario.
Pamela: That's one way to look at your beginning and ending. So thinking about that circular movement to the storytelling,
Pamela: have all the story threads been tied, offs, satisfactorily. Now. Often you'll have one major plot line. And then there might be a few subplots which involve some of the minor characters in the story.
Pamela: Or there might be additional story threads. I think in a place of her own mind, most recently completed manuscript I had about. Seven different story threads. And my editor said to me, I wondered how you were going to pull all those together. But you did. So that was good. I was really glad to get that feedback.
Pamela: But yeah, you need to make sure that all of those different threads that you've woven through the story Have they been given enough air time? Have they been given too much air time and do they take away from the main storyline of the character you want them to be actually. Highlighting or eliminating things about your main character as those different story threads on revel. And then at the end, they, to like the main plot line needs to be tied off satisfactorily.
Pamela: Some other things to think about as you're looking at the big picture stuff, are things like. The or the important three goal motivation and conflict. Have those things been made clear. Now this isn't, as Ureter over the head is. Her goal was to blah, blah, blah, go forth boldly into whatever. Obviously you're going to be doing it more subtly than that. But you need to be able to identify what the main character's goal is. Her motivation in wanting to achieve that goal, who the why, which might have something to do with her backstory.
Pamela: And I'll talk more about that in a minute. And the main conflict of the story and the sub conflicts. So there needs to be remember internal and external conflict. So the external conflicts that are happening in the story need to trigger some internal conflict for your character. She needs to be getting churned up.
Pamela: Confused. Agitated, whatever it is that those different conflicts are creating for her, those emotions. And you want to make sure that the goal motivation and conflict aunts, they're not just tick the box things at the beginning of the story, but they're things that keep recurring.
Pamela: And that there'll be little reminders throughout the story for your reader. Of what the goal motivation and conflict are through the character's behavior. You're showing those things in the way that your character. Behaves. Talks. Acts and reacts. So there are things to consider as well.
Pamela: Structurally you need to think about the turning points in your story.
Pamela: Where the story starts and ends. As I mentioned before. Now. If you have multiple timelines in your story, this is going to complicate your revision of course. A good thing to do is to do like a dot point summary of each different timeline. And just go through your manuscript and work out.
Pamela: Where are the main turning points for each of those timelines? So I like to work on the Michael Hague. Three act structure. I think it's a six point kind of turning points. Template. And you can find that@storymastery.com or email me if you're not sure where to get it. And I can get a copy to you. But it means having things like the inciting incident in the first 10 to 12% of your story.
Pamela: So the inciting incident is the thing that kicks off the whole storyline. It's the grenade. If you like that is thrown into the character's life. Make sure that happens in that first 10 to 12%. If it happens too late, like around 20 or 25%, then that first part of your story, that the thing is what's the point of it.
Pamela: Okay. We want to get the character to the S to the crisis fairly quickly. It might even happen before 10%, but it should happen at least by 12% at the latest. Then there'll be according to this template, if this is the way that you work. And I recommend this for new writers in particular, who aren't sure of how to structure things.
Pamela: This is a great kind of starting point. Or you can look up other structural templates and use those to help you. The first plot point is usually around the 25% mark. Now that don't have to be rigidly around there, they might be slightly earlier or slightly later. But people who have studied story theory. Have found that this is where these turning points tend to happen.
Pamela: And this is what readers will be expecting, particularly in commercial fiction. If you're writing literary fiction, it's going to be slightly different. You can play around with these rules, if you like more or toss them out the window completely as a lot of literary fiction does. But the first plot point. At around the 25% mark sees the character. Make a decision. And set off on a particular course of action. Then that will continue on until the halfway point at 50%, which is where you'll have the mirror moment. Or the moment of reflection where a character will realize something about him or herself, that again will change their course of action. They will either dig down and continue on the path that they've been on or change it completely. 75% is the black moment or sometimes called the dark night of the soul. Where all is lost.
Pamela: The characteristic set off on this course, they've had this goal in mind and the way that they're going to tackle this goal. And it seems like it hasn't worked at the 75% mark and it seems like everything that's been aiming for everything that they've wanted to achieve. Everything they've hoped for is now dashed. But they rally. Something happens.
Pamela: Or, and it could be a memory of something. It could be something from the backstory, or it could be something that they see or feel or think, or hear that. Means that they rally, they push forward to the climax that around 85 to 90% of the story that brings everything to a head. They achieve their goal to some extent now they might not achieve exactly the goal that they set out to achieve, but they might achieve something different that is just as good for them.
Pamela: As the actual original goal would have been. And then there will be some kind of resolution in the last 10% where all those ends are tied up. Now you don't have to tie everything up in a neat bow. But remember that the reader is going to want to feel satisfied. That the story that you're telling has been completed in a way that is satisfying for them.
Pamela: Okay. So even if you don't have a happily ever after, obviously if it's a romance. Has to be a happily ever after. But otherwise. Maybe think about a hopeful ending. So there's nothing worse. For me, anyway, speaking from personal experience, there's nothing worse than getting to an end of the book and having the rug pulled out from under you. And the main character dying or just the thing that you were hoping to happen.
Pamela: Something completely different happens in the character's life is a disaster. What you're trying to show in that ending section, is that the character that's now a new person. It's again, what Michael Hague calls the character coming into their essence. It's the character becoming the person that they are meant to be, that they've always had the potential to be. In some way or other, it doesn't mean that they're a perfect person and it might only be one small aspect of their personality, one small aspect of their life, but they find that essence and that finishes that particular story for them.
Pamela: Something else to consider in this first read through is, are all the side characters necessary?
Pamela: Think about how many support characters there are in the supporting cast. Sometimes there are too many. And if that's the case, it can be confusing for the reader. All of the characters should in some way, be connected to the main character or present some kind of problem issued dilemma or resolution. To the main character that is going to help them with their goal.
Pamela: So have a think about that. And if you've just got characters floating around that aren't really doing anything constructive, it might be good to get rid of them. Think also about character names. Try not to have characters whose names sound too similar, like Marla and Marnie or
Pamela: kirstie and Kristin or even two names starting with the same letter, really?
Pamela: It's just a thing to make it easier for the readers. Don't make life any harder for the Redis. Then you have to, you don't want them getting characters confused. You don't want them having to stop and check back to make sure that they're thinking about or that they were reading about the character they thought they were reading about.
Pamela: So don't have any names that sound too similar. And as I said, try not to have too many characters, make sure that they're all doing something. They're all serving a function in the story.
Pamela: Another thing to look out for as you're reading through is whether your point of view is consistent. Now, this is something that I see quite often is a bit of an issue for beginning writers. Sometimes, if you start in the first person, you might slip at points into third person.
Pamela: So you start off saying, I never thought this would happen to me. And then by chapter through it's like she walked down the driveway of the house, holding her breath. Now it's fine if you're doing it deliberately. Okay. If you are using two different points of view, first person and third person or past and present, if you're doing that deliberately to create a certain effect. That is absolutely fine.
Pamela: Make sure that you're doing it consistently in those sections that you want to do it in. If not be very aware of that. The other thing to watch for is slippage from past to present tense. So if you're writing the whole thing in past tense, keep it in past tense, unless it is again, a section that you're pulling out specifically to write in present tense, to make it more immediate or whatever.
Pamela: When we're talking about first and third person and who is telling the story. If you've only got one point of view, make sure that everything that happens in that story. Is filtered through your main character's head. So if you've got a character called Maggie and the story is about
Pamela: A relationship that that she's having with a married man. Everything that we see. In that story and everything that we hear about needs to come through. Maggie's point of view. Unless you're telling it from an inefficient point of view, which is like the over overarching God-like voice, in which case it's okay to hop into another character's head. But head hopping is hard to do well, people like Sarah Windman in still life and many of her other novels can do it brilliantly.
Pamela: But again, I would advise you if you are in the early days of your novel writing to stick with. A single point of view, at least for each point of view section. And I wouldn't go for more than three different points of view in the novel. If you want to write a multiple person point of view story Tackle one aspect of craft at a time.
Pamela: Don't make it hard, too hard for yourself. Yes, it's good to challenge ourselves and to learn new things through our craft. If you take too many big things in one particular story, you are making it hard for it's for yourself and you more likely to set yourself up for failure. Consider point of view, consider tents, make sure that it's all consistent.
Pamela: And the other big thing, I guess to think about for the big picture. Is voice
Pamela: now, voice is such an tricky, intangible thing to pin down. And it's really a product of all of the different things that I'm talking about. Your word usage, whether you have short or long sentences whether you have short or long chapters and scenes, whether you write in first person, third person past tense, present tense. A whole different lot of combinations of things are going to come together to create your unique voice. That is presuming that you're writing in your own voice, the voice that's in your head and not a voice that you feel that you should write in. So just be aware of that as you're reading through, definitely read your work out loud.
Pamela: To yourself and perhaps even playing it back and then have a think about, does that sound like me? And does it sound like the voice that I want to put out into the world? Um, while we can learn things from other writers.
Pamela: We've definitely learned things through everything that we read and I'm a big believer in analyzing the books we're reading and learning from them. But we want the stories to San uniquely like us. So for instance, my usual writing voice is. Third person. Deep point of view.
Pamela: So strongly in the character's head. Description
Pamela: sensory writing without being overly flowery. Use of some similarly. Metaphor, that sort of thing. Now, other people might have a much more straightforward style in that they don't use any similarly. They don't use any metaphor. They have minimal description. There's no right or wrong with the voice.
Pamela: It's just about. Finding the voice that is uniquely yours and that you are comfortable with, and that is going to naturally flow for you each time that you write a novel. Now it takes some time to find your voice. And I think that old. Mantra or whatever it is that they talk about of doing something for 10,000 hours before you actually get good at it.
Pamela: You need to write and write and write and write for many hours in order to find your voice. And then once you do just really be proud of it and hone it and keep working on it, and that's what he's going to become uniquely. You. So anyway, that's just something to be aware of.
Pamela: It is a very tricky thing, but over time you will learn what your voice is and you will be able to recognize it. And. Refine it.
Pamela: So once you've done the big picture, what I generally do is do that structural edit.
Pamela: So if I think that our, no, there's a section where I need to add a little bit more. I need another scene in there, or I need to move this scene that I've got in the second half forward. And that is actually what becomes the first turning point. It's a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Play around with your structure. If you've made notes about any of those things, I've talked about
Pamela: you can make adjustments as you go through. Be prepared to do more than one revision. I think trying to focus on every single thing that needs fixing in one go is just too hard. So you might, for instance, break it down and do. One run through where you just get the structure. You get the turning points,
Pamela: you get the, all the scene scenes in order. The other thing you want to think about with your scenes is this thing of cause and effect. So what happens in one scene needs to directly cause what happens in the next scene now? Sometimes there'll be really obvious. Other times there'll be a more subtle thing because it might be something in the character's thought processes. But if you think of that domino type scenario, Where, you have your dominoes lined up and you push one and then all the rest fall down.
Pamela: That's the way your story should be unfolding. Okay. So whatever happens in the first scene one thing in there might lead to something in the next scene, one thing, and then lead to something in the next scene. And so on. Otherwise what you have is a whole lot of disconnected scenes and you don't want that.
Pamela: So cause and effect is important and it helps create narrative drive.
Pamela: Okay, so do your overall structural thing. You might want to then go over and just do a whole run through on your main character. Looking at her development, looking at the emotional arc that she has. Who is she at the beginning? What are her emotions at the beginning? How has she changed by the end?
Pamela: And at what points during the story to her emotions start to change and evolve. And where does her character growth start? It definitely needs to start around the mid point. And in the second half of the story, Particularly in this kind of three X structure type story. You definitely want to be seeing some differences in your character from who she was and how she was reacting. At the beginning. Sometimes your character gets more narky or more aggro or more distant or more depressed as the story goes through.
Pamela: And then there'll be a resurgence and she'll get her act together in the second half. Just watch out for creating a character that is too depressed to down. To miserable all the time. And that's another thing to look out for in your manuscript, as you're reading through it is.
Pamela: Are there moments of joy? Do you have light and shadow? And if you've got a whole section where it's just shadow. See, if you can find in there some small moments of joy for your character, it could be as simple as watching a butterfly. , flipped through a garden or hearing their favorite song and bringing a smile to their face.
Pamela: A memory of someone from their past that makes them feel a small moment of joy. So even if you have a story that is fairly angsty and there's a lot of trauma in it or depression, Doobie looking out for places where you can insert moments of joy.
Pamela: I think that's a really important, it's something that I've had to really work on because I do tend to tell. Stories about characters who have quite tragic backstories.
Pamela: Now the other thing. I guess that I should mentioned here is about backstory. , I mentioned about not having too much backstory at the beginning starts what they call in media res in your opening, in the action in the moment. And I have talked about this before, and I mentioned this kind of metaphor from Donald mess in all of my workshops.
Pamela: He has some great writing books. If you haven't heard of him, look him up in AA Ws. Think about your backstory in terms of it being a sheet of glass that you drop on the floor. So this is the backstory being everything that had happened to the character before your story opens. Okay. Before that opening moment of your story backstories, everything that's happened up until that point. Some of what we further back in the past, some of it will be more recent. Think about the whole thing as a sheet of glass that you drop. Smash it on the ground and you pick up one shot at a time and insert it into the story at the appropriate time. Donald mussels, so talks about having no backstory at all in the first three chapters.
Pamela: Now that's a fairly extreme. Recommendation, although I have followed it myself and I do quite like that because the reason being that you want to pull your reader into the current storyline, you want the reader to get immersed in that current time storyline invested in it and want to keep reading about it.
Pamela: And then gradually. You will start to. Reveal some bits of information from the past. So again, another analogy, another way to think about this as if you meet someone at a party. When we first meet them, they might be telling us a few superficial things, Each time you meet them, you might find out more and more until one day you might have a coffee and they really pour their heart out to you.
Pamela: But that's going to be sometime down the track. They're not generally, unless they're a huge over-sharer. Not going to do that at the first meeting. So you don't want to be pouring all of that backstory out into your narrative at the beginning, because you read a we'll get bored with it. They want to know who your character is now what's happening to them.
Pamela: Now what's the conflict. What's the problem. Get invested in that and then start to insert these shards or glass. Into the story at the appropriate points. Now, what are the appropriate points for backstory? There are moments when the character would naturally think about something from their past. Otherwise, what you end up with is an info dump.
Pamela: If you think, oh, the reader needs to know this, a better, put it in here. You risk it being what's called an info dump. So it becomes very obvious that the author thinks we need to know this. So that's why it's here. If you put it into the story at a moment when the character would naturally be thinking about that time or that event or that memory, it's going to flow a lot more easily with the narrative.
Pamela: And it does allow you to create dramatic tension because you can cut that memory off at a point where they want to stop thinking about it. They don't want to think about that anymore. And then maybe you can come back to it. You can also use backstory to reveal really big things from your characters past. At those turning point moments.
Pamela: So just have a really good look about, look at where and how you're using backstory as you go through your. Your manuscript.
Pamela: After the big, big picture stuff, you go through your advice, you redo your structure. You get things in the order that you want them to be. You might work on your beginning and get that really nailed down. You might look at your turning points and refine all of those and make sure that they are really. Obvious turning points. They're really pushing the story into new directions and that they're showing what you want them to show about your character. Then you go back and start to look at things on. At a smaller level, we're going to start to drill down.
Pamela: Now. We're not going to drill down just yet to.
Pamela: The words. Okay. This. The phrases and the sentences. We're going to look next at things at a scene level. So you want to look at things like does each scene have its own arc with a beginning, middle and an end? Now within a chapter, you might have just one scene or you might have. Two or three or four scenes, depending how long your. Scenes are your chapters?
Pamela: Probably shouldn't go over. You. 4,000 or so words, that's just a general rule. They might go over. They might be a lot shorter. But each scene needs to be contributing something to the overall story. Within each senior character needs to have a goal. Just like they're doing the big story, but it's obviously going to be a mini goal. What does your character want in this scene and what is going to stop her or who is going to stop her from getting it? This is a good point.
Pamela: If you really want to break things down to use index cards. I'll put a post up on social it's during the week. After this episode comes out with some of my index cards and how I sit them out, but basically it's just. What's the setting. Where is the scene set? Who's in the scene?
Pamela: What does the character want? What's the character's goal? What's the obstacle. That's going to stop her from getting the goal. What are the emotions that she experiences during the course of this scene? And what is the result or the domino, if you like, that's going to tip it over into the next scene.
Pamela: The thing that's going to create that narrative drive. So you can, you index cards are a great resource to use for those. And if you use Scrivener, you can of course do that on your corkboard in Scrivener or in your notes section next to your scene in Scrivener. As I mentioned, you want to identify what the emotions are in each scene, because that's how the readers connect with your character, through the emotions that your character is displaying. So think about what is the dominant emotion within each scene?
Pamela: Does the emotion change, are there multiple emotions and just think about it. We ourselves can experience multiple emotions at one time. In moments, of high tension and high drama in the story, there's probably going to be a lot of conflicting emotions going on for your character. Remember that you always want your character to have internal conflict of some kind it's going to be to a greater or lesser extent, depending on whereabouts in the story it is and what's happening. You can do a, an emotions map.
Pamela: You can shut the emotions using index cards and you can see how things changed for the character over the course of the story.
Pamela: Another thing to look at in breaking down your scenes is thinking about. The elements within the writing. Do you have a balance of all the necessary elements? It is the action. Is there description. Is there dialogue? Is there showing, is there telling, is there interiority, do we get in to see inside the character's head? Most scenes will have a smattering of all of those things.
Pamela: Some sense will be heavier on one of those things than others, depending on where, again, the type of writing that you do. Your style, whereabouts in the story it is and on your Shaundra, but generally most sense should have a balance of alls, all those things. And A great way to see what you've got is to use highlighters, to highlight different sections of the scene.
Pamela: You can just take a sample chapter and this will help to see what sort of elements you tend to put into your writing. Just when you are naturally writing a draft or whatever. So you. Underline all the action in red. Highlight the dialogue in blue. Highlight any description of character or setting in green? Anything that is interior.
Pamela: So whether that's thought or memory. Anything that's in the character's head is in yellow. And then underline anything or put dot points in orange for tension. So where is the tension ramping up? And if you feel that your scenes are lacking tension, Then you need to go back and have a look at how you can instill that's a whole other story. Got a great course on that, by the way. Turn up the tension.
Pamela: So analyzing your sense in terms of what are all the elements and making sure that you have a balance of them. Now, if your character is in a situation where They're just going into a memory and it's a flashback scene. You can still have all those elements within a flashback scene because that brings it to life.
Pamela: Otherwise it just becomes a bit of a reporting or telling scene. If you're going into a flush back, what you need to make sure of is that you are taking the reader in and outs of that flushed back smoothly. So we know where we are at all times. And you do that by using the word head. She had only gone to the house once. It had been.
Pamela: So you might use head. Once or twice. And then we go fully into that scene as if it's a current scene, a current action scene, and then coming back out of it, you need to signal to the reader that we're now back to the main storyline. So you might, for instance, use things like
Pamela: The clock chimed dragging a back to the present.
Pamela: That's a really obvious way of doing it, or or you might have somebody speaking to her and have the actual dialogue bring her back to the present. So there's a whole lot of different ways you can do that, but you need to be making sure the reader is going smoothly in and out of those flashbacks or bits of backstory.
Pamela: When you're looking at scenes also again, have a look at scene beginnings and endings. You want the scene to start strong? It's going to be picking up on something that happened in the previous scene or a scene prior if it is a multiple, point of view or multiple timelines scene. So Make sure that it's starting strong and make sure to vary the beginnings of your scenes as well. You don't want to start the beginning of each scene with the same phrasing or this, having your character in the same place.
Pamela: You might start some scenes with dialogue. You might start some with interiority. You might start some with description. Just vary it, mix it up. You want to keep the reader on their toes. You want to keep them interested and repetitive patterns are going to do the opposite of that.
Pamela: Similarly with the endings of your scenes.
Pamela: Have a look at the last sentence or two and see if chopping it off makes a difference. You want to leave the end of a scene with some kind of tension. It could be a big cliffhanger depending on where we are in the story, or it could be just a minor little piece of bait that you're dangling on your hook to draw the reader into the next scene.
Pamela: So you want to leave the reader up in the air a little bit at the end of a scene or chapter or a lot. And one way you can do that is to take off the last sentence or the last paragraph and see what you've got left. And that will often actually do the trick or at least go back and tweak it.
Pamela: Okay. So once you've gone through your scenes and you've refined them all
Pamela: You probably then going to do at least one more. I would say multiple still. Revisions on the line level. There are loads of things you can do to improve your writing on the line level, but some really obvious things to look out for when you are at this next round through. And remember that you were molding your story as you go through each of these reiterations with it, it's going to be changing and morphing and becoming something probably quite different to what you originally wrote. And that's fine.
Pamela: That's the drafting process and the revising process. So one thing you can do is to get rid of any extraneous words. Watch out for tautologies, where you say The same thing in two different ways within a sentence or paragraph. Watch out for repetition. We all have words and phrases that we automatically repeat. And a good thing to do is to be on the lookout for those, as you're reading through your manuscript, make a list of them or highlight them and then go through and
Pamela: if you're in word you can use the search and find function, or you can do it in Scrivener. It's got the same sort of thing. Scribble actually give you a list of some of these words and how many times you've used them. I don't know about other writing programs. They're the only two that I use. And it can be quite scary to see how many times you use the word just is often a word that you need to get rid of.
Pamela: Pretty much every time you use it. That is another word that crops up that we can generally get rid of. And we will all have our own kind of Words we tend to use. So making a list of them going back using the search and delete function and often deleting is the answer.
Pamela: Just get rid of it. If you can't think of another way to say it and get rid of it, you probably don't need it. Every time that something is mentioned. If it's an issue that the character is dealing with or a place that they're thinking about, or a person that they're thinking about, don't just repeat the same thought. Or the same sentence or the same idea. Each time that it is mentioned, it should be mentioned in a new way or escalated. In some way. It needs to be ramped up each time that we were hearing it about it.
Pamela: Tightening your sentences, get rid of any extraneous words in sentences.
Pamela: If they're not doing something. If then they're not serving a function, get rid of them. Thing, if you can enter in some sentences with a power word, so have a look at the way that your sentence is structured. And if there's a word near the end of the sentence, that's quite a strong word, a powerful kind of word.
Pamela: Rearrange your sentence to put that word at the end. It's called backloading. And it's just a mental trigger to the reader. It's a little hook again for the reader to re push onto the next sentence. Watch out for overly repetitive sentence structures. So again, you don't want to have the same pattern all the time.
Pamela: Mix up short and long sentences. If you're in a. Section of the story where there is a lot of fast paced action. You probably want a lot of short sentences, maybe then a longer one. And then some more shorter ones. There's no hard and fast rule with these things, but just watch out for patterns and try and break them.
Pamela: Have a look at any images that you've got there.
Pamela: Can they be expanded? One of the things that we want to do is when we're creating a story is that we want to create images in the reader's head. So we can do that through choosing really specific words, specific details, and really zooming in on some small picture things. We can use similes and metaphors. To help create pictures in the reader's head.
Pamela: Now you don't have to use those and you don't have to use them often, but you might want to include some. And also just adding more sensory details. So not just the visual, but the smells, the sights, the sounds, the tastes, the touching all of those things can add to that sense of imagery and evocative language that you can put in there to a greater or lesser extent.
Pamela: Again, it comes back to your style and your own voice. So making sure that every word is doing something.
Pamela: And I won't go on too much about line level stuff that is just a whole other art form really to edit at that level. But it's really important that I think you do at least one run through on all of those things.
Pamela: So the big picture, the middle picture, the scenes and chapters, and then your line level. Then leave the whole manuscript again. Don't go near it for a while. Have a break from it. You need to get it out of your head as much as possible. I then read it through again. And then when you read it through again, the next time after all these different revisions you're going to be having all of these little antenna, like a little, see an enemy.
Pamela: You're going to have all those little radars up now of all these different things that you've changed.
Pamela: So each time that you read through the story, you are probably going to be making changes to a greater or lesser extent. You will probably at this stage be getting sick of it. Here's another little tip.
Pamela: If you have scents in there which are quite emotional scenes. I always think it's important that those scenes make you cry, or if they don't make you physically cry that they are gut wrenching, or if they at least Give you a dry throat, some sort of emotional reaction. Now, if you're not getting an emotional reaction from those scenes yourself. You might need to go back and look at how you can up the emotion in those scenes. Or you might've just read it too many times and you're over it and you really don't want to see it again.
Pamela: That's at the point where you need to get it and give it to a beta reader of some kind. Now some authors don't like to share their work with other readers, they will go straight to the editor. Or straight to an agent or publisher. That's fine if you're at that level, but if you're not at that level, it's important to have feedback from a reader of some kind.
Pamela: And I always advise you to make your first readers. Other writers. Because they understand the process. They know what it's like to give their work to someone else for feedback. And when you do that, ask for specific feedback. , make a list, write out a whole list of questions and give it to them.
Pamela: Don't make it too onerous because they won't be able to come up with so many different things in one reading of the story. And you don't want to overload them, but you might have say four or five questions. Is it emotional enough? Do you think it needs more attention? What do you know what do you think of the character arc?
Pamela: You don't want? Yes or no responses. Make them open questions. Do you think I've ended in the right place? It doesn't need a prologue. Okay. So give them a few specific questions to answer, and then they might also then offer some overall feedback. Ask if you want things as specific as line editing, don't expect too much of your beta readers.
Pamela: So they're things for editors themselves. So really you're just giving it to someone to read as a reader and getting their reaction. But if you give them specific things to look at, it just gives them some direction.
Pamela: Sometimes you might have a number of writing friends and , they have different strengths.
Pamela: So you might give it to one reading, one writing friend or one beta reader, and ask for feedback on the character. You might give it to another and ask for feedback on the writing itself, the style, the description you might give it to a third one and ask full feedback on the plot. And , if you don't know of anyone who you could ask to be a better reader, there are groups online where you can find better readers,
Pamela: at that point, you will have done numerous revisions.
Pamela: I've probably stepped outside. Meg's original request to give you suggestions for editing a first draft and I've gone on to multiple drafts. But that's really how the process works. As I said, it is a matter of finding your own process with revision. There are some great books out there on revision.
Pamela: The one that I really like is called manuscript make-over by Elizabeth Lyons. James Scott Bell has a great book. Book called. Writing from the middle. And he's got another one called revision and editing.
Pamela: And of course, Stephen King is someone that you can always go back to and read on writing.
Pamela: When you're looking for any writing tips, but there are also some great courses out there on revising succeed. I do have one called turn up the tension. And that can help you with revision. And remember it's a process just as drafting is, and it takes time. So give yourself that time. You want your story to end up being the best possible version of itself that it can be before you send it off to an agent or a publisher?
Pamela: Generally, you only get one chance with a publisher. You might get the opportunity down the track to resubmit the same manuscript, but generally you only get one chance. So you don't want to blow that. You want that manuscript to be as good as it can possibly be. I know I have an, a lot of my writing friends said the same thing.
Pamela: They have made the mistake in the past of submitting too soon. Either because I'm just sick of it. But there's a little voice inside my head. That's saying. It's really not quite ready. Or I'm excited about it. And I just want to share it with the publisher. Those things have not ended well for me. And those experiences and a lot of writers will say the same thing that submitting too soon is a trap. Give yourself the time. Make the manuscript the best that it can possibly be before submitting to a professional or to a publisher, whoever it is that you want to submit to.
Pamela: And remember that phrase that we hear a lot in the writing world writing is revision. And I really believe that getting that first draft down is only part of the process. It's a big, huge, important part of the process to be celebrated. But it's a lot less than half of the process because you really want to be doing multiple revisions to get your work to the point where you really feel like there is now no more that I can possibly do to this at this point in time. And I need to now let it go.
Pamela: That's another whole story again. But anyway, I hope that this has proved helpful to you. Even if you pick up one or two tips from this. My job is done. Have a great week. Everyone. I will be back next week with a very special chat with Vanessa.
Pamela: McCausland all about her brand new book, the last delusion of Paige white, which is out soon. And I'm reading and it is fantastic. Have a great week.
Pamela: Thanks for listening to Rights for Women. I hope you've enjoyed my chat with this week's guest. If you did, I'd love it if you could add a quick rating or review wherever you get your podcasts so others can more easily find the episodes. Don't forget to check out the back list on the Rights for Women website, so much.
Pamela: Great writing advice in the library there. And you can also find the transcript of today's chat on the website too. And you can connect with me through the website@rightsforwomen.com on Instagram and Twitter at WW podcast.
Pamela: The Facebook page writes for women. Or find me and my writing@pamelacook.com au. Thanks for listening. Have a great week. And remember every word you write your one word closer to typing the end.