How You Re-Write 4: Zoom Into Draft Analysis

Re-Write Hangover Time! Manuscript Deconstruction Technique in hand,  what’s next? What’s your overall re-writing plan?

What parts of your book should you consider pulling out of the overall tapestry , so you can fine tune (or overhaul) your draft into a more magnification whole?

The last few Re-Write Posts (here and here and here),  we’ve talked about my “Flag-Flip” technique of isolating a particular element of your story. And you’ve practiced a bit, looking at high-level deconstructions of your protagonist’s emotional arc, and then of a secondary character’s “sub” story. If you’ve done your homework, right? So you have a couple of visual “road maps” now of how better see individual story elements for themselves (the independent who, what, when, where and why), in the midst of  your full manuscript.

The goal of these exercises and THIS post? For you to plan your re-write by seeing your work through a different lens–a highly focused, telephoto lens that sees only your reader’s experience of essential story elements. This is so key, my writing friends. Exactly what is someone who doesn’t live in your head experiencing as she reads your story? And how could you know this, if all you were to do was reading your story from beginning to end?

The answer? You COULDN’T.

You have to, once you’ve drafted your story (and we’ll talk drafting soon, in another How You Write blog series), dig into the details. Look carefully and thoughtfully at everything that your patience and trust in the Flag-Flip technique will allow. Work through your “work” during multiple rounds of deconstruction, focusing on different elements each pass, and pealing away the many layers of story–as you’ve created them, rather than as you thought you had or meant to do. Then allowing each to speak to you as they would to a reader, until you see how the story is actually unfolding.  THEN–and this is where we’ll end this post, and my re-writing series for now–you’re next step is to come up with a plan for tackling the changes that you’ve discovered need to be made.

But first, as promised, let’s zoom in on additional ways I teach (and coach) authors I work  with to isolate even more story elements than we did in previous How You Re-Write posts.

NOTE: as you practice and refine your Flag-Flip technique, you’ll begin to note common weaknesses or areas needing additional work post-drafting. This is GOOD. This is how you gain a deeper understanding of How You Write. Making note of your patterns is key not just for re-writing: you’ll have a better understanding of what you should pay closer attention to as you plan and draft , to avoid common pitfalls–freeing up re-writing time for discovering even more powerful insights into improving your reader experience.

Okay, some suggestions to consider while continuing to deconstruct your draft. Some of these seem deceptively simple, while others seem overly-complex. My suggestion is to find one thing to start you think you can tackle and run with it, master the technique, and then when you’re ready dive back in for more.

• Look at how often a character is in point of view. Any character (main or secondary), flag each time she/he is in POV and then simply analyze your usage of that POV as a story stream. Are there large stretches when we’re in the antagonist’s POV or a secondary characters’, without switching to another perspective of the progressing story? What does that tell you? Is there not enough variety. Do you need to work in more alternative looks at the action in your story. Should you show things more from the perspective outside your protagonist’s head? Is a secondary character taking over the overall arc? Are secondary characters really needed, or are they “one-offs?” And if the later is your discovery, can you us the character more organically, or should the POV be dropped all together? Does each point of view have a full story arc that shows growth and a clearly developed, active reason for being present.
• Look at how you open each POV scene. Is it always in dialogue? Always in narrative? Always in action? Always coming or going from somewhere? This may seem simple, but it’s the type of pattern we follow can get into in drafting and not even realize it. Mixing things up from a single character’s perspective at times can add a fresh look to a scene.
• Skim through a character’s POV scenes. Do you see a lot of dialogue with no external observations or internal thoughts? Too much internal dialogue and only sparse dialogue. This kind of review can give you an immediate feel for what might need work for a single character, no matter what you’re doing with the rest.
• Read each of the protagonist’s scenes in the first half of the draft. Can you clearly see his/her build up to and reaction to the inciting incident first turning point and midpoint of the story? Is he/she changing in each key place in the story, and is that clear in from his/her POV?
• Do the same type of deep analysis with key turning points themselves, regardless of whose in point of view. Just read them, regardless of what’s going on in these key flagged scenes. Can you read your turning point scenes alone, and nothing else, and be passionately anchored as a reader to the overall story from beginning to end? If you can’t, there’s a motivation, conflict, pacing, tension, and/or other story element issue.
• Go deeper with any character’s motivation by looking only at scenes they’re in (even if they’re not in POV). Are the reasons that character is doing what she/he is doing clear in each scene, evolving over the course of the story, and serving the plot in a ever-vital way? What about the conflict the character is dealing with. Are you giving the reader a “flat” story element experience, or are you utilizing the character creatively in the most dynamic way possible?
• Flag every time a setting appears in your story, and consider what the setting is and isn’t doing for your story and charaters.
• What about symbol, if you lean into that type of element?
• If you’re writing suspense, only look at the scenes that develop and escalate that element. Is each one building on the last? Are your characters driving the suspense plot, and the suspense equally driving the character arcs?
• If you write family drama, only look at what’s defining and evolving the family’s depiction and in the larger story.
• If you’re writing sci-fi/fantasy, look only at your world building elements. Nothing more. Are you crafting a solid external experience for your reader.
• Look at other elements listed in last week’s post, and see what you can find…

I could go on. And on. So could you. And you should. And, finally, here’s the “analysis” portion of our time together…

When looking at a draft and using a technique like my Flag-Flip process, you should consider, for whatever time you have before you MUST begin your rewrites, exhausting yourself with digging the most detail possible out of your draft.Why? NOT because you’re a masochist. BECAUSE you will be better able to analyze ALL that you’ve discovered and plan what to do next.

 

We all love something in our books and writing. We all gravitate toward wanting to do that something as often as we can. We like feeling good. We don’t like dwelling on the things about what we create (or how we create) that don’t feel good. It follows, then, that if/when we rewrite, our natural instinct will be to refine what we’re already doing well.

My advice to authors I coach and teach: focus on what you do the worst. Get better at doing that. THAT’s your greatest opportunity to improve not just one story, but How You Write as a whole.

Yes, this is still only summary material. All these posts are. I spend entire weekends (and months as a coach) working with authors or thse techniques. But I hope you can see how POSSIBLE it is for ANYONE to understand better ANYTHING she’s written. There are no excuses in my blog/workshops/private coaching relationships. I can’t teach you how to be creative or how to want to write for hours, days, weeks, months, years… But I can teach (and anyone can learn) how to work with the raw materials you create, so you have a better shot at seeing your story come to life and be embraced by those you’re writing for.

Work with as many story elements as you can individually, until you’ve overwhelmed yourself. Then take a break… Because now it’s time to plunge back in and clean things up.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Which story elements can be tackled together?
• What to rework, and what to outright remove?
• How many passes will you make at revising? PLEASE don’t attempt to work on everything at once, any more than you were able to “see” what needed to be done all in one pass.
• Will you work on higher-level issues first, or the smaller details that can be tackled, regardless of  what’s done with other elements?
• When will you take a break from rewriting to read the overall manuscript through again as a whole, to check your progress?
• Etc.

Yes, this is more generality. Because the complex work of analysis and re-writing you’ve embarked on is an individual process. A lot of it you MUST figure out for yourself, and you must continue to challenge yourself to struggle through, even when you start to feel hopeless about a project. Because this is how we learn. THIS is how we write.

Author coaches and mentors like myself can help you on your journey. We can developmentally work with you as you better understand your creative process and the end result of a round of drafting or rewriting. I actually do some of my most rewarding work with clients who come to me in the planning stages of a project, before drafting; or those who’ve recognized a draft requires a total rewrite and are willing to “plan” again, before they dive back into revisions. But each writer’s tolerance for very detail-oriented and time-consuming work of significantly improving a manuscript and a reader’s experience of a story is different.

And all I can tell you for certain, is that your ability to apply these principals that I’ve overviewed in our How You Rewrite series will only improve if you keep at it. Keep working. Keep trying. Keep challenging what you’ve done and how you’ve done it and what you’re going to do next.

I know I’ve just thrown a lot at you. And we’ve only scratched the surface of revising/rewriting.

Soon, I’ll be a How You Plan series that teaches as much as I can in blog posts my philosophy of the AMAZING work you can (and should) do for your story long before you write the first word. After that, and ONLY after that, we’ll do a How You Draft series as well. And sprinkled in between, there will be cool inspirational How You Write posts to keep you motivated along the way.

Because I hope to inspire you as much as I challenge you. Each time I hold a client’s feet to the fire, it’s always meant to be tough love. To show her or him a chance to get better. And then inspire her not to quit, no matter how difficult things can seem.

I hope the same for you, in this limited blog venue. So let me know in the comments how I’m doing. And keep coming back. And no matter what, keep working.

Because…that’s how you write!

 

Related Posts

How You Re-Write 1: Revise with the B-M-E Chart

How you Re-Write 2: Actually, it’s Beginning-END-Middle

How you Re-Write 3: Method over Madness