A Left-Brained Approach to Revision
By Jael McHenry | March 31, 2010 |
Today’s post comes from WU friend and author Jael McHenry. Jael’s debut novel, The Kitchen Daughter, will be released by Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books in the Spring of 2011 (and you can’t wait, trust me; it’s a delicious read). Jael is, in her own words, an enthusiastic amateur cook, blogging about food and writing at the Simmer blog. She’s also the Editor-in-Chief of Intrepid Media.
And this post is fantastic. Take it away, Jael!
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Since I’m turning in the revised manuscript of The Kitchen Daughter to my editor this week, I have revision on the brain. More precisely, on both brains: the left and the right.
You’ve heard of the idea that the right brain is creative, and the left brain is more logical, right? And it seems natural that writers would be heavily right-brained. But for me, the key to unlocking my right-brain creativity is getting all my left-brain infrastructure in order.
If I don’t know where I am in the process, I get overwhelmed instead of inspired. During a first draft I can measure my progress by word count, but in the many, many revisions that come after that, I need another way to keep track. Whether revisions are big or small, practical or inventive, from others (agents, editors, critique partners) or yourself, they can be attacked with left-brain logic. Here’s how I do it:
1. For big jobs, go to hard copy. I get my manuscript printed out and spiral-bound to make it easier to work with. I might use different colors of pen to indicate different things – my editor’s notes in blue, red for the first pass through, green for the next – or just scribble with whatever I’ve got on hand. The particulars aren’t important. What I like is the ability to look at the manuscript and see what I’ve marked up. It may not tell me how far I am from being done, but it tells me I’m making progress. And with hard copy, whatever text you add or subtract, the page numbers don’t change – which is a big plus for me when I’m responding to someone else’s comments that reference page numbers.
2. In soft copy, use a unique, searchable marker. I’ve tried highlighting and typed-in changes, as well as tracked changes in Word, and none of them works as well for me as two little characters: @@. It’s a marker, and not something that would ever occur in the manuscript naturally. @@ means I’m not done yet. @@ is a neon sign that says “DO MORE WORK HERE”. And when I search for @@ and Word tells me “the search item was not found”, that’s a great feeling.
3. Classify, count, and complete. If I have big things and small things to do, the easy thing to do is cross off all the small things first, but that’s not necessarily the right way to go. You might waste time perfecting a sentence in a scene you end up needing to delete. In the hard copy phase, I use different color Post-It notes or tape flags to indicate different things: blue for a page that needs a scene added or subtracted, green for anywhere a minor change is needed, yellow for something requiring research. Then I put all these on a central list and just start checking them off, one by one. (It helps if I include a little bit of information and a page number on the list – “add cake scene, p183” so I can pick something from the list that appeals to me at that moment.)
Of course, one brain is just one brain, whether it’s the left or the right side being used. These strategies work very well for me, and make my revisions more efficient. I look forward to crossing things off the list, instead of dreading sitting down at the keyboard. But I know writers who absolutely hate to work in longhand, or those who use Word’s tracked changes for every single change they make right up until the last moment when they click “Accept All Changes”. However you work best is how you work best.
(And when I described my revision process to my mom, one of my most valued readers, she reminded me that as a child I color-coded my Christmas list. So: the more things change….)
What process do you use to edit your work?
Follow Jael on Twitter @jaelmchenry.
Photo courtesy Flickr’s LindaH
Jael McHenry is the debut author of The Kitchen Daughter (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books, April 12, 2011). Her work has appeared in publications such as the North American Review, Indiana Review, and the Graduate Review at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. You can read more about Jael and her book at jaelmchenry.com or follow her on Twitter at @jaelmchenry.
Wow! THANKS! I am totally a color-coded post-it kind of girl and use them in so many other areas of my life. Why I never applied it to revisions is beyond me!
I just took a class where I learned about color-coding my edits – and I’ll be honest – it made me dizzy. But I when I read your post I realized that might have been because it wasn’t “my” system. I spent so much time trying to remember what color meant what. In my own hard-copy edits I use a purple or pink pen, and I use circles and I code things with letters. I never put them together as being the same thing – or the same way of doing things.
Thanks for showing me the light!!! I think I understand myself better now. That has to be a good thing.
.-= amy sue nathan´s last blog ..Pride without Prejudice =-.
I’m with Amy. I’ve been around this block before, but you’ve given me a new way to look at the process.
.-= Tina F´s last blog ..Spring Updates =-.
Excellent advice! I’ll keep an eye out for your book, Jael. Anything that mentions food is at the top of my list. That cupcake looks awesome; please excuse the drool. ;)
.-= Lydia Sharp´s last blog ..A Random Reflection on Life in the Space Age =-.
AWESOME advice! I love the idea of putting all the fixes on a list to be checked off as I go…great way to show progress! Thanks!
.-= Meika´s last blog ..Diving In =-.
I lost my left brain in a hunting accident – well, not ‘lost-lost’ like I misplaced it or anything. It shot out the back of my head when a bullet entered the front.
But yeah, I like the @@ signs. I’ll use that from now on. Thanks!
.-= Summer Camp Slasher´s last blog ..Experimental Rose Prose Thunder =-.
I have a similar process when I am writing my first draft. I make notes while I am writing <> so I can easily do a search for those characters. This is most helpful because my inner critic nags at me constantly – telling me that sentence is in passive voice or is vague or whatever — I can just put in a note that says <> with perhaps a quick note about what I don’t like and keep moving before I lose track of where I was going in the scene.
I’m very fond of color coding with tons of post it notes too.
.-= TL Sumner´s last blog ..Book Review – The Secret Year =-.
I guess I’m left-brained. I use ^^ instead of @@. I also use hard copy for a full read-through. I change the font, print it in columns so it not only saves paper, but it looks different. Lines don’t break in the same place, and all sorts of glitches pop off the page.
I’ve also used a story tracking board while I write, which is yet another set of visual cues that help me make sure I don’t forget major plot threads, clues, settings, secondary characters, etc.
The Document Map feature in Word helps too.
I actually COMPLETELY agree with you (just said something to this effect on a blog earlier–first and last drafts need to be hard copies because FOR ME, the first draft will require creative steps for the big changes (which I need to do by hand for some reason) and because on a hardcopy, the big picture is all sitting there together. Then my final polish needs to be hard copy because my brain/computer circuit is too efficient at filling in what I MEAN TO see, instead of what is there–I misread, and so miss mistakes.
THANK YOU for the search suggestion for middle editing rounds! I can see that will be extremely helpful!
Love this post. I work on hard copy, too, even though I have tried to change it. Also have to read a lot aloud.
Never tried color coding the TYPE of changes with flags on the mss. So smart! As I am about to dive into the last pass revision before sending new book to ed and agent, this is something I can use now.
.-= Barbara Samuel O’Neal´s last blog ..Award news for THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS =-.
I love this list. I also use your @@ marker trick in my first draft – except I use XXX. It helps keep me moving along in the draft instead of getting hung up on a clunky sentence, a thin scene, or an awkward word choice.
.-= Rebecca @ Diary of a Virgin Novelist´s last blog ..Writing is sort of boring =-.
Great ideas. LOVE the @@ one especially. On a side note, when I think of how many hard copies I made of my first novel I want to cry. But there really is nothing like the hard copy–you have to have an old fashioned pen in your hand sometimes.
So great to hear from all of you! And funny to see how common the @@ trick is, but with XXX, or , or other markers. There are more of us out there than I thought!
Barbara, the “read-aloud” is an amazingly powerful tool. In critique groups I often tell people that if they can’t get through a sentence without taking a breath, that sentence is too long. And you can HEAR a lot of issues you don’t necessarily SEE.
Terry, love the columns suggestion as a way to see things anew. Will definitely try that on my next MS… which I’ll be starting almost immediately after I turn this one in, since I know things will get hectic later.
Thanks again to all of you for weighing in!
.-= Jael´s last blog ..The Kitchen Daughter =-.
Thanks for the insights. I’ll be hammering on my second draft soon and having some semblance of a game plan will be helpful. I like the idea of picking whichever item from the list that sounds good to me at the time instead of doing the whole thing from beginning to end every time.
.-= Jonathan´s last blog ..Writing Dialogue That Does Heavy Lifting =-.
Thanks for the tips Joel. I gotta say I’m not a hard copy kind of guy. My voice might be a stab in the water, but can I suggest dual display monitor for Heavy duty? It’s very easy to wire up, supported by windows and it helps you to see the result in your main text right away. It’s brilliant. I don’t have it at home, but I have it at work where I write a lot (my job is to answer the phone for urgencies so there is a lot of time for fiction)
.-= Benoit Lelievre´s last blog ..Memo: Beware of the Hutaree! =-.
Love seeing everyone’s “tricks.” Had never thought of the @@, >> or something else along those lines that’s searchable. Simple, but ingenious. Guess I’m going to have to devise my own clever color-coding system. I was still putting colored sticky notes, which BTW, clearly says I’m a hard-copy kind of girl, once the real editing begins. Not really a trick, but putting the printed pages in a binder in something similar to a book form, somehow makes it easier for me to read it as a whole, rather than just a stack of pages.
.-= Densie Webb´s last blog ..To Prologue or Not to Prologue =-.
I thought you were going to tell us to read our manuscripts upside down, since that’s an exercise I remember from ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’.
I use TKTK to mark areas to work on and keep a list of edits to make. I cross out items instead of deleting them so I know if I acted or just thought about making a change.
Whenever I make a big change, I change my file name. So I’m in version 4f of my novel- 4th time I’ve made it back to the beginning, 6th time since then that I’ve made a substantial change that I was uncertain about. The funny thing is I’ve always kept the changes, I just have to save the old version so I can have the courage to play.
.-= Kelly Bryson´s last blog ..Are We There Yet? =-.
Another technique is Word’s bookmarks and comments. I’ve chapters on this in my, ahem, book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells, but the substance is also up on my blog in older posts. The links are: bookmarks: https://www.floggingthequill.com/flogging_the_quill/2004/week46/index.html and comments: https://www.floggingthequill.com/flogging_the_quill/2004/12/computer_tip_us.html”>here
The reading aloud trick is more to do with forcing you to actually process what you’re reading. Because after you’ve read through something a few times, your brain stops actively processing the material, and you rely on your memory of it. Reading aloud is a different neurological process than reading silently, and can expose all those bits your brain was glossing over in an attempt to be efficient and conserve energy.
Anything that forces you to actively process what you’re reading is useful while revising–different formats, different fonts, etc.
I also do the hard copy thing for serious revising, as well as changing various contextual details to cue my brain to seriously pay attention–e.g., take the print-out to a different place than I usually write/work, read scenes out of order, etc.
.-= Leah Raeder´s last blog ..Perfectionism vs. the writer. =-.
Wow. A treasure trove of great ideas from Jael and everyone. Revision is ninety-five percent of anything I write, so I have to wonder how I never thought of the color-coding idea (which I love!) or even the @@. I do read everything outloud which is amazingly effective for catching awkward words and phrases. I just know there are no short-cuts with editing. Without a dozen passes my writing would quite simply never come to life.
http://www.barbaraforteabate.com
Looking forward to your book, Jael. Sounds intriguing :-)
Great suggestions, here. I’ve done the XXX trick as a placeholder, but never the @@ trick where I require more than just a name. Brilliant.
Another trick some friends of mind employ is to export their manuscript to their Kindle. Apparently there’s something different about seeing it on a small screen that makes them see their text with fresh eyes. I’m a hard copy girl myself, but I can see it might make a good intermediate step.
.-= hope101´s last blog ..Bittersweet Announcement =-.
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Wow, I use almost exactly the same process! Searchable marker when still working on computer, then when I’m ready for hard copy, I get it bound at Staples, and then colour-coding galore! Different colour ink for different passes, and colour-coded small post-its to mark different type of things that still need doing. It definitely helps me if I’m organized this way!