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Installment #4 – REVISION 12/7/2010 6:01:38 AM
A "How To" on children book writing (October 2010 entry)
Revision is everything
This is where rubber hits the pavement! This is when you say to yourself: My story is awesome. I’m a great author. My entire family loves my story.
While I can’t say otherwise about your family loving your story, it goes without saying they are not your most objective critiques. At this juncture in our twisted game of author vs. publisher, your aim is not to empress members of your family and your group of friends; you must empress those whom specialize in the field of publishing.
How do you empress? By making it good!
Here is a sorta-kinda check list for ya’ll!
1) Be objective: You need to be your own judge in regards to your writing.
2) Be honest with yourself: Be a friend to yourself and offer an honest critique about your work. If you feel your writing is not up to par, keep at it to develop your talent, and read more on the subject.
3) Pig-headedness: Read #2 again!
4) Get educated: Don’t be afraid of picking up a series of books on “How to Write” to better understand the intricacies of writing. In my previous installments, I’ve given a few good books to check out. Here they are again:
• Elements of Style by E.B. White and William Strunk Jr.
• On Writing by Stephen King.
• UsingEnglish.com
• Self-Editing For fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave Kink
• Stein On Writing by Sol Stein
5) Writing for all: While these references are not necessarily devoted to children’s book writing; whether you write for adults or children, they all have the same goal in mind: they both want characters they can trust and identify with; a story line that will grab their attention and never let go; an ending that will surprise yet satisfy them, and so on.
6) Check out what is already out there: If you intend to write for children (picture books, emergent readers, or easy readers), your best tool will be to check out books in those categories that have been published in the last two years or so. Open them up and analyse how they wrote, how many words they used, and the length of the sentences. Do they use dialogue or narrative? What is the ratio?
7) Revise: If I put down a one-hundred dollar bill and bet that serious writers always revise their work, I’m pretty sure I’d keep my money. If you took time to write a book, don’t you owe it to yourself to give it a serious review? I doubt very much you’d contradict me if I said agents and publishers alike won’t take you as a serious writer if you can’t be bothered to revise your work prior to sending it in. If nothing else, have to professional courtesy to revise your manuscript thoroughly and honestly, using the best of your abilities. If this is too much to ask, writing should not be in your future.
I am fully aware of the harshness of my last point but, understand that agents and publishers put a lot on the line when taking on an author, especially a new one. You owe them, and yourself, the courtesy of making your manuscript the best it can be.
Now let’s move on the proverbial task of: REVISING.
What follows are some of the most common pitfalls:
1) Adjective onslaught: (adjective: a word that adds information about a noun or pronoun) … but just how many do you need?
Here’s an example: The field is cold, dark and damp. Big, white and fearless owls roam the plains for small, furry and careless mice.
If you haven’t noticed, this sentence sucks (pardon my French)! It’s as if I took out my adjective machine gun and shot the heck out of a sentence.
The cure: Revise your sentences and identify all the adjectives. Once you’ve done so, delete a few and examine your sentences anew; is the idea of your phrase altered to the point it cannot be understood? Chances are it isn’t. Too many adjectives weigh down your story, makes it a pain to read and it just feels as if you added them in to bolster your word count. Let your reader add in his own images.
2) Repetitiveness: (the state of being repetitive)
Here’s an example: I was driving around. As I drove in the city, other drivers were driving to their destinations, but I just drove on, aimlessly.
Did you spot it? Believe it or not, these repetitive words (or echoes) are common and hard to identify. As you get used to reading your own manuscript, these echoes go unnoticed, yet there they are.
The cure: See yourself in front of a crowd, reading your manuscript … aloud! This simple exercise is the best and cheapest ways of rooting out those pesky echoes. Understand that repetitive words are to be identified throughout your manuscript; echoes can be found between sentences, paragraphs and pages.
3) Serial babble: words which come back over and over and over and over … again!
The most common are: AS, WHEN and verbs that end with –ING. A few of these sprinkled here and there might work, but a downpour will kill your story … and annoy your reader.
Here’s an example: As I was driving, I swore seeing ghosts. The rain was pouring with force, forcing me to stop. I was scared. Night was coming.
In these simple two lines, you will have counted five “-ing”s. Not for good reading to say the least.
The cure: As it is the cure for repetitiveness, read your work aloud. Notice the number of times these serial babbles are written. Learn to modify your sentence patterns; vary with synonyms, use shorter structures.
4) Kill joys: these words quite literally kill the joy of reading.
A less than complete list if these words – yet the ones which come back all too often, are: JUST, EVEN, THAT, with the addition of too many adverbs and adjectives. Take this cool tool out for a spin: hit Ctrl+F. in the dialogue box, type in the word “that” … do you see in yellow?
Example: Even if that cold, crisp, night was clear of thick fog and howling winds, just the sleek, icy roads were enough to make me cringe.
The cure: For your texts to be tighter, consider cutting out the fat; get rid of those kill joys which have little to no value in your sentences.
5) Acu-punctuation – hitting the nerve: Wrong use of punctuation can hurt your new writing career. Brush up on punctuation rules and avoid those nasty faux pas.
Punctuation marks most writers have a hard time dealing with are: dashes (em dash – not to be confused with en dash), ellipses marks, semicolons, colons and the dreaded commas.
6) Paragraphing 101: Bad paragraphing is when paragraphs, deuh, are anywhere and everywhere.
There are two important things to look for when paragraphing your story:
a. When you switch speaker and/or topic of discussion, a new paragraph is a must.
b. Size matters: make your paragraphs tight and to the point. A page long paragraph will throw a red flag.
7) Topsy-turvy: The dreaded writing faux pas (i.e. misplaced tags) that is to reverse the action and the dialogue.
Example: “Wow, this baby can move.” My friend put the pedal to the metal.
The cure: Read your passage aloud. Does it make sense? Would it seem more logical to reverse the order? Let me answer this one for you: YES!
8) Tagging tax: This is typically seen when tags are in every single line of dialogue – and are more often than not, useless. They become a distraction and take the reader away from the story, making it hard to keep his attention on the message.
Example:
I opened the door. “So what did Paul say?”
She picked the mail. “He mentioned something about being over taxed.”
I threw my coat on the chair. “Who isn’t?”
She walked to the kitchen. “Will you take the dog out? I’m too tired.”
The cure: If your tag doesn’t relate to the actual dialogue, loose it! Try to space them out, and don’t let them become a source of distraction.
9) Action, no reaction: Typically, this is when the writer describes every freaking movement of his characters.
Example: Caught in a freak sandstorm, he turns around and squats down. With watery eyes he blinks incessantly because of the swirling sand. He huddles with the camels, trembling.
The cure: Don’t focus so much on bodily functions and motions. There is no need to describe each and every movement; let your reader create his own image of what is taking place. Could you change actions for thoughts? Maybe instead of “trembling” (in my example above), one could write: I’m scared.
10) Out of synch actions: Here again be watchful for the –ing, as, and when factor. What is meant by “out of synch actions” is concurrent actions without logic between the two.
Example:
Opening my briefcase, I took out the newspaper.
As I rushed to the bathroom, I entered the stall.
The cure: Keep a close tab on what you are trying to communicate to your reader. Rewrite if need be, lose the itch to add those pesky “serial babbles”. Rework your lines by compounding your sentences into one. Verify the tense of your verbs in order for your actions to make sense in time.
Revised, the examples would be:
I opened my briefcase and took out my newspaper.
I rushed to the bathroom. I entered the stall.
11) The essentials: Make every effort to avoid any misspellings or grammatical errors. You’re only human and mistakes happen, but work really hard so nothing so trivial takes the spot light. Nothing can damage your chances more than blatant mistakes in page one of your manuscript. Have professional editors look at it, and don’t blindly trust WORD to identify and correct your slip-ups.
If your intention is to write picture books (PB), what follows should be very interesting to you.
Main items to look out for when revising:
1) Music to my ears: When reading a picture book, it should have a flow to it. A good PB should sound like music; it should have rhythm. Keep in mind to keep your story well balanced throughout.
Though you only have 500 words or so, you still need an introduction, the build-up, and a conclusion. A good rule of thumb is this: your introduction should occupy about 1/5th of your story, likewise for your conclusion. The body should have the remaining 3/5ths. Don’t go all crazy and dust off the old algebra calculator, just go with what feels right. If your story is well built, you should fall within those fractions. Again, the ideal way to verify this is to have another pair of professional eyes take a gander at your manuscript.
Equally important, make sure to keep the same rhythm going from your intro through your conclusion, otherwise your PB will not have fluidity and will read as if in the box of a pick-up truck rolling on Montreal streets.
2) Snip! Snip! Snip! : Your picture book is short; only five hundred words. Useless babble in your texts should be cut out of the story, especially if they have little to no importance in telling it.
Analyze your sentences. Can you identify words like “that” strewed all over? Are you giving too many descriptions, such as: The little, yellow, fluffy bird flew higher and higher, up into the blue, clear, summer lit sky. Do you give needless facial features? Can you get to the point or will you take your readers on the long path no boredom? Is your dialogue essential to the story?
3) Dialogue: While some PB authors might disagree with me, I love dialogue. Keep in mind however, it must have a purpose and not be added in just for the sake of it. Dialogue is alive, fun, fast paced, and creates an interaction between not only the characters, but between your story and the reader.
Many authors and critiques will offer the following opinion: Shut your characters up! Use narration more than dialogue! If your text is more than 1/3rd dialogue, you have a problem on your hands! Hogwash!! This doesn’t mean you should have 100% dialogue, or even 50%. What you want is balance. What you want are for your characters to be believable and lovable; when opening their mouths, they have something pertinent to say to sustain your storyline. To have your main character say: “Hello” in every sentence is totally useless, get the gist?
A perfect example of a PB using dialogue at 100% is: It’s a Book, written and illustrated by Lane Smith. Zero narration, zip, zilch, zippo! Booya dialogue naysayers! Notice however, the author uses very pertinent words to create the conversation between the characters.
Another important item to keep in mind if you decide to take the dialogue road; an illustrator cannot illustrate conversations. The illustrator will draw in accordance to the action ergo, your narration will be the conductor; your conversations will be along for the ride, which doesn’t mean they are trivial to giving quality to your story. If you opt for 100% dialogue, you better be damn good at it!
4) Write with the illustrator in mind: As I said above, it’s difficult to illustrate a conversation; the same can be said about diluted texts.
If you take 200 words to explain how little Bobby fell down the barn roof, either you’re challenged at being succinct when telling your story or, you really want to see the illustrator sweat it out! He needs guidance; he needs to clearly and quickly get the point in order to get the creative juices going.
5) The “I told you so!” factor: When it comes to parental figures in your story, do be careful not to have them solve a situation for the MC (main character). Don’t be afraid to give your MC power; make them strong, funny, and curious. Make them smart and inquisitive. Give them a voice. And please abstain from moral lessons; kids get it at home so don’t write it up in your book.
6) The “I knew it!” factor: The last thing the reader wants is to guess the punch line of your story after just page one of your book. Keep your readers on their toes by coming up with various conclusions and then use the less obvious one.
7) The “I get it!” factor: Many will say “A good PB is one with kid appeal.” While this is true, you shouldn’t forget the parent appeal as well. Picture books should not only have kid/parent appeal, they should have value. Is your story really funny? What is the message? Are you touching issues such as: infirmities, illnesses; social issues like: divorce, death, etc. Is your main character in a situation kids can understand and relate to? Can the parent/child roles be reversed? Push the boundaries, think outside the box.
8) Time to recycle: Like I’ve said before, a PB needs to be tight, to the point and on cue. While all the elements for your story might be great, you could be jeopardizing the end result because you are poorly cementing them together. This is not about grammar and proper sentences; this is about how, when, and where you use your elements.
An item you use at the beginning of your story could come back at the end, or could be the leitmotiv throughout. A book I read (I will not mention the title nor the author), was about a girl in a wheelchair. The entire story revolves around this girl wanting a faster and more powerful wheelchair. She finally ends up with a dragster-like chair. In one of my books, I take a situation from the beginning and bring it full circle to include it in my ending. Take the main idea of your story and reuse it, this will give tightness to your story and will offer a clever conclusion.
In two weeks from today (November 10, 2010), I will dive into the nitty-gritty world of agents and self-publishing.
Until then, thank you for reading me … happy writing!
