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Anybody Can Write a Novel

Chapter 8 “Editing” – Section 2 “Editing the Second Draft”

With Links to Supplementary Material

Several months ago, I wrote an article about Editing and Rewriting your Story's First Draft, and today I am writing an article for editing the subsequent draft. You may be spitting your coffee and jack at the computer screen, and telling me that I am not done with story genres, yet! Very true... and I'm sorry for the mess and for wasting your coffee. While I am not finished with my section on story genres, I feel like today's article needs to be directed towards editing the second draft and writing a third draft of your story. The reason? I just got back a heavily marked draft of one of my stories, and feel that I need to write down what I've learned from my mistakes before I learn the skills that I need to grow in my craft and forget that I made them. Following this article, we'll get back to genres and doing things in order.

Tip 1: Careful of anthropomorphizing inanimate objects

This might be my most common mistake in writing—and that is giving inanimate objects human qualities such as in the sentence: “his hand reach for a cup.” Writers use such sentences in order to vary their writing style and to create a literary voice with which to tell a story. The problem is that it is factually incorrect to give human attributes, like will and autonomous action, to an object. A person reaches for a cup, using his/her hand. Likewise, faces don't look mean, storms are not angry, and swords are not cruel.

Tip 2: Firmly establish who your characters are in the pre-story world (Prologue), before pushing them to their limits and changing them.

Revealing the depths of a character and getting to know them cannot be a dynamic experience unless we have a starting point on the surface of their character. Just like your plot and your world, your characters should be revealed with subtlety, starting from the surface and digging deeper as the story progresses—making getting to know a character very much a journey in and of itself. You will also create an increased realism, as real people (just like ogres) have layers.

Tip 3: Make sure that your audience can relate to and like the first Point-of-View (POV) character you introduce them to.

Though not every POV character in a story has to be a likable and immediately relatable, the first one you introduce should be. Why? Because even if a reader likes the premise of a story, they will put the book down very quickly if they decide that they do not like the POV character that they perceive to be the “main character,” and will likely not continue reading for long enough to figure out who the protagonist or primary POV character is.

Tip 4: Adjust the focus of your story's “lens” by the largest object that your Narrator describes.

If you describe a bee flying over a flower—you are adjusting the mental picture that your audience creates in their minds to be just a little bigger than a flower (the largest object you described in that sentence). This means that they will not be envisioning the field that the flower is in, nor the mites that are too small to be seen when envisioning a flower and a bee—unless you narrow or broaden the focus by describing something bigger or smaller. Keep this in mind when you are trying to envision the scope of what the reader is picturing in their imagination.

Tip 5: Make sure that your audience can see and sense everything that your Point-of-View (POV) character can.

I've talked about this before, but make sure that you do not purposefully hide information that your POV character knows, unless you want your reader to feel tricked and like you are an unreliable narrator. If you want your audience to be surprised, make sure the POV character is surprised. If the POV character sees something important, make sure that your audience sees the same, without any important details omitted.

Tip 6: Make sure that descriptions are parallel with what your POV character would really think and know.

One of the reasons that having a good POV character is so important, is that when you tell the story from their perspective, you must limit your descriptions to details that they would actually notice, in terms that they would actually use. If you are telling a story from the perspective of a mechanic, for example, you might describe details in terms of their parts—and would need to have a working understanding of machines. However, your mechanic protagonist would not necessarily need to notice or be able to identify specific flora or fauna, and so neither would you as the writer, nor your narrator.

Tip 7: Take your time when painting a scene.

While you don't want to spend pages on exposition or descriptions of a space-ship, you shouldn't rush your descriptions, either. When you encounter and must paint a verbal image of a person, scene, action, or object, take the time to fully engage as many senses as are relevant, as well as to reflect on how your POV character may react to them. There is no hard limit on how much or how little is recommended—it merely depends on the scene you are showing. The best way to figure out the balance is to bring this question to your Writing Partner or test-reader, and have them tell you when you have described too much or too little, until you get a feel for it.

Tip 8: Paint pictures that indicate more than what they specifically describe.

When you describe a scene, make it more lively, dynamic, and interesting by giving the details obvious and specific significance. Instead of the POV character describing an old man he used to know, who was purposefully blinded during a war, simply show us the man in a faded military uniform who has scars that look like melted skin on his eyelids, that prevent him from opening his eyes. Then, trust that your reader will figure it out; the human brain is quite amazing at attributing significance to what they see.

Tip 9: Beware passive voice.

I am writing in the passive voice, hoping that you will notice how much it is slowing the pace as you are reading it. I wrote in the passive voice and hoped that you would notice how much it slowed the pace, as you read.

Tip 10: Make sure that your Narrator's voice remains constant.

The person, who read and critiqued my latest draft, found incidents of vampire-like dialogue, pirate dialogue, and Shakespeare dialogue, all within the first two chapters, and all from the Narrator. Make sure that your narrative voice remains constant.

Tip 11: Avoid labels, and use names as often as possible.

As much as possible, just use a character's name instead of titles like: “the man, the girl, the pirate, the vampire, the giant.” This will pick up the pace of your story, avoid a lot of confusion, and make your characters seem more like real people than stock characters in a story.

Tip 12: Look for all obvious villain mistakes and delete them.

Every time you make your villain have a slip of the tongue, give a villain's speech to the hero, slip on a banana, or make any stupid mistake, you are giving your protagonist a handicap—in essence, giving your hero training wheels because they couldn't ride the bike otherwise. Doing this will make it hard for your audience to respect your hero, and will come off as lazy writing.

Tip 13: Avoid “group-thought,” especially when you have many sub-protagonists.

Unless you are writing from the perspective of some strange alien species, avoid group thought. Don't say, “a room full of scared people,” or “a house full of happy children,” unless you are writing from the perspective of an omniscient narrator or a psychic POV character. Your POV character does not likely read minds, it is not accurate to convey joined emotions for an entire group of diverse people, and it is not good writing to tell emotions instead of showing them. Instead, note the specific characteristics of specific individuals. Tell us who has lines under their eyes, who has sweaty armpits, etc...

Tip 14: Be careful about using curse words.

I used curse words in my last draft for the same reason that many writers would—to accurately convey the dialogue that a specific people group would realistically use (in my case, teenagers in highschool). The problem is that because of our culture of taboos, we notice taboo language a lot more in writing than we would audibly. It would be as if a person put an unnatural amount of emphasis on that particular word, every time he/she cussed. I'm not advising that you not use taboo language, only that you be aware of how unnaturally it might read—contrary to your original intentions.

Tip 15: Remove unnecessary modifiers.

Removing the [super] - [useless] word modifiers is [very very very] essential to [completely] cleaning sentences and [greatly] picking up the pace of your [awesome] story, as well as for making your writing [more] professional. Removing the word modifiers is essential to cleaning sentences and picking up the pace of your story, as well as for making your writing professional. Your sentence will lose no meaning without them—and will likely even be strengthened.

I hope you can benefit from hearing my personal errors in writing, or at least get a good laugh at all of the silly errors that even I did not immediately recognize in my work. We all start at a point where we know very little, when learning the craft at writing. And we grow by making mistakes, Welcoming Criticism, and painstakingly fixing all the embarrassing details that we thought we knew.

Feel free to comment with other suggested resources. Any questions about writing? Things you want me to discuss? Comment or send me a message and I will be glad to reply or feature my response in a later article. If you enjoy my reviews, please feel free to share my articles with friends, add it to your favorites, become a watcher on my page, or send send a llama my way!

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