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What’s your favorite “macro” editing technique?
There are probably as many ways to edit a story as there are to write one. Today, I’m thinking about “macro” edits—looking at structure and scene placement, rather than the individual words and style.
One of my favorites has been the scene chart, inspired by a post on Edittorrent. The original post suggested creating index cards for each scene, listing a 
number of important features—everything from where and when the scene is set, to first and last lines, to “promises” made to the reader, to important details like descriptions. Then you could move the index cards around to resequence events or scenes, or play with the story without hurting your MS.
Like many of the commentators on the post, however, I used a spreadsheet to do this in a very small space. I also combined this with probably the most important thing I learned from Jack Bickham’s Scene & Structure—the structure of a scene and the importance of a scene goal—for the character, not just me as a writer.
When I used these techniques together, I found that the scenes that lacked a goal for the character (or a unique goal, as opposed to one that the character’s had four times now) were often the unfocused scenes I needed the most work on—or to cut altogether. I could also bring out hidden scene goals, find new ones to add layers to a scene and strengthen the scenes by enhancing the goals, conflict and disasters.
So here’s an example of the kind of scene chart I used, partially filled in for an imaginary story (anybody recognize the plot? Hint: it’s from an old card game). I didn’t use all of these columns myself (and if any of them aren’t clear, feel free to ask what I mean).
That’s just one thing I’ve tried, and I liked it so well, I’ll definitely use it in the future.
What do you think? Do you use a form of scene charts? What’s your favorite “macro” editing technique?
Photo credit: Aaron Brown
Posted in Mechanics, Technique
Tagged editing, editing techniques, jack bickham, revision, scene and structure, scene charts, scene goal, scene goals
7 Comments
How do you write?
I have to admit it: I’m one of those writers who doesn’t really do much of anything until I absolutely fall in love with an idea—anything from a character to a scene to a setting. My ideas come from dreams, friends, books, movies, TV, etc. But until an idea really grabs me, I can’t sustain my interest enough to spend three or four months on drafting.
But man, when that idea strikes, it’s hard to make myself do the normal day-to-day, keeping-the-house-clean, being-a-mom stuff. All I want to do is write, and yet no matter how fast I write (my record is 5000 words in a day), it’s not fast enough. The rest of the book stretches out in front of me, scenes and lines and snippets that threaten to slip away before I can get there. So I race on.
An idea struck three weeks ago. So far, I’ve gotten down almost 23,000 words. (Woot! Check out my progress bar in the sidebar.) I’m excited to be drafting again (first time since April), and if I finish the draft by October 21, I’ll have drafted three books in a year. That’s pretty cool.
It’s interesting how different each book is, you know? Not just plot-wise or character-wise (although these three books have the same hero/heroine), but process-wise.
This time around, I’ve accepted that what I like to get in there are people, action, dialogue and plot twists. Cool. On my last MS, I tried to get everything in there on the first draft—sensory details, settings, character descriptions, etc. etc. This time, I’m embracing my favorite parts—I mean, I’ll put in the other stuff as needed, but if a scene is all dialogue/action, and it takes place in a vacuum, I’m not going to cry about it in this draft.
For me, that’s stuff I can add later, in each layer of editing. In fact, I’m taking this week off drafting to go back to the first MS I wrote during this year to add in more of those descriptions and sensory information, since the second half of the book is rather bereft of those (silly me, thinking all the character and setting descriptions were established in the first half, and we wouldn’t need anymore after that!).
How about you? What inspires you? Do you try to get everything in one draft—and if not, what do you leave out to add in later?
This week is probably going to be a bit of a catch-all week as I try to get things done between editing bouts and housecleaning—and, of course, working on the PDF from our website series. But next week, we’ll start another new and awesome series. I think 
.
Photo credits: matches—Kicki; inspire—Mark Brannan
Posted in Technique, Works
Tagged drafting, edit, editing, first draft, productivity, revision, revisions, self-editing, works in progress, writing process
11 Comments
