Too many writers are making a big mistake. Theyâre not giving their manuscript the rehabilitation it needs, even though itâs suffering from the literary equivalent of bursitis, sciatica, an ACL tear, and plantar fasciitis.
Ouch!
Some writers believe their manuscript is much stronger than it really is because let’s face it, no one teaches you how to write a book in high school. Others arenât sure what to do next, so they tinker without a strategy. Eventually, they might send the book to a freelance editor, and only then do they realize that one round of editing wonât be enough by a longshot.
Just like a single physical therapy visit wonât suffice for a person coping with bursitis, sciatica, an ACL tear, or plantar fasciitisâlet alone ALL of those ailments at the same time.
Unfortunately, if youâre like most writers, your manuscript is a minefield of injuries and weak spots. It needs a comprehensive rehab plan and lots of TLC.
Free Book Editing Masterclass
If you are someone with a desire to help your book reach its full potential and give your story the chance it deserves, then I want to invite you to watch an on-demand recording of my FREE training: How to Create Your Editing Game Plan and Fast-Track Your Book: 3 Costly Mistakes to Avoid.
After this class, you will be able to identify the:
4 stages of editing
Types of editors and what they do
Average costs of publishing a book
You’ll also walk away knowing:
Why hiring an editor too early can be a costly mistake
The differences between high-level and low-level edits so that you can aim high
The basics of the self-editing framework I’ve taught to hundreds of authors
Intrigued? Sign up for this free book editing masterclass right here.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
It’s always fascinating to see what goes into the rewrite process. I’m delighted to welcome Amber Lambda, who shares five changes she made to her YA fantasy novel, Halos. Below, Amber, describes the fiction editing techniques she used when revising her book.
***
Rewriting and revising a novel takes a lot of patience and willpowerâespecially to change and cut away from your beloved, original ideas! But once you get past that bittersweet feeling, itâs so worth it to see your story grow into something you love even better. Here are five of the biggest changes I made to Halos and canât imagine it without those changes now!
First Chapter Rewrites
As Iâm sure most authors would agree, one of the hardest parts of writing a book is getting the first chapter to work right. I started with the list of things that a first chapter needed and checked it all off. I included the storyâs theme about chasing dreams, my main character, her goals, conflict with her best friend that helped set up the stakes, and a strong hook at the end to pique the readerâs interest and start the story… but something just wasnât clicking. After several readers, and just as many rewrites, I realized I had the answer all along. The elements were all thereâbut they indeed werenât clicking. Instead of being parts of a complete story coming together, they seemed unrelated. With that magical realization, I rewrote it once more, pulling everything together to fit the overall story and genre, and it did the trick. My beta readers loved it, and so did I!
Added POV
When drafting Halos the first time, I wrote from the limited POV of my protagonist, Faye. During my read-through to start revisions, however, part of the story appeared to be missing. I could fill in the details as the author, but it hadnât made it to the page for readers to experience. This inspired me to include the love interestâs POV on the next draft. Adding Icarusâs side of the story not only gave insight into the world and plot where Fayeâs POV didnât cover, but it made Icarusâs character arc much richer, paralleling Fayeâs arc in a way that wasnât shown before.
Expanding A Characterâs Role
Another element that I changed to make more sense for the reader was bringing Fayeâs friend Andrew back into the story at an earlier stage than intended. After relating to Fayeâs main internal conflict in the first chapter, he didnât come up again in person until closer to the end of the story. At first, I brought him back earlier because he reappeared without enough foreshadowing. But his presence also acted as a catalyst for tension throughout the middle of the story, making for a better plot and character motivations.
Removing Characters Who Didnât Serve The Story
On an opposite note, I cut two characters out from the original story. They added drama and complexityâbut that isnât always whatâs best. I found it difficult to layer them into the plot naturally, and they took away from the themes and effect I was aiming for. It was a tough choice, but once I took them out, the message of the story became much clearer and gave more room to emphasize the pieces that highlighted it instead.
Added Connecting Scenes
Have you ever read a book where it almost seemed like you missed something, so you went back to look, and you hadnât? My early drafts had a few places like that, where readers needed a little more shown about what happened between scenes. In some areas, it worked better to summarize instead of adding an entire scene that would feel like filler. But in most places, I fleshed out new scenes to show what happened, while simultaneously showing character interaction and growth, especially for side characters.
In the end, between the added POV, deeper themes, and the extra connecting scenes, my 36-chapter outline turned into a 43-chapter novel, at just the recommended word count for my genre. And my story transformed into a creation I loved more than ever!
More About Halos
Daydreamer Faye Wallace believes her recurring dreams of flying ships have a purpose beyond fantasy. And when Icarusâher swoon-worthy dream boyâknocks on the door, reality is swept away with her heart. Charged with saving the sky world of Halos from a destiny of prophesied doom, Faye embarks on a journey to relive her whimsical visions. Except for one problem: nothing about Halos matches what she remembers. Including Icarus.
Faye must sift truth from imagination and become the girl who saves her dreamsâbefore they create a nightmare she canât return from.
Amber Lambda is a YA romance, fantasy, and soft sci-fi author from the dreamy Midwest plains. Her mission is to write stories clean enough for the younger range of the YA crowd, but laced with themes and ideas that older teens (and adults!) will relate to and love just the same.
Are you an author interested in writing a Behind the Rewrite guest blog post? Get the guidelines here.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers Freebies including a 5-day line editing course, Facebook group, and resource for naming your characters.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers affordable courses including Book Editing Blueprint: A Step by Step Plan to Making Your Novels Publishable, Time Management Blueprint for Writers, and the Energize Your Writing Toolkit: Cheat Sheets for Character Emotions.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
As a freelance developmental editor, I often send long editorial letters and suggest major rewrites. When clients are discouraged, I remind them that I’m an author, too, and can relate to difficult rewrites. However, I’m not entirely sure they believe me! So, I’m going to prove it in two Behind the Rewrite posts, starting with this one focusing on rewriting an old manuscriptâmy young adult ice hockey novel, Offsides. Watch for another post on rewriting my chick lit novel, Fooling Around With Cinderella.These books are about as opposite as you can get, but they share one thing in common.
Heavy rewrites!
I wrote the original version of Offsides, the sequel to my YA hockey novel Face-Off, back in 1992 when I was a teenager. Although Face-Off had been published with great success when I was eighteen, garnering positive reviews in Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and School Library Journal, Offsides was rejected by my publisher. There had been a lot of turnover at the company, and all the editors I knew had left. Even though I was receiving fan mail from kids begging for a sequel, the book got rejected with a form letter. At the time, I was incredibly disappointed.
In hindsight, I’m relieved as that story wasn’t ready to be told back then. Twenty-five years later, I rewrote my original draft and published it. The hard copy had been buried in a drawer and I paid someone to scan it so that I could work with it digitally. The published version of Offsides is so much better than the manuscript penned by my 19-year-old self. Part of Face-Off‘s charm is that it was written by a teenager for teenagers. The characters grow quite a bit in the sequel, and I’m glad that I was able to bring a different level of maturity to the story, a maturity that I wasn’t capable of conveying as a teenager. It was also fun updating the book with references to texting and social media.
But more importantly, over the decades, I’ve grown as a writer and editor. My self-editing skills in 1992 and my self-editing skills now aren’t even comparable. Below is an unedited scene from my original draft of Offsides. I’ll let you read it, and then I’ll give you my editorial assessment before sharing the published version. The scene is between two of “my McKendrick boys,” twin hockey players Brad and T.J., the protagonists. They tell the story in alternating viewpoints for each chapter.
Unedited Version From 1992
That night, Brad turned on his side, the moonlight pouring through the window. In the bottom bunk, T.J. shifted. âYou awake?â T.J. asked. âYep.â âCan I tell you something?â âWhat?â âI’m going to BCâ âEven if you get accepted at Harvard?â âI’m not gonna get accepted,â T.J. said.âHow do you know?â âI didn’t apply.â It was quiet except for a car passing outside. Its lights flickered against the wall. âWhat do you mean? You told everyone you did.â âI didn’t want Dad to find out.â âBut he keeps asking you about it. What are you gonna do?â âSay I didn’t.â âAnd let him think you weren’t good enough? T.J., you should tell him the truth,â Brad said. âDo you know how ticked off he’ll be?â âSo let him be. It’s your decision, T.J. You’ve got to take a stand.â âI guess you’re right.â Brad rolled over. âHow come you’re still awake?â T.J. asked. âI’ve been thinking about college, and if I’d still be going if I didn’t have hockey.â âSure you would. I told you, your grades have improved a lot.â âI wouldn’t have a chance at BU.â âYou don’t know that,â T.J. replied. âIt doesn’t matter how you get there, Brad, just as long as you get there.â âI guess. Now do me a favor and shut up. I’m exhausted.â âIf you’d tell Dad about Harvard for me I could get to sleep.â âForget it. I want to reach my eighteenth birthday,â Brad said, and T.J. pushed up on his bunk.
Editorial Notes To Myself
First, the scene is a bit choppy. There’s a lot of dialogue and not much description or internal thought to balance it out. By just reading this passage, it’s not clear whose head we’re supposed to be in. Probably Brad’s, since he is mentioned first, but we never get in his thoughts. Dialogue was always one of my strengths, but I didn’t master deep point of view until my thirties.
Another issue is that the boys, who are high school seniors, are talking about going straight to college to play Division 1 ice hockey. Nowadays, that’s not the typical route. Before joining a D1 men’s hockey team, most players need to delay college and spend time developing their skills in a high-level junior league. I’m not sure how it worked in 1992âwhether thing have changed since then, or whether I just didn’t research it enough and got it all wrong. There was no Internet back then, so research wasn’t as easy as it is today.
The scene also lacks conflict and tension. Below is my final version. I’ll put some notes in bold so you can see why I made these changes.
Final VersionÂ
That night, Brad lay awake in the top bunk, staring at the ceiling. A night light glimmered in the corner and shadows bathed the small television, TV stand, and student desk. All the discussion about junior and college reminded him how drastically his life was changing. His parents splitting up last December with no reconciliation in sight. Playing his final season of high school hockey with friends heâd known for years. And even though Brad believed he had a chance of making the NHL, the long winding road ahead scared the hell out of him. (Note the setting details and internal thought. These additions help us to visualize the room better and clearly establish that Brad is the viewpoint character of this scene.)
What if he didnât like his host family? Even though they got on his nerves, Brad would miss his own boisterous family. What if he didnât click with his new coaches or had a difficult time adjusting to a higher level of play? Then there was Sherry. His friends thought their relationship was a high school thing. Brad thought it was more. If he joined a junior team in the Northeast rather than the Midwest, could he talk her out of Florida? (Note that there is even more internal thought here to help us get deep into Brad’s head. The host family and junior team references were rewrites to reflect a more believable path to D1 hockey.)
In the bottom bunk, T.J. shifted, and the mattress creaked. âYou awake?â
âYeah,â Brad said.
âThanks for trying with Dad. Iâm so sick of him pushing me about college. Itâs probably better Iâm not going next fall. Iâd have no clue what to major in.â
âWhat happened to management and leadership?â
âThatâs just what Iâve been telling scouts. Youâre lucky to have your major picked out.â
Having an interest in broadcasting didnât mean Brad would excel at it. As their father stated, academics wasnât his strength, and college was harder than high school. Brad sighed, his stomach clenching in a knot. (More internal thought to keep the scene in Brad’s POV.)
âWhatâs wrong?â T.J. asked.
It was quiet except for a car driving into the resident parking lot. Brad didnât know how much to admit. What was he supposed to say? That he feared getting homesick and not fitting in? That despite his big talk, he worried that he wouldnât be good enough? (More internal thought. I have gotten much better at deep POV since writing the original draft as a teen.)
âIs it Sherry and the Florida thing?â
âYeah. Itâs Sherry.â Might as well confess that much since T.J. suspected it was bothering him. âIâm wondering whether sheâd stay if I played junior locally.â
âYou mean in the NCDC?â
The National Collegiate Development Conference was a tuition-free junior league in the Northeast, making it an attractive opportunity for players throughout the region. Brad rolled onto his side and peered over the edge of his bed though he couldnât see T.J.âs face in the darkness. (Here I added some more authenticity about junior hockey and a little description.)
âItâs a good league. A lot of their guys are getting commitments. Trey wants to get on one of those teams.â
âYeah, but I thought we were both going for the USHL,â T.J. said.
Theyâd selected the more established USHL as a first choice because so many D1 players and NHL draft picks had ties to the league. Brad and T.J. met some scouts at camp and had been corresponding with several over email. They might not get on the same team, but theyâd agreed this was their ideal steppingstone. (Note how the dialogue in the rewrite has more tension than the original and hints at more problems.)
âWhat, I canât change my mind?â Brad leaned up on his elbow, glaring down at the lower bunk.
âBecause of a girl?â T.J. asked sharply. âYouâre seventeen.â
âSherryâs not just some girl. You have a new girlfriend every other week, so donât go giving me relationship advice.â Brad and Sherry disagreed over how long it would take his brother to dump Kayla. Sherry expected them to attend Prom together. Brad gave it till mid-January before T.J. claimed she was too clingy and moved on to someone else. (This gets us into Brad’s head and also gives insight into T.J.)
Swearing under his breath, T.J. got up and crossed the room. He switched on the light, and Brad winced. âDamn it, T.J.â
T.J. paced in his Bayview T-shirt and sweatpants. They both wore exercise clothes to bed and worked out when they woke up. âEven if you two stayed in New England, how often do you think youâd see her? Your life will revolve around hockey. Youâll have games on weekends, a lot of them away games. Sheâll be busy with school. I donât get the logic here.â
âIâd see her a lot more than if sheâs in Florida and Iâm in freakinâ Nebraska,â Brad growled. (This dialogue is more interesting than in the original as it shows conflict between them.)
âAll Iâm saying is youâll be wrapped up in the team. Do you really think itâs fair to pressure her to give up Florida? I get that youâll miss her. But youâll both come home sometimes. In between, you can FaceTime and text.â (I added the FaceTiming and texting to make it more current for today’s readers.)
Brad flopped onto his back, the fight seeping out of him. âYou think Iâm being selfish?â
âYouâre just not thinking this through.â
âBut long-distance is hard. It might not work.â
âDude, itâs your high school girlfriend. Stop stressing over this. Who knows if youâll even be together next year?â T.J. flicked off the light. (This is a much stronger ending for the scene.)
Want To Read The Book?
Face-Offâs McKendrick brothers return in this explosive sequel, an action-packed hockey book for teens and tweens.
Twin hockey stars T.J. and Brad have finally resolved their differences and forged a friendship on and off the ice. Now high school seniors, they focus on landing a commitment to a D1 school.
What should have been the best year ever takes a nasty hit when the boysâ parents announce their divorce, and Brad makes a mistake that could impact his game eligibility. Meanwhile, T.J. faces off against their father, who opposes his decision to delay college and pursue junior hockey.
Adding to the tension are a rebellious kid brother, girlfriend trouble, and recruiting pressure. The turmoil threatens to drive the twins apart just when they need to work together the most. With a championship title and their futures at stake, T.J. and Brad must fight to keep from going offsides.
I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into my writing and editing process! Maybe it will inspire some of you to rewrite an old manuscript. There are some manuscripts in my drawer that will remain there, but Offsides was one that I knew had potential.
You’re probably aware that I’m a freelance editor and creator of online courses for writers. (If you don’t know that, then feel free to explore my website!)
I’ve also written books about theme park princesses, teen psychics, U.S. flag etiquette for kids, and determined women sleuths. I’ve had novels ranked as #5 and #11 in the Nook Store and #30 on the Amazon Kindle Paid List. You can learn more about my books on my other websites.
Are you an author interested in writing a Behind the Rewrite guest blog post? Get the guidelines here.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers Freebies including a 5-day line editing course, Facebook group, and resource for naming your characters.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers affordable courses including Book Editing Blueprint: A Step by Step Plan to Making Your Novels Publishable, the Energize Your Writing Toolkit: Cheat Sheets for Character Emotions, and Time Management Blueprint: Transform Your Life and Finish Your Book.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
Have you ever wondered what to expect from literary agents and editors? You’ll get an in-depth look during the panel discussion, The E & A Experience, organized by The Author Encounter. (You can watch it at the bottom of this post!) It was part of their event, Authors March Forward, held March 20 via Zoom and streamed to Facebook.
Nan Jenkins and Bethany Averie, co-founders of The Author Encounter, believe the concept “Keep moving forwardâ is essential to success as a professional author.
âMoving forward, developing connections, and learning from the people who have been there are the foundations for career success.â says Nan Jenkins. âThe Author Encounter strives to create opportunities for authors using these foundations for career growth.â
There were lots of great takeaways. You’ll hear about the biggest pet peeves, get valuable insight into query letters, gain a better understanding of why rejection happens, and learn more about the editing process.
Thanks to Bethany and Nan for permission to embed this discussion on my blog. Visit The Author Encounter for more information about their upcoming events and how to join as an author or supporter member.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
I’m always fascinated by how authors approach the rewrite process, but there’s one type of project I’ve never considered before: turning a script into a book. When I was researching SEO tags for this post, I discovered that lots of people search for phrases like “how to turn a script into a novel.” Well, author D.G. Driver has valuable tips for you and she shares them in the below Behind the Rewrite. D.G. will take you behind the scenes of revising her script for Songwriter Night: A Musical Romance into book form. That’s right. It wasn’t just any script. It was a script for a musical! I’m sure you’ll find this post as intriguing as I did.
In addition to being a writer, Iâm also an actress and theater director here in Nashville. Last year, when all the theaters in town closed, lots of theater types were creating virtual ways to do shows. I got a crazy idea to combine my novel writing skills with my love of musical theater and decided to write a story that featured songs, hire a cast to record it, and release it as a full cast audiobook called Songwriter Night: A Musical Romance.
Only there was a hitch. In order to have it available on Audible, there had to be a corresponding book. Well, even though the narration in the book is novelesque, I wrote Songwriter Night in script format. I had to revise and reformat the whole manuscript. The narration and dialogue remain 95 percent the same, but there were some definite snags that I want to share with you that makes up that other 5 percent. Hereâs how I handled them and what I learned.
How To Write The Song Lyrics
There are twelve songs in Songwriter Night. Most of these have the typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure typical of Country music. It felt tedious to have so much repetition of lyrics in the book version. Also, the reader canât hear the songs like in the audiobook version, so I had to figure out how to help the reader imagine what the songs sound like. Here is an example of how I did this for one of the songs.
In this scene, Aiden, a former member of the group whoâs hit the big time, has come back to show off one of his new songs, and heâs brought backup singers to sing it with him.
The three of them sing the chorus again. Instead of a bridge, the song repeats the last half of the verse, similar to the way Lyle had written his song.
âYou took her on one date, and I took her to prom.â She didnât stick with either of us very long. What do you say to finally letting that rest? Clink my beer and letâs reminisce.â
A slightly longer hold on the chord builds up to the final chorus, where Aiden embellishes the notes. Trish wonders if a key change might have been effective here, but she doesnât think itâs her place to suggest it. Aiden repeats the final line of the chorus with a nice run on âold daysâ and a chord change to emphasize it. The girls end the song with some pretty âoohsâ that remind her of songs from another era. Nice choice.
Action In Narration Versus Dialogue Tags
One real plus to writing a script is that I donât have to write âHe said/she saidâ dialogue tags at all. With this being a full cast recording, all the actors are played by different people with distinct voices. I didnât need to write who said what. Personally, I love books where instead of using tags, the author uses action from the character to denote who is speaking. I did this a lot more for this project than my other works. It needed a little revision from the way it looked in a script to what it needed to be for a book, though.
Hereâs an example from the audiobook script:
NARRATOR: Maybe she should sing a cappella. Does anyone do that here? TRISH: Is there anything to drink? LYLE: Yeah. What do you want? NARRATOR: Lyle leaps out of his chair before Trish even thinks about standing and getting the drink for herself. She looks past him at the assortment on the counter. TRISH: Water will be fine. Thank you. LYLE: Happy to be of service. NARRATOR: He hands her the water, and their fingers overlap for a moment. His fingertips are callused from playing guitar, and they scratch her knuckles ever so slightly as he whisks his hand away. She opens the bottle and puts it to her mouth, hoping he wonât see her blushing.
Now, hereâs the same scene reformatted for the book.
Maybe she should sing a cappella. Does anyone do that here? âIs there anything to drink?â she asks. âYeah. What do you want?â Lyle leaps out of his chair before Trish even thinks about standing and getting the drink for herself. She looks past him at the assortment on the counter. âWater will be fine. Thank you.â âHappy to be of service.â He hands her the water, and their fingers overlap for a moment. His fingertips are callused from playing guitar, and they scratch her knuckles ever so slightly as he whisks his hand away. She opens the bottle and puts it to her mouth, hoping he wonât see her blushing.
Adding Dialogue Tags
So, I couldnât get away completely with narration guiding the reader toward who is speaking, especially in scenes where there are more than two people having a conversation. I definitely had to use dialogue tags. I will tell you, when your main job is to go through your manuscript and tag dialogue, it gets awfully repetitive writing âhe saysâ and âshe saysâ over and over. You become intensely aware of how often youâre writing that. On the other, hand, you donât want your tags to be too all over the place or filled with unnecessary adverbs. Then it gets annoying.
Hereâs a group scene from the original script:
NARRATOR: Tammy huffs instead of answers. George raises an eyebrow to acknowledge that he won that round. The rest of the group is frozen in uncomfortable silence. NEIL: So, uh, are we continuing or not? GEORGE: Yeah, letâs go on. NARRATOR: George strums his guitar, and Neil begins to play. TAMMY: Youâre all going to sit here and let him embarrass me like this. ROY: It sounds like a good song. A real tears in my beer heartbreaker. ODETTA: Iâm interested to hear how the rest of it goes. Sad songs are the clay that Country music builds with. NARRATOR: George looks at Lyle who gives him an approving nod. TAMMY: Iâd like to point out that the middle part â the chorus? Thatâs mine. I wrote that. GEORGE: You did not. TAMMY: I did.
And hereâs the novelized version. Note the variety in the tags:
After a moment, Neil asks cautiously, âSo, uh, are we continuing or not?â âYeah, letâs go on.â George strums his guitar, and Neil begins to play. Tammy says to the group, âYouâre all going to sit here and let him embarrass me like this?â The music stops again. âIt sounds like a good song,â Roy responds. âA real tears-in-my-beer heartbreaker.â Odetta agrees, âIâm interested to hear how the rest of it goes. Sad songs are the clay that Country music builds with.â George looks at Lyle who gives him an approving nod. Tammyâs not done yet. âIâd like to point out that the middle part â the chorus? Thatâs mine. I wrote that.â âYou did not,â George says. âI did.â She sings a cappella to a tune very similar to the chorus of Georgeâs song. When I write first drafts, it is sometimes the dialogue tags that cause me to trip up or hit a block. I want to keep going with the action and dialogue and not waste time figuring out how to show who is saying what. Writing in script format first and then going back through the manuscript to adapt it to book format helped make this a more streamlined process. I may try this again with other projects.
More About Songwriter Night: A Musical Romance
In this sweet romantic comedy, Lyle and Trish are two aspiring Country music songwriters that meet at a Nashville coffee house. With Trish being new in town, Lyle invites her to his monthly gathering of songwriters to get to know her better. The evening of quirky characters and light-hearted singing is interrupted by the arrival of Aiden Bronson. He’s got a hit song on the radio, and he’s back to show off, stirring up some rivalry while he’s at it. How will Lyle compete against Aiden’s charisma and talent in order to win Trish’s heart?
Buy it in ebook and paperback formats on Amazon. Itâs also available as a full cast audiobook recording wherever you like to get your audiobooks and podcasts. Find all those links, hear samples, and meet the cast on D.G.’s website.
More About D.G. Driver
D.G. Driver is a multi-award-winning author of young adult and middle grade books. She primarily writes contemporary fantasy, but she also loves writing realistic fiction and has even dabbled in romance. D.G. lives near Nashville, TN and is a teacher in an inclusive classroom of typically developing and special needs children in an early Intervention program. Visit her on the web at:
Are you an author interested in writing a Behind the Rewrite guest blog post? Get the guidelines here.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers Freebies including a 5-day line editing course, Facebook group, and resource for naming your characters.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers affordable courses including Book Editing Blueprint: A Step by Step Plan to Making Your Novels Publishable and the Energize Your Writing Toolkit: Cheat Sheets for Character Emotions.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
How do you increase the word count in a novel when the book is too short? In today’s Behind the Rewrite, author Clarissa Gosling gives us a glimpse into how she fleshed out her YA fantasy Dragon Shift during the editing process. Writing too short is an issue that many writers struggle with, especially after they trim the fat and tighten their sentences. Below, you can see how Clarissa handled this common problem.
Change #1: Add Description
I write short, so before I go through and line edit I have to add in more details. My first draft is a whizz through the story and what happens, but is incredibly light on description. I think this is because I often skim over any description when I’m reading, so the first thing I have to do is go through and sprinkle in descriptions of the characters and the settings. Having a clear picture of what my characters look like is often one of the last things I know about them, sometimes not til I’m fairly well into the editing process. The same for details of the settings. It is only when I’m going through to revise that I search online for images or details that I can use. And in every scene, I aim to include details from other senses as well as what it look like. This adds to the variety and makes it more immersive for the reader. For Dragon Shift, I also chopped the first two scenes from my first draft and the last five scenes to tighten the pacing.
Change #2: Add Emotion
As well as adding in description, I look for ways to add in emotion. I find The Emotion Thesaurus an invaluable resource for this as it gives so many options for ways you can show the emotion of your characters. And showing not telling is the maximum for good fiction. So for every scene I think about the emotions that the main characters are going through and how I can portray that through their actions. Do they bite their lip or cross their arms and frown? And adding in their body language helps to break up dialogue and make it clear who is speaking without saying he said, she said all the time. (Note from Stacy: Also check out my Energize Your Writing Toolkit: Cheat Sheets for Character Emotions e-book and mini course for another tool about body language and emotions.)
Change #3: Include Specific Fantastical Details
My story is an epic fantasy set in another world with shifters, dragons and magic, so I want to portray that through my word use. Terms for measuring time and distance, the way they talk about magic, etc, these all need to be consistent and some to be different from what we use in the real world. For example, in my story the main way they measure time is with water clocks, so I used the words drib, dram and drogue for increasing lengths of time. It is a reminder that their time measurement is dependent on water when their terms for time are also based on liquid measures. Then I hope that the way I use those words makes their meaning clear in the text. This is a way I can show that there are differences between my fictional world and our real one. These terms add flavour and interest in an easy way, though choosing them so that they are internally consistent with how your world works takes a lot of thinking. And you need to make sure you donât overdo this. Choose which terms you want to change and then keep others the same so that you donât overwhelm your readers.
Change #4: Check Consistency
As I go through my first draft I look for consistency. On a large scale this is consistency in things like Point of View. As I read through Dragon Shift, I realised I had started writing the story in first person, but after a few chapters I changed to close third. On going through to revise it, I decided to switch the first section to close third to keep it all the same.
On a smaller scale, this is looking at how things work and what I’ve called them. For example, the main mode of transport in my world, at least for those who can afford it, are magically powered barges that sail through the air. As I had written my first draft I had changed the names of these through the course of the story, so in revising I picked one term (floatship) and used that the whole time.
Change #5: Increase The Romance
Though the main change I had to make was increasing the romance in the story. My first draft went from her first impression of him as a “gangly, pimply boy, a couple of years younger than her,” through very little interaction, to a heartfelt and emotional scene at the end. (I can’t say more about the end scene without giving away too many spoilers.) Needless to say, he is now a couple of years older than her, a bit more attractive-looking, and I’ve elaborated on their relationship through the story as they get to know each other. There are now more scenes where they talk more and learn about each other, as well as showing how they interact during group scenes. Increasing the screen time for the two of them together automatically develops their relationship to, I hope, a level where the final scene is more believable rather than coming out of nowhere.
At least, this was my intention to do. If you are interested to see how well I managed this then read Dragon Shift, the first in my new YA Fantasy series.
Want To Read The Book?
Half-bear-shifter half-dragon in a world where dragons are thought extinct, Birgith must face the ultimate test of her shifting ability to be accepted as an adult in the Bear-shifter clan.
If Birgith manifests any sign that she has dragon blood, she will be killed immediately and her dragon family hunted, as they are feared by all four clans in the continent of Kaitstud. But when the test comes, she is unable to shift at all. So she is exiled and classed as a human, with all the restrictions on her that designation entails. Leaving behind everything sheâs ever known, Birgith sets out on a perilous journey away from her forest home to make peace with her dual heritage. A journey to find her hidden dragon family. A journey that puts her life and theirs at risk. Or that will help her embrace who she truly is.
The first in an exciting new series for readers who love magic, adventure and strong female characters.
Clarissa has always lived more in the world of daydream and fiction than in reality. In her writing she explores purpose and belonging across worlds. Having never found her own portal to faeryland, she is resigned to writing about fantastical worlds instead. She now lives in the Netherlands with her family, where she writes as much as they will let her. When not reading or writing, she drinks too much tea and has a burgeoning obsession with Bundt cakes.
Are you an author interested in writing a Behind the Rewrite guest blog post? Get the guidelines here.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers Freebies including a 5-day line editing course, Facebook group, and resource for naming your characters.
Check out Shortcuts for Writers affordable courses including Book Editing Blueprint: A Step by Step Plan to Making Your Novels Publishable and the Energize Your Writing Toolkit: Cheat Sheets for Character Emotions.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
Mystery author Nancy Lynn Jarvis gives us a peek into her editing process in today’s Behind the Rewrite. Nancy shares five of her biggest changes, which include inserting and fact-checking small details. Adding these authentic details in fiction can flesh out your book and make your story world come alive, but it’s important that they’re well-researched. Below, read about the changes Nancy made in her novel The Funeral Murder.
Change #1: Trimming Overused Words
Most of us have favorite words we overuse which are difficult for us to recognize. In The Funeral Murder, I discovered my word was âso.â Occasionally it was a deliberate use of the word as a particular characterâs speech pattern, but most of the time, I simply used the word where it wasnât necessary. During the editing process, I deleted over half the times I used the word to make the book read better.
Change #2: Maximizing Tension
I tend to like details and research which works well with my protagonist, Pat Pirard, because she started the series as a law librarian, but when it comes to writing a dramatic confrontation-with-the-killer scene, I needed help. Fortunately, I have an accomplished tension-writer as a friend. She read the scene and made suggestions. Reworking the confrontation made it faster paced and more threatening.
Change #3: Adding Descriptive Details
My protagonist sometimes enlists the help of her best friend for capers when questioning suspects. Syda Gonzales, Patâs BFF, is an artist in search of her medium and is game for anything Pat suggests. I get to make Syda dress the part. Figuring out how Syda looks at any given time is fun and enriches her character. I often change details about her during rewrites.
Change #4: Researching Authentic Details
I want what Iâm saying to be accurate so I research, research, research. When I think I have details down, I pick up the phone and call an expert and then edit to include their precise expertise. Itâs always fun to do. For The Funeral Murder, I was able to find out how and where my villain could procure batrachotoxin. It turns out itâs not easy to come by which was great for the book.
Change #5: Taming The Cat!
The final edits I made were centered around Patâs cat, Lord Peter Wimsey. Heâs a bit of a hero in the book and because what he does stretches reality for what a cat might do, I needed to make sure his movements were reasonable and feline-like. Wimsey is based on a long dead cat of mine who definitely would do what Wimsey wound up doing for another animal.
Want To Read The Book?
In The Glass House, the first book in the PIP Inc. Mysteries series, Pat Pirard, recently downsized Santa Cruz Law Librarian, needed to find a new job in a hurry. She printed business cards announcing she was Private Investigator Pat and crossed her fingers, hoping she could earn enough money working for attorneys as a PI to survive.
Patâs first investigation went well, so sheâs excited when she gets a call from an estate attorney who offers her a second job. The attorney tells Pat his client died at a funeral and he needs help sorting out who is entitled to inherit her estate.Â
Pat quickly discovers the dead womanâs past is as complicated as her estate. And when an autopsy indicates she had two deadly toxins in her body when she died, Patâs new case becomes not only complicated, but dangerous.
Nancy Lynn Jarvis left the real estate profession after she started having so much fun writing the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series that she let her license lapse. After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, Nancy worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager for Shakespeare/Santa Cruz at UCSC. Currently sheâs enjoying being a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Santa Cruz Women of Mystery.
Book Editing Blueprint: A Step-By-Step Plan to Making Your Novels Publishable â Learn how to streamline the editing process in this affordable, self-paced online course that will empower beginner and intermediate writers to think like an editor so they can save time and money. A steppingstone to hiring an editor.
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
This is an interview I did for Emma Dhesi’s podcast for new writers, Turning Readers Into Writers. It was also livestreamed in her Facebook group, Turning Readers Into Writers With Emma Dhesi.
The topic was cost-effective editing and self-editing tips. Thank you to Emma for generously giving me the video to share. We discussed my writing background, delved into common mistakes that writers make, and I shared about how my self-paced online course Book Editing Blueprint: A Step-By-Step Plan to Making Your Novels Publishable saves writers time and money.
During the interview, I also responded to questions from Facebook listeners about working with an editor.
Emma is an extremely inspiring writer and coach who helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.
ENROLL IN MY COURSE, BOOK EDITING BLUEPRINT, USING EMMA’S AFFILIATE LINK
Hi there! I’m Stacy Juba, an author, freelance editor, and the founder of Shortcuts for Writers. I’d love to connect. If you’re a writer, here are a few ways we can work together:Â
Have you ever wondered what to expect from literary agents and editors? You’ll get an in-depth look during the panel discussion, The E & A Experience, organized by The Author Encounter. (You can watch it at the bottom of this post!) It was part of their event, Authors March Forward, held March 20 via Zoom and streamed to Facebook.
