Developmental Editors and Beta Readers—the Need for Both #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

            Revising a manuscript can be a nightmare, or it can be a calm reevaluation of your story.

           

I know, I know. To combine the word calm with writer in revision sounds like an oxymoron. Like freezer burn or bittersweet. An oxymoron is a combination of two contradictory terms. Or maybe I’m the only UN-calm writer. I’m usually flustered about something. 

But staying calm during revision doesn’t need to be an oxymoron in terms. A solid revision requires a good reader for your story. Someone who knows story and what makes it work. This could be an editor, a book coach, or a trusted fellow writer or two.

This revision reader looks at your story as a whole. This reader needs to make sure the story holds together and the characters act consistently with the backstory you have created for them. And it’s a good idea to allow this trusted reader in on early versions of your story.

What I’m talking about is Developmental Editing. This should be the first step in the revision process. It can be done by a professional editor or a book coach. And can be helpful near the beginning of your story’s journey. Developmental editors or book coaches are there to be sure your story has no major plot holes. They make sure the characters are well-developed.

Developmental Editing is very important to your story’s success and shouldn’t be left for Beta Readers unless you have a trusted, accomplished story-writer friend who can show you what’s missing in your story.

Beta Readers are a wonderful part of revision AFTER you have your story down. I can’t wait to offer my memoir to Beta Readers. Usually writers want Beta Readers to address specific questions in their manuscripts.

For example:

Is the timeframe and location clear in each scene?

Where do you lose interest? Why, do you think?

What questions remain unanswered about the plot or who’s who?

Is the emotion on the page?

Do you get lost anywhere?

Beta Readers offer their opinions on sections of your story. They are great to give feedback from the point of view of an average reader to the author. This feedback is used by the writer to fix remaining issues with plot, pacing, and consistency.

I prefer an open dialogue with anyone who reads my stories. If they have questions about a passage, I like to have an opportunity to explain what I’m trying to say in the scene. Then I ask the reader what his interpretation of the scene is. Only then can I see what’s missing from the story.

As writers, we are very close to our stories, our characters. What we think is in the story, may not be when someone who does not know the story reads it. And yes—Developmental Editors tell you these things too.

You pay for Developmental Editors. You shouldn’t pay for Beta Readers. You are paying for the Developmental Editor’s expertise in the business of storytelling, of creating viable books for sale. They are the more expensive editors, when preparing a book for publication, as opposed to line editing—which is done at the completion of all other revision work for the story. Another important step to have completed.

I have used a book coach, originally from Author Accelerator, to create a solid version of my college memoir. I took a few months off from my memoir to create more YA short stories for the magazine market, to give myself distance from the memoir story. Now it’s time to pick up with my editor, Michele Orwin, and finish a final version of this memoir story.

Has anyone ever added scenes to their stories or memoir about what the protagonist was like before the inciting incident or before the story present? I’m interested in how you set up the scenes and where you placed them in your story. Please share any insight you may have in the comments section of Adventures in Writing. Thanks so much!

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Revision: A Fact of Life—for Writers

Sometimes I feel like I'm always at my computer.

Hook the reader in the beginning of a story or novel.  Yes, even in memoir.  It’s too easy to just close a book and move on if the story’s not interesting.  But to keep the reader hooked throughout the duration of the book, now that’s the difficult part.

            As I pick my way through yet another revision of my manuscript, I’m attempting to see how I can ratchet up the adventure:  the decisions, the obstacles, the fear of attending college as a non-traditional student, a student with five children, a student with a special needs daughter, a student who has a home to maintain and a family to keep in check as her children grow and face their own educational and life obstacles. 

You see, I had completed a revision of the memoir.  And I still laughed in all the same places.  The flow is there; scene into scene, chapter into the next chapter.  There is a timeline showing primarily my maturation as a college student as well as that of my children growing up.   I’m a scene painter, as I’ve said before.  Perhaps I missed my calling and should be a screenwriter or a playwright.     

However, the more I try to consider my college journey, the more my mind is divided with substituting for the media center specialist for the rest of the school year at the high school, the more the family and all their issues cloud my mind.  I think I need to wait for summer vacation and then hide in the library to seriously consider revising the tension in my memoir about attending college with five children in tow.  I think there may be bloodshed among my darlings in this memoir.   

Thanks for any tips you may offer as to how you handle keeping the reader’s interest in your story, be it memoir or fiction. 

A Life in Reflection: Memoir and Revision

            Hello, HarperCollins?  Are you there?  …I guess not. 

Reflection in Memoir is crucial.

            Time to rise from my knees, add reflection to my life, and revise.  It’s so easy to type, isn’t it?  So much harder to do.

            Writing is a career.  I need to remember this.  And like other careers, some tasks can be more difficult.  Revision.  More often than not, I understand narrative arc, characterization, and sense of place.  I know not to bog down my prose with too much detail.  [I try, I really try…]

            I know to hook the reader at the beginning of the story.  In medias res?  At least for my short stories, I do.  Build tension?  Definitely.  A ticking clock—whether age-related, as in my memoir about attending college with five children in tow, or literal—helps.  Each scene counts.  Everything used in story must be integral to the plot.  Always.

            It shouldn’t be “I, I, I”—even in memoir.  But how to break that cycle?  I’m a scene painter, but need to decide if each one is the right color for the memoir. 

I try to create flowing prose with varied sentence structure.  …Sometimes…I think.  Then again, I’m still in the market for a good critique partner.

            Knowing the rules of writing is one thing.  Doing all of them is another.  One at a time, comb the manuscript for potential errors.  Otherwise you’ll remain on your knees and fail to return to the computer.  No one said writing was easy.

            Do you have some revision tips to share?  Please leave a comment.  It is always greatly appreciated.  Happy Spring!  

Exploring the Inner Self in Memoir

Santa puts the tinsel on the tree!

I need to show my hard-won epiphanies through self-reflection.  I need to present my memoir in ways to allow readers to enter upon the college journey.  I went to college as a mother of five, but that journey needs to be more than just a collection of experiences at college and at home with my family as I struggled to keep up with my studies, struggled to comprehend new subject material, struggled to discover a new Victoria Marie.

I must explore the inner self, reflect upon it, so that my reader can identify with me.  This sounds like the inner dialogue, which I’m incorporating into my memoir manuscript.  But through inner dialogue, the memoirist needs to discover something about herself, through reliving the experiences, the struggles.

In the throes of my second revision of the college memoir, I discover courage.  It took courage to attend each class.  Courage to believe in myself though surrounded with doubts and inadequacy, embarrassment.  Courage to face my fear of failure.  Courage to face the fear of success, for in success comes opportunity.  Opportunity changes lives. 

I would never be the same after my adventures through college.  And neither would my family.  It took a whole family to get this mother through college.     

I need to craft these discoveries into well-stated epiphanies/themes and then be sure that they resonate throughout the memoir.  Through specific details, the memoirist can achieve universality. 

There’s my timer again.  My home smells of cinnamon and honey.  Time to take the Amish friendship breads out of the oven.  Time to share the smells of Christmas with family, neighbors and friends.  May your Christmas be filled with the treasure of family and friends and may you all achieve success in 2015.  Thanks for stopping by Adventures in Writing.

The Importance of Internal Dialogue in Memoir

            Remember, memoir is not autobiography.  Memoir recounts an important time in the writer’s life, an important journey, happy or sad, triumphant or not, where a discovery is made.  This journey is merely a slice, not the whole life pie.  But within that slice, as in fiction, internal dialogue is important. 

Discovering the possibilities

Internal dialogue is a dialogue the writer/character has with herself.  This dialogue in memoir usually projects present day thoughts or logic or knowledge onto prior actions of the writer/character.  It’s like an interpretation of the preceding action, scene, or anecdote. 

Like fiction, memoir cannot be merely a collection of scenes, dialogues, or actions.  Some scenes and actions are used to move the plot forward, to create tension, or to enhance characterization.  Other scenes need to be interpreted by the writer through internal dialogue. 

Interpretation in memoir explains why a particular action is so important in the writer’s journey.  The writer attempts to revisit that part of her life again, through memoir, and discovers newfound knowledge to share with the reader. 

            As I move ahead in my revision work of the college memoir, I’m probing beyond my literal college experience to discover the epiphanies that I was too busy to see at the time with the daily grind of college and family life.  My husband and children find my scribbled thoughts on torn pieces of paper left on tables and counters, bookshelves and bathroom vanities.  I tell them to throw away nothing they find and put it on my desk on the porch.  When I get time, I type them into the prologue document to my memoir and sort them from there.  [This cuts down on the fire hazard in our home.]

Memoir needs to be more than autobiographical.  It needs to provide insight not merely the facts of the experience.  Memoir is a writer’s story about a specific time in his or her life with the writer’s present day reflections on that time.  

Oh…the timer’s beeping and I need to get the apple pie out of the oven.  I hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving.  Thanks for stopping by.       

Revising in Stages

Hiding among the stacks at the library

Now back to my memoir about going to college as a mother of five.  I find that if I try to fix all the suggestions that my critique readers make about my writing, I just sit there and stare at my work.  Oh sometimes, I’ll get up to file a nail or put on the kettle for a fresh pot of tea.  Then I’ll notice that the stove is dirty.  Those five children sometimes bring hungry friends over.  I’ll see another finger nail that needs grooming; I’ve got to choose a loose tea for the pot, choose a teacup…

You get the idea.  Does this ever happen to you when you’re revising?

 So I’ve come to the conclusion that the best thing for me to do when revising, or even writing a new short story, is to hide in the local library for as long as possible—or until I’m found out by my children or husband as they call my cell phone relentlessly. 

Okay, so that keeps me sitting at my laptop, staring at the words.  Now to move forward.

I’ve found it easier to revise in stages.  I tend to work on the simpler fixes first.  You know; further explanations, clarifications, and, in my memoir especially, deeper thoughts.  It gets me into the story of the memoir and crawling ever so slightly forward.

I’m talking about the critique suggestions that I agree with or those that make sense for the writing or story at hand, the themes that I’m trying to connect in the writing.  Like I said in my previous post Writing is not a Cookie-Cutter Science, you only want to address the suggestions that matter to your voice, your writing.

I’m the type of writer who saves the different versions of my chapters or stories.  I’m working on my FIRST revision of the memoir with the simpler fixes.  I tell myself that in the next revision, I’ll work on the complications of time frame in a particular chapter, to re-evaluate chronological order in Chapter 9, for example.  Then in another revision, possibly divide a few longer chapters into shorter, tightly-woven chapters. 

Revising in stages can help a writer move forward on a longer project.  Saving the various revisions can help a writer move back to a prior version of the writing if she decides that the story can no longer move forward without a deleted section or details.  How about you?  Do you keep various versions of your writing when working on a project?  Please offer any suggestions you might have.  Thanks!

Roving Through Revisions

When it's going well...

Although Hemingway and Anne LaMott may call the first draft by a different name, I feel my synonym works just as well.  I’m plodding through the poopy first draft of my memoir now, chapter by chapter, enlivening scenes here, clarifying details there, and hopefully offering enough insight so that readers can truly see what it was like attending college as a non-traditional student and still raising those five children.

Of course, I could tell the reader my experience in one word: exhausting.  However my fellow memoirists in the writing course I just finished thought I should be a little more specific.  I’m considering each edit of my manuscript, deciding whether or not a cut is in order or simply elucidation.  I’m not opposed to dropping summary in favor of a scene.  My fellow memoirists enjoyed the interaction between my children and me as I struggled through entrance to and classes in my college journey.  I find myself laughing out loud in the library where I sometimes hide to write, and then can’t wait for dinner that night to tell the family what I wrote about that day.  Pretty soon we’re all reliving the experience and laughing out loud.  This is what makes my memoir about college different from other college memoirs.

 

In writing through the memoir course attempting to get that poopy first draft completed, sometimes I rushed through or summarized important situations to finish a topic or to complete a chapter.  I was always looking ahead or trying to decide what to include and what to leave out.  This first revision allows me to open up scenes where there were none; to slow down the pace and allow the reader to absorb all that was happening.
 
Every writer revises, from experts to beginners.  What writing glitches do you deal with in revision?  Please share any tips.  Thanks.