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The Bathing Beauty's Guide to Editing by Jen McAndrews |
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I have to do two things this week: buy a bathing suit and edit my manuscript. You'd think one of these things would be easier than the other, but they are an equal challenge. And it turns out the scary image of a winter-soft body wedged into a bikini makes for a handy checklist in manuscript editing. Witness… Dark roots do not enhance platinum-blond hair. Does the manuscript title really reflect the heart of the book? We all strive to give our books the best title we can dream up. We go for something catchy, easy-to-remember, easy-to-fit on a cover. But we also need to make sure the title hints at the story. After all, we want readers to pick up the book, not glance at it, think 'cute title' and keep on walking. Make it appeal, and be especially cautious of using song titles; readers may already harbor opinions based on familiarity. My shoulders and arms lack definition. Is each character's dialogue distinctive? Ideally, we should be able to lift all dialogue tags from a manuscript and still be able to identify the speaker. Word choice and sentence structure are as unique to characters as a thumbprint. Choose expressions on a character-specific basis. Mary might describe the sky as "as vivid as June in Provence," while Ted would simply call it "blue." Still, be cautious of using dialect or slang to differentiate; a little dialect goes a long way, and slang can date your book. I will never have the bustline of a nineteen-year old again. Do your characters seem to just hang around? Characters that move from one static situation to another can be pretty darn boring. Get them up, get them moving. If some pivotal piece of information must be revealed over a cup of coffee, lock the doors on the local Starbuck's. Let your characters sip their java and spill their guts during a stroll in the park. Movement allows for changing sensory experiences that can restore perk to your prose. I have no waistline. Does your manuscript suffer from a sagging middle? This affliction is as common as extra pounds around the holidays. To keep a middle firm, keep the tension high. A middle is a great place to up the stakes or introduce new complications for your protagonist. Play a game of 'what if?', plugging in worst-case scenarios to the equation. What if Adam gets eaten by a crocodile? Making it worse - what if Adam has the map to the treasure in his pocket when he gets eaten by a crocodile? The croc might be stretching things, but losing that map might tense up a few guts. Am I retaining water or gaining weight? Are adjectives bloating your word count? Limit your use of adjectives to those that are indispensable. "She walked down the street" gives one image. "She walked down the deserted street" gives quite another. Likewise, "She stepped out of the yellow taxi" makes things no clearer than "She stepped out of a taxi". The taxi is important; its color isn't. The beauty of stripping extra adjectives is its effect on the ones you leave behind. Careful inclusion of adjectives can allow the hero's smoldering blue-eyed gaze to really get some pulses going. My butt is sliding into my thighs. Is backstory clogging your pacing? We all spend hours upon hours learning each nuance of our characters, determining how they grew up, what their dreams are, where they went to college and why. But before you allow all that minutiae to see print in your manuscript, evaluate each detail for its importance to the story you are telling now. That the hero worked his way through college may be important to your story. The number and variety of jobs he held may not be. Use your judgment. With backstory, choose carefully and remember less is more. My thighs are obscuring my knees. Are too many adverbs making your writing appear muddy? There's nothing wrong with throwing a "he ran quickly" into the first draft. But on edits, always ask yourself if there is a singular verb that can better convey the image. "He dashed" or "he sprinted" may be closer to the mark and have more power on the page than its verb-adverb counterpart. By the same token, sometimes adverbs are flat-out unnecessary. There's no need, for example, to say "he sprinted quickly." The verb alone conveys the meaning. As with adjectives, make sure the inclusion of an adverb enhances the image for the reader. It's time for a pedicure. Do all the plot lines in your stand-alone novel wrap up appropriately? Make sure when you've come to the end your happily-ever-after is emotionally satisfying and has been achieved through careful plotting. No one likes a sudden change of heart in the last three pages that allow the hero and heroine to head to the altar. They like to see the happy couple slowly moving toward that end - learning to laugh, learning to trust, learning to love. It's a gradual process, not a 180 on page 298 of a 300 page manuscript. Leave your reader as happy as your heroine and you've got a reader for life. One final word on editing and swimsuits. Just as a winter's worth of couch-potato-ing can't be erased in one day at the gym, so the editing of a manuscript shouldn't be rushed. Take your time in both endeavors. And reward yourself with a day at the beach. |