Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The Revision Journal

The wonderful advice available on WWW.HollyLisle.com regarding keeping a Revision Journal is coming in very handy. My Revision Journal is a wirebound black thing similar to a Moleskine (but purchased at the clearance table of Borders for a couple bucks).

Step ONE - the big one - many of my contemporaries pointed out I had too many plot lines. I have excised a whole lawsuit, trial, and murder for hire. It was difficult because I really liked writing that murder. I thought the whole 'murder-for-hire' thing was quite clever. Who knows, it may resurface in another novel.

So the excision reduced the word count by about 30K, bringing it in at about 70K total. Lesley C. Weston says that's a fine word count for a first novel. Besides, I have to go back through and fill in some blanks. I am sticking to my theory of about 85K is good. Right there in the middle of the road.

Now, back to the revisions.

1 comment:

SelahWrites said...

Holly Lisle @ HollyLisle.com describes it in the section entitled 'How to Revise a Novel'. I have the page linked to my blog. Take a look at the list on the right. --- See it? Right below your link.

So the thing is, I have a designated spot to keep all the novel revision notes and a sort of dayplanner diary type action with lots of different colored pens and tabs to keep track of my notes and stuff.

Every day I whip it open and revise something to be just that much closer to fixing it.

By the way, now that I have eliminated the trial, what do you suggest next?