Revisions, Part Two:

The third draft: When I revise, I start at the beginning and work my way forward. I’m doing a whole bunch of things at once. I’m making the writing stronger, fixing all those grammatical problems. But I’m also deepening character, setting up the big scenes, and I’m on alert for certain themes that crop up. I bring those out like the shine on a horse’s coat. I cut a lot, I add some. I cut scenes. I add scenes. I move some scenes around—the ones I missed in the Big Picture Draft. I try to avoid “talking heads”, where my detective does more than two interviews in a row. I’m constantly aware of tension, and how there has to be tension in every scene. Not just in every scene, but in every word, phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph, and page. More on tension later.

I fix grammar and spelling. (You’re on your own here. There are books for that.)

Deepening character: I find that by rewriting the scene, more of the character comes out. Sometimes to get to the heart of a character, I write the scene several ways, or several times. Slowly, the character reveals things about himself to me.

I set up big scenes by foreshadowing them. For instance, if a guy is going to die falling off a horse, I might have him riding the horse in a previous scene. Maybe he’s not a good rider and he makes his wife nervous. Maybe he gets thrown, but it’s not serious. In other words, I plant the idea in the reader’s mind that something might happen down the line, and when it does happen, there will be resonance.

Cutting out scenes – you have to ask yourself if the scene is necessary. Copy the file and take out the scene, see what the flow is like without it. Do you even miss it? You haven’t lost anything if you want to keep it, because you have the original file.

Bringing out themes. One of the themes in DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is a lake, and how the lake hides all the bad stuff underneath—seaweed, junk, undercurrents, etc. One boy drowns in the lake, a couple is killed by the lake. There are ways to bring the idea of the placid surface of the lake versus what’s underneath to the top of mind in a reader.

Using myth doesn’t hurt, either.

As I rework, I keep these four things in mind:

1. The main character is the anchor. The character takes us with him, we depend on him, we see through his eyes. He must be a rock for us. He can make mistakes, but we must be able to rely on him—we always go back to him. He must be consistent, within his world and his world view.
2. Addiction. You want the book to be addictive. You want tension in every word, every phrase, every sentence…that internal rhythm. Tension can come from inside the person, or from interaction with others (usually at loggerheads).
3. Go all the way. When it’s time to commit, go for it! Don’t pull your punches. Give it your all. You can always fix it later. This is something you should do in the first draft, by the way.
4. Good writing. Solid writing, strong writing, easy to read. Work hard at it. Cut down on the cliches. Read aloud. If a sentence is too long and jumbled, if there are Several Sibilants in a Sentence, try to change one of the words. You don’t want to make the reader work to hard—you want it to flow. Make all your writing as good as you can—don’t be lazy and just do it in spots. All of it should be good.

Pay attention to ebb and flow, and to pacing, by using sequences. Build to small climaxes between bigger climaxes. Make sure there’s enough story. Pay attention to those sequences, how one thing leads to another within a sequence, like this: he asks a girl for a date but she turns him down; in order to show her what she’s missing, he asks another girl for a date and she accepts; he doesn’t know she’s just doing this to make her boyfriend jealous, and the boyfriend comes looking for him; they get into a fight, and he accidentally kills the boyfriend. There’s the climax of the sequence. Now he has to do something else, something he didn’t plan, and he’d better do it fast. Escape? Turn himself in and claim self defense? Whatever it is, it leads to the next sequence.

Also, as you write: Ask questions in the story and don’t answer them right away, but answer a question while posing a new one. Delay the gratification to the reader, but give him something. The questions can be little, but they still create anticipation in the reader.

Bring out the main character. Know what her journey is as you write this third draft. Deepen it. Raise the stakes. Push it a little more.

Michael Connelly describes book-writing as a guy spinning plates. There are six or seven plates you’re keeping up in the air, and you can’t ignore any of them. They all have to be strong.

This Third Draft lasts about a month or more. I’ve taken up to four months to revise a book. I believe it’s the most important work you can do. By the time I’m done I feel as if I’ve run a marathon, and I can’t go one more step. When that happens, I do one of two things: I go over the whole book again with a light polish, or I submit it to my agent.

Let her do some running for a while.