Comments on: Final Comments on Self-Editing

By: Mary E. DeMuth

Mary E. DeMuth — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:07:06 +0000

I’m doing this right now, adding flesh to some of my scenes. The hardest thing for me right now is to make each chapter count. Does that make sense? I have a few chapters that just don’t push the story forward, but they provide necessary information for the plot to work. I am wrestling through them, trying to add page-turning conflict. It’s not easy, this fiction thing.

By: Anna

Anna — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:27:37 +0000

I am doing something similar: I had a minor case of writer’s block: basically I thought I was going through it all too fast and so I stopped for about a week. I started rereading my work and found that I could easily edit it and get back into the mood for it. You have already said that you shouldn’t edit much while you are actually writing it, but what about cutting and adding? I guess that when I start doing that, I can’t help but polish things a little, since I’m doing a sort of editing anyway.

By: Pam Halter

Pam Halter — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:05:02 +0000

So, adding to a scene can slow it down. And short scenes can make the reader feel an urgency. I see that.

I think when we come to the end of a manuscript, the tendency is to rush through it because we just want to be done. HA! That happened to me in my second middle grade story. It was longer than my previous attempt, and I was so excited, I ended it. My writing partner said I had to add something because she could tell I was in a hurry to finish.

Thanks, Renni and Randy. Good stuff.

By: Christophe Desmecht

Christophe Desmecht — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:52:27 +0000

I’m currently giving NaNoWriMo a try. This is really going against my usual way of writing, where I don’t start on the next chapter until the last one is as good as I can get it.

I can see now that waiting to self-edit until later is a good thing for a couple of reasons, but I keep having this nagging gut feeling that if I don’t fix things right now, then I’ll end up not doing a good job later. I do leave little annotations as a reminder, but I still can’t shake that feeling. Am I being overly paranoid and/or is there a better way to handle this?

By: Donna

Donna — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:39:42 +0000

I second Christophe’s comment.

By: bonne friesen

bonne friesen — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:19:29 +0000

Good for you doing Nanwrimo, Christophe! I’m on targe for my word count and learning a lot while doing it.

Randy and Renni: Maybe this is too broad a question, but how many POV’s can you get away with in a YA novel?
My main character is separated from her best friend and we need to see what’s going on with her before they are reunited.

Also, does the WHOLE scene or sequel need to be one POV?
I’m reading Dwight Swain and everything and I still am having a hard time wrapping my brain around it. In an important scene, there are many obstacles between the character and the goal. For a complex obstacle, it seems like sometimes I need someone else’s POV on it…help!

Thanks for your generous assistance

~bonne

By: ML Eqatin

ML Eqatin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:26:33 +0000

I’ve decided to add another POV for just one chapter. I came to that conclusion when I started looking at the whole from my reader’s perspective. I’m using three POVs, pretty much evenly balanced, each of which moves the story along in turn from a unique perspective that the others could not. But for this one chapter, a very revealing moment which set up the final plot crisis, the P.E.E. was much more powerful if I let the reader see inside this character’s head. And it took a lot less words than trying to show what went on through one of my 3 main characters.
YA is tough. Much harder than adult writing, at least for me. I picture my 14-year-old reader with my book in one hand, and a wii lying on the desk next to him, and I have to keep asking myself: will this scene keep him turning the page instead of picking up the electronic toy?