11 Tips for Revising Your NaNoWriMo Draft

January 25, 2018 by Leave a Comment

It’s mid-January. If you “won” NaNoWriMo, you’ll have 50,000 words of raw material for a new novel. If you didn’t make it to the 50k mark, you’ll still have pages to work with.

But now what?

Where do you start, in shaping your big block of marble into something with legs, something that works, something that’s marketable?

Although many writers, already know this, it’s worth stating: Under most circumstances, do not revise from the beginning to the end of your draft in order.

When you’re working with a first draft, you first have to assess what you have before you start revising. At this stage, editing, polishing, proofreading, and wordsmithing are premature, unless you’ve written a near perfect draft, which is unlikely at this stage.

Unless you’re a thoroughly seasoned writer (in which case you probably aren’t doing NaNo), if you revise chronologically, you’ll most likely find major structural and development issues in your story and end up cutting or substantively changing the work you’ve just spent hours editing, which can be heartbreaking and a big deterrent to getting to a truly final and finished product.

What you’ll want to do instead is craft a revision plan. 

Here are 11 tips to get you started.

11 Tips for Revising Your NaNoWriMo Draft

1. Think of your NaNo draft as an “intuitive draft.”

We’ve all seen and read the Hemingway quote, “The first draft of anything is sh*t,” and while that can help us overcome our perfectionism and get something down, I’ve come to see labeling our first passes as a “sh*tty first draft” or a “vomit draft” does a disservice to this valuable and important stage of work.

The term “intuitive draft” is thanks to one of my screenwriting mentors, Corey Mandell. I love his notion of seeing a first rough draft as a window into the souls of our characters and the feeling tone of the story. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but from it you gain valuable raw, fresh writing to guide your next steps.

Other names I like are “lightning draft” or “speed draft.” While this isn’t a hard and fast rule — you get to call it what you like, after all — I want to encourage you not to devalue your rough work but instead celebrate it as a valuable start.

2. And speaking of celebrating, did you?

And before you begin revising, celebrate! It’s important to acknowledge the work you’ve done. In the long-haul of writing a long form novel, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the work you have yet to do, and to dismiss or diminish or forget what you have already done.

I mean, dude (can I call you dude?), you just wrote 50,000 words! That’s not nothing! So celebrate and reward yourself for the good work you’ve done.

3. At the same time, keep “finishing” in perspective.

I can’t tell you how many first-time writers I’ve met who think their first draft is a finished book.

(Most non-writers think that’s how it works, and is probably the source of that endlessly annoying conversation that starts with something like, “Are you still working on your book?”)

But the truth is, unless you are a genius or meticulously plotted your draft from start to finish and wrote your draft in “pitch perfect authentic” form (another Corey term), this is first draft is essentially only that intuitive draft we were talking about, which means… the real work is about start.

4. Start by cataloging what you have.

One of my favorite and most beloved (if hard) steps from Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k book is the notion of “reverse-outlining” your draft, where you note the primary story event for each scene, along with any other key tidbits of information, like POV and word count.

The idea is to capture what happens in each scene in one brief sentence in a spreadsheet or document so you can easily see what you have, at a glance. It’s hard to grok what you’re working with in full length form, so creating a reverse outline will help you get a good overview.

Since I write in Scrivener, I like to use the synopsis area to write my brief one sentence story event summary for each scene. Then I switch over to outliner mode and export the outliner contents as a comma separated values file (CSV) and import it into my favorite spreadsheet software (Numbers for Mac) so I can work with it further there.

Recommended resource: 2K to 10K by Rachel Aaron *

5. Then, do your macro story work, either again or now.

Now it’s time to do the macro story work. Take a step back and look at the story as a whole. What kind of story are you trying to tell? What genre is it? What values are at stake? Are you meeting the conventions and obligatory scenes for your genre? Who are your characters? What are they trying to get or do? What’s your premise line?

There are many tools you can use to answer these important macro questions. 

Over the last few years, I’ve become an ardent admirer of Shawn Coyne’s book The Story Grid. His take on understanding genre and how it influences audience expectations has been groundbreaking for me. 

And lest you think he’s prescribing dreaded formulaic writing, take another look. The brilliance of his work is that he clearly demonstrates what an audience will need to experience in order to feel satisfied by a story — but ALSO highlights the importance, and the difficulty, of a writer innovating on those conventions and scenes.

For example, if you’ve seen it, think about the “Lovers Break Up” scene in the movie Passengers. It’s a perfect love story scene, in the sense that one character discovers a betrayal by the other. But the writer innovates on that “typical” scene in a totally unique way with incredibly high stakes (life or death). 

This piece of work is about stepping back and thinking about what story you’re intending to tell and what the story needs to contain in order to work, in terms of story, plot, and character development. You can use The Story Grid and/or many of the other excellent tools available for helping you take that step back.

Recommended resources:

6. Review your desired story beats.

However you like to plot — or not, you pantser, you — now’s the time. Write out your major plot points, not necessarily based on what’s in your intuitive draft, but rather what you want them to be based on your macro story work.

I use a funny combination of plot points from working with ScreenwritingU.com, Chris Soth’s Mini Movie Method, and Cathy Yardley’s Rock Your Plot approach to identify my major overarching plot points:

  • Opening
  • Inciting Incident
  • End of Act I, Lock In, Plot Point #1
  • First Pinch Point
  • Midpoint
  • Second Pinch Point
  • End of Act II, Cave Moment/All Is Lost, Plot Point #2
  • Crisis
  • Climax
  • Resolution

I ALSO use Shawn Coyne’s Beginning Hook, Middle Build, and Ending Payoff method, with each of those broken down into what he calls the 5 commandments of Inciting Incident, Complication, Crisis, Climax, Resolution. Yes, this is redundant. And, it helps me cross-check and make sure I’m not only building the plot across the entire story, but within each act (and ultimately each scene as well).

7. Write out your Revision To Do list.

Using your macro map of what you want to create, compare it to what you have cataloged. Very quickly you’ll discover missing scenes and also where you’re already on the mark.

Use this process to create your Revision To Do list (another tidbit from Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k book) so you’re clear on the steps you’re going to take to revise.

At this stage, you’re still looking at the big stuff rather than the fine details of individual scenes.

For example, you’ll be identifying which scenes to cut, which scenes to add, what character or plot changes you’ll need to make, etc.

(Tip: Once I’m doing this work, in addition to saving a copy of my intuitive draft, I also I make a “compost” folder in Scrivener for scenes and raw material I cut so I can refer back to them easily retrieve them to pull back into my new draft. Alternatively you can use “snapshots” in Scrivener to help with this.)

8. Decide what you’ll tackle first.

Once you have your Revision To Do list, put it in order.

I recommend starting with the macro (biggest level) and then working your way down to the smaller stuff with your revision work.

If you’re restructuring the story, start there. You might begin by deleting all the scenes you don’t need any more (make a backup of the intuitive draft first) and insert placeholders for the new scenes, for example.

If you’re changing specific characters, devise a strategy for tracking and changing their development through the story. 

9. Plan a timeline for your revision, if you like.

Optionally, you may want to plan a timeline for your revision.

This is usually most relevant when you a) have a deadline by which you either have to or want to finish by, and b) when you actually know what your writing pace is.

If you were tracking your time during NaNoWriMo, you probably have a sense of how much time it took you each day to hit your 1,667 word count. And if you know you have approximately, say, 20,000 additional new words to write for new scenes, based on your revision plan, you’ll know approximately how much writing time you’ll need.

On the other hand, you won’t necessarily know how long it will take you to take each revision step, so you’ll want to give yourself time and space to figure that out as you go along. Be aware that you’ll be highly likely to stumble across various “black hole” sections in your work, as one of our Circle members calls them, where you’ll end up spending many times longer than you expected, sorting them out. This is normal. :) 

10. Work with the smallest chunks possible.

Now that you’ve got your Revision To Do list and your timeline, you have a plan.

But you may still have a case of the heebie-jeebies facing all that work.

The trick here is to pick out the small chunks possible to work on. 

Even the macro work can be broken into smaller actions, such as backing up the first draft (I make a duplicate of my entire draft in Scrivener and label it 1.0, then label the new draft my 1.1 or 2.0 draft, depending on where I feel like I am in the process), cutting unneeded scenes from the first draft, putting in placeholders for the new scenes. Those are each small steps that can be taken, one by one.

If those are too big, make them smaller, e.g. cutting unneeded scenes from first act, or first section of the first act, for example.

The idea here is to craft your overall plan, and then forget about it while you focus on these day-to-day small steps. I call this willful blindness, and it’s a lifesaver when dealing with a major revision. Sure, check in with the bigger plan from time to time to make sure you’re on track, but in general, keep your focus on taking the smaller steps each day.

11. Get support.

Facing a rewrite can be daunting. (It’s even harder when it’s your fifth or seventh major revision.) I highly recommend getting a support system in place for yourself.

This is part of what we do in the Circle. You can also work one-on-one with a coach, join a critique or writer’s group, or set up a buddy system where you’re supporting a fellow writer and vice versa.

The important thing to have in place, in my opinion, is not just the practical support for staying accountable for doing the work of your writing, but also for the emotional journey. There are a lot of ups and downs and dark nights of the soul with rewriting, and you’ll not want to be alone for those.  So do establish a support system for yourself. 

I wish you all the best with your revising!

Get a whole year in the Circle for less than $100 per session.

Join the Called to Write Coaching Circle for the upcoming session starting on January 29th and save up to 32% depending on the package you choose. Registration closes Thursday, January 25th at Midnight Pacific Time.

Find out more and register here: http://justdothewriting.com

 

 

Make This Your Year to WriteMake This Your Year to Write

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Find out more and pick up your copy for only $17 here: 
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Meet Your 2017 Writing Goals, Part III: How to Design a Writing Intensive

September 12, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Welcome back for the third part of my series, (You Can Still!) Meet Your 2017 Writing Goals. 

In last week’s posts I wrote about Clearing the Decks for your writing and Reverse-Engineering & Revising Your Writing Goals. Today I’m writing about boosting your progress. Next time I’ll talk about Setting Yourself Up for Success, so stay tuned for that posts, coming up soon.

Part III: Design a Writing Intensive

In my last post, I wrote about reverse engineering and revising your goals. The reason to assess your 2017 writing goals now is that we’re within spitting distance of the end of the calendar year, and therefore the “deadline” for meeting 2017 goals …before the clock strikes midnight. 

Even if you’ve decided to shift your goals forward into 2018 (I’ve done this with one of my writing goals), you may still want to do an extra “push” with your writing this year to boost your progress and move the ball down the field a little farther than you might get if you a) aren’t writing as much as you’d like to, b) are catching up after a summer writing hiatus or slow-down, c) still want to try to meet your original goal, or d) need a leg up with your motivation.

Doing a focused burst of writing — a short-term writing intensive — is like doing a runner’s wind sprint, where you alternate slower, steadier walking or slow running with more intense bursts of faster running. So doing a writing intensive is about temporarily picking up your pace, then downshifting back into your regular writing habit. (You have a regular writing habit, right? If you don’t, check out my Circle for help.)

A focused stretch of writing can also serve another purpose: It allows you to go deeper into your writing. It’s about putting the focus more intently on your writing. It’s not just about writing faster or more — but it’s also about a quality of experience. Almost like carving out an at-home, immersive writing retreat for yourself. 

In the Deep Dive writing intensive I’m running (starting next week), we’re creating this deeper experience by “clearing the decks” — making space for focused, daily writing at a more intense level by eliminating obstacles and distractions. One of the things I talked about during the free clear the decks teleclass (which you can still listen to, if you’re interested), is mentally making space for your writing, including thinking about what you’re reading, watching, and thinking about during your writing intensive. 

Set Up a Writing Intensive for Yourself

Here’s a simple strategy for creating a writing intensive for yourself:

  1. Give yourself a clear time period within which you’ll complete your intensive, whether it’s a day, weekend, week, or month.
  2. Clear the decks for your writing. Eliminate distractions, set up your life so you can focus on your writing.
  3. Get crystal clear on your writing goal for your intensive.
  4. Have a plan for how you’ll complete your writing goal (more on this below).
  5. Implement your writing plan, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, step-by-step, task-by-task.
  6. Have a reward in mind you’ll receive when you finish.

Have a Plan to Meet Your Writing Goal

When you’re aiming to write efficiently, wind sprint style, you’ll make more of your writing time if you go into it knowing exactly what you’re working on. Sometimes writing is unwieldy at best, but you can still go into it with a clear intention and plan. 

The type of plan you develop will depend on where you are with your current book or script.

Here are samples of plans you could create for your writing intensive. The idea with all these plans is to give you a clear list of tasks to work through, one by one, so you can stay focused and efficient during your intensive rather than feeling overwhelmed, spinning in circles, or getting lost along the way.

  1. Story Development Intensive. If you’re developing a new story, you can create a list of items you want to have answered before you start writing, so you can be crystal clear on your work plan (and so you’ll know when you’re done!). For example, you may want to have your plot points identified, your premise line written, your character profiles developed, and a scene-by-scene outline created, among other things. Here’s my “Must Have” list before writing pages.
  2. New Writing Intensive. If you’re ready to start writing pages, you’ll hopefully already have your own list of story development items complete and ready to go so you can just jump straight into writing pages. If you don’t yet have your story developed, you could go back to the Story Development Intensive, and make your writing intensive about doing that work, or perhaps you prefer to just go for the “pantser” approach and write an intuitive stream-of-consciousness draft. That’s a perfectly reasonable approach, and many writers swear by it. I would be remiss in not saying, though, that it can create one of the biggest challenges I see for writers who then have a potentially massive, disjointed draft they then have to face revising and editing.
  3. Organization Intensive. Perhaps you’re at a different stage of work — the organization stage. Many writers spend years drafting various versions and pieces of a manuscript and then find themselves overwhelmed with all the parts and sections. If you’re in this boat, you’ll want to make a plan for how you’ll address getting it organized. I recommend you start by cataloguing what you have and where it’s located, along with a single sentence summarizing each section. While you’re at it, you may want to develop a numbering or naming scheme for your digital and paper files. Once you know where everything is, and what it is, you can move into developing a plan for adding additional writing or moving into the revision stage if you have everything you need (writing additional scenes or chapters can be a natural part of a revision plan, after all). Organizing is a great thing to tackle in an intensive because it’s one of those onerous tasks often best handled in a big burst of work.
  4. Story Analysis Intensive. If you’re at the stage where you have a draft, but you’re not ready to begin revising because you know your story needs more in-depth work, you may want to check out Shawn Coyne’s The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know * as a process for analyzing your work. Tackling this level of work could potentially become the entirety of what you do for a writing intensive, depending on how much time you have set aside, or it could be the first stages of a revision intensive.
  5. Revision Intensive. If you’re revising, I strongly recommend having a revision plan in place before you begin. You could use a Story Grid plan, or use a different approach. I’m a fan of Rachel Aaron’s revision approach in her book 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love,* where she has you make a to-do list, a reverse outline, and a timeline for your story so you can more efficiently dip in and out of your story to make corrections and revisions. It’s also worth prioritizing your to-do list from largest to smallest changes, so you’re not undoing work if you suddenly cut a large swath of text.  
  6. Polishing Intensive. If you’re at the final stage, you can do a polishing intensive to spine and proofread your final draft. This may involve first doing a pass through the manuscript to make small changes throughout the text, then printing and proofreading the draft, then making the changes in the final version.

In my own case, I’m currently working on revising pages for the screenplay I’m working on. Since it’s a fairly major revision, the steps I’ve taken to get to this stage include:

  • Meeting with the producer I’m working with and getting his feedback and notes on the prior draft.
  • Summarizing our notes so I could see what needed to be changed and what would stay the same.
  • Reverse outlining the prior draft.
  • Reworking the GMC for the characters.
  • Reworking my Story Grid Foolscap for the overall story (and all of the many things that entails).
  • Reworking the plot points and handling the ripple-effect changes they created.
  • Creating a new scene-by-scene outline for the story, including a scene event, goal, motivation, and conflict for each scene. 
  • Collecting all the scenes from the prior draft that are rework-able and adding them into my new draft in Scrivener.
  • Starting to rewrite those existing scenes and write new scenes as I move through the script — and this is what I’ll be continuing to do before and during the Deep Dive.

Got questions? Comments?

Leave them in the comments and I’ll be happy to respond. :) 

And check out Part I, here: Clearing the Decks, Part II, here: Reverse Engineer and Revise Your Goals, and Part IV, here: Setting Yourself Up For Success.

 

Make Massive Progress on Your Book (or Script!)

The upcoming two-week Deep Dive Writing Intensive starts soon. Join us and get tons of support and accountability to make deep progress on your book or script. Find out more and register here. 

 

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