The Final Read Through

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you all find this year to be happy, healthy, and successful.

I'm back from my research trip and have volumes of material socked away in my mind for location, people, culture, texture. There's nothing like going someplace fully with the intention of researching for a novel to help you see all the little nuances you'd miss as a tourist.

Traveling has set me back a bit on writing here, which I plan to rectify this year. Look for an update at least once a week as my novel is completed, goes off to the agent, to the publisher and beyond. I'll keep you all posted on all the tricks and tips I learn along the way.

The other set back was on the goal of finishing the book by 12/31. I'm a touch off, but not too bad. Which brings me to the all-important subject of today's post: The Final Read Through.

After going through the whole novel, following the Ten Point Revision Strategy we've discussed, there's still one, immensely important task to do. The Final Read Through.

In order to do this, you must get some distance from the book. Many authors suggest putting the book into the desk drawer to let it cool. For me, the trip to Turkey was perfect. I didn't bring my computer, I didn't work on anything else. I didn't read novels or book or magazines on writing. I let my brain cool. With that, I knew that when I got home, I'd be able to re-approach the novel with fresh eyes.

The goal of this read is to really check for language flow. By this time, after completing the Ten Points, character should be solid. Premise should be like a rock. Major description, flow, pace, all of it should be where you want it. With this read, you're just trying to see how the book. . . reads.

I make little changes to sentences. One thing I really try to do is to limit the amount of times that I back into a sentence. An example:

Sitting on the back porch, Doug reached for his glass of wine.

That phraseology is called, backing into a sentence. the subject is Doug, the action is reaching for the wine, the first clause is purely descriptive.

Now there's nothing wrong with occasionally backing into a sentence. The grammer is ok, and it's nice to use this phraseology to break up the constant; subject-verb sequence. But it can be over done. Check your writing. Occasional is ok, too much is too much.

I also focus on length of sentences, which usually tend to be too long. For the most part, shorter is better. Keep the book moving along with well clipped sentences.

Word selection we've already gone over with the Ten Points, but here again is an opportunity to make sure each word is really working for you. Saying exactly what you want it to do, as powerfully as possible without the need for modifiers to strengthen it.

I'm on chapter 8 of this read. Hopefully I'll be done by next week.

Then it's off.

I'll keep you posted.

The Eleventh Point - Kill the Clunkers

As I'm finishing up this (hopefully) final revision of the book, another revision strategy point has come to mind so frequently that I've been tempted to add it as the eleventh point on our Ten Point Revision Strategy.

Unfortunately, it's so simple and basic, I'd be embarrassed to have to remind myself to do this.

Yet, time after time, reviewing the book that I'd worked on, slaved on for such a long time; woke up at 4 am daily to squeeze more hours out of my exhausting day; obsessed over in the waning hours of night, story ideas coming to me instead of dreams, I've realized I don't always do this one particular thing.

What is it you ask? What daunting discovery have I made that could have such magnitude that it deserves consideration as the 11th point of our strategy?

It's really very simple.

Write well.

Yes, that's it. The new 11th point of our revision strategy. Write Well. Or as I'll rename it and gussy it up; Kill the Clunkers.

It's stunning to think that after all the times I've gone through the novel, how many clunkers remain hidden in the text. What happens is that our eyes get immune to our own bad writing. When we re-read it, our brain nods "yes, that's what I wrote. That's what I intended to write," without ever realizing that what we wrote was bad.

Sometimes it takes an external eye, like a writing group, to help point out these bastards of the English language. If you don't have a group, then the best thing to do is to read your book out loud to yourself. Not in your mind or in a whisper, but out loud. Belt it out. Imagine you're giving a book reading in front of 1,000 of new, unfamiliar readers. Talk loud, with emphasis, and listen to your own words. See how they hang together in this context.

You may find a few clunkers.

What's a clunker? Simply a really badly written sentence. It may be cliche. Melodramatic. Flat. Overly reaching. Whatever, it clunks when it should purr. It's a clunker.

Since I've never been embarrassed to show the horror of some of my own writing, I'll offer a few examples of clunkers I found on this draft that somehow survived all my other reads.

1) What are you going to do?" she asked, drawing on her cigarette. (how can you ask something when you're sucking on a cigarette? You either ask, then suck, or suck then ask. Not at the same time.)

2) Malcomb's eyes widened like a terrified doe's. (that's just bad)

3) Memories he'd spent his entire life running away from were now chasing after him, like a rabid dog biting at his heels. (What? Doggy memories biting me? Ouch!)

4) A tear fell onto her cheek. (cliche)

Other things I've noticed is using the same word too many times in short bites of the book. For example, I have a character who has a "familiar toothless grin." Darn if I didn't write toothless three times in three paragraphs.

These are all clunkers. Examples of bad writing. I found them in my book. I killed them.

Now I'm hunting for more.

Revising the Novel - Word Count

Before we delve deeper into our subject of outlining, I wanted to share what I've learned about a very commonly asked question.

How long should my novel be?

The answer is not "long enough to tell the story." While that may be what we all would love to hear, the truth is publishers and agents have very specific guidelines for novel length depending upon the genre. As I've said before, my work is mainstream fiction, a medical thriller, so that's really all I'm qualified to talk about. If you're writing a romance, or horror, or sci-fi, or literary fiction, you should refer to a good reference book for the answer to that question, like the Writer's Guide. If you're writing a thriller or other mainstream fiction, this is what I've learned. Understand that my goal in writing is publishing and establishing a career, not a whimsical fairy tale of life as an author.

For a first time author, your book length should be 90,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 450 pages. Strict. No more, no less. While you may tell the world's greatest story in 175,000 words, and it may become a huge best-seller, it will be awfully hard, as a first-time writer, to get an agent to look at a book of that length. It may happen. If your writing is so undeniably fantastic, you may be able to hook that agent. And if you are an undeniable talent, your agent may be able to convince a Publishing House to buy your book. But the odds are stacked against you.

Publishing Houses do not like to take chances and invest big dollars into first-time authors. They're very conservative. So what you need to do is follow their guidelines, play their game. They're the ones setting the rules. Once you're as big as Ken Follett you can break the rules and unleash your 1000 page tome. Not now.

So how many pages is 100,000 words?

Obviously, that will depend upon the type and size of font you use. What I recommend, from what I've learned in discussions with agents, is Times New Roman font, 12 point size. Courier is also an accepted font by agents but Times New Roman is the best, and here's why.

The spacing of Courier font adds length to your manuscript. So while the word count may be acceptable, the number of pages is increased. With my manuscript, at 106,000 words (I know, I know, still too long, I'm working on it. Got the Ten-Point Revision Strategy at my side) the page count was 560 pages. With Times New Roman, it is 477 pages.

What this means is that with Times New Roman, your number of manuscript pages is approximately equal to the number of printed pages in an average book. This makes for an easy guide to determine your novel length.

In general, the formula comes down to the average text has 10 words per line, 25 lines per page for a total of 250 words per page. This is comparable to the word count of a published novel.

So while the romantic, walking through the garden, following your lovely muse response to the question would be; "write until the book is finished, not one word more or less." In reality, this just isn't true. It's fine, if you really don't care about publishing. But the honest, business-like, non-romantic, but infinitely more practical advice for a first-time writer, is follow the rules. 90,000-100,000 words for mainstream/thriller fiction. It shows professionalism on your part, writing skill, knowledge and will greatly increase your chances of actually getting your novel read.