A few weeks ago, my writing group and I realized that all five of us had to confront some surgical-level revisions in our manuscripts. The plots weren’t working, not enough was at stake, and we were stuck.
It’s like that old song, “Dry Bones,” I said. The one where “the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone,” except we’re going to have to connect the thigh bone to the head bone and see if the body can, as the song says, “walk around.”
Surgeons use sharp knives to make deep cuts. Writers use scissors.
Sometimes we get so attached to our writing that we can’t visualize change. We’re used to how we’ve planned the story. We like starting it with five chapters about the protagonist’s childhood! But a well-made plot engages readers with high stakes from the start. The reader needs to feel the protagonist’s trouble right away, and the writer must expand that tension throughout the narrative.
I’m willing to bet that your book doesn’t start where you think it does.
The word “revision” means to “view again.” With the right tools (yes, a pair of scissors) and a flair for a little risk, a writer can disassemble a weak manuscript and put it back together in an innovative way.
Here’s how to perform deep surgery on your manuscript:
1. Get a pair of scissors and at least one roll of clear tape.
2. Save a copy of the manuscript before you start. Either back it up on your computer or photocopy the pages if you’re working by hand.
3. Print out a single-sided working copy of the manuscript.
4. Start cutting that single-sided copy into horizontal sections. Where you cut is up to you, but try some unexpected choices. I tend to cut at scene changes and two-line breaks. You might make several cuts per page.
5. Once the manuscript is in pieces (like a stack of bones) play around with it. That slip of paper with the final scene? Put it first and see if the story’s energy changes. If it does, what naturally follows?
6. If the final scene doesn’t seem right as the first scene (it’s a pretty radical surgery), is there another scene that might be the start of the book? Try it out! Maybe the ankle bone and the wrist bone go together after all.
7. As you “revision” your book, tape the sections together in their new order. You might number them in pencil, too.
8. Give yourself a few days or even a few weeks to work on this.
9. When you like the new story-shape you’ve created, go ahead and make those changes on your computer or your notebook, creating a new version of the manuscript. Don’t forget to give the file a new name.
10. And remember, you’ve got that first saved copy safely on your hard drive or in your notebook. You can always go back to the way things were, no harm done.
This month’s prompt: Be honest with yourself. How would radical revision enliven your novel draft? Take a deep breath, save a backup copy of the work to date, and then get out the scissors.