Skip to main content

Problems with revising my novel and adopting the Chuck Wendig Plan of how to revise your novel.

So I'm still struggling with editing my novel. I took some time out to have a break doing other things. One of them was moaning about editing on this blog and other was looking at ways to tell the story.

Now I realise the problem with my story is I have nothing to say. It's as simple as that.  I don't really have anything to say give I've completed a novel. To write something you must have something to say - well I don't really.

So there lies the problem. You can only revise and edit something if you have an aim in mind. All I want is just to complete the novel which I have. So maybe now I just have to figure what the novel is about.

So I discovered Chuck Wendig a novelist and games designer  (Terrible Minds blog) who swears like a trooper in his blog however has given freely valid and great advice on how to edit a novel. His post called How To Karate Your Novel And Edit That Motherfucker Hard: A No-Foolin’ Fix-That-Shit Editing Plan To Finish The Goddamn Jo.


I'm outlining his plan in my words. Chuck has links to other articles which he mentions in his plan.  My links go straight to those pages. Chuck Wendig tells us to think of editing as a layer cake. Here is a direct quote from his website
"First layer: the icing. Attack the surface elements. Edit for spelling, grammar, punctuation.
Second layer: the cake. Time to start attacking the content. The plot, the pacing, the characters, the dialogue. The cake itself has lots of sub-icing layers, so address each in turn.
Third layer: the context. Hey, food is about place and time just as much as it is about recipe. Eating a slice of wedding cake on someone’s lovely wedding day is going to feel a lot different than wedding cake eaten on Death Row in a Maximum Security Prison. And that’s what we’re talking about — feel. It’s time to do a pass to see how it feels. How do the themes stack up? The motifs? The mood? - Chuck Wendig -Writer http://terribleminds.com


1. Copyedit - professional/posh way of saying check for grammer


This is my weakness - a known one if you read my reality soap blog.  I don't proofread.  So I guess that gives me a great start.  Thanks Chuck.  I guess that's a great starting place as ever and I can start now!


2. Edit for content

This was where I was trying to start off and kept on procasintating. I still am. It just seemed a mamoth task. And yes my spellings are still rubbish.

3. Contextual Edit

This is about what are story goals are and why you are telling the story.  It's my understanding you should have an overall map of the story. It's a tad complicated to  explain but I think it might go hand in hand with step two. Some people say it's probably the first step but I'm going to roll with Chuck for now. Anyway check it out yourself and come to your conclusions.

4. How Chuck Wendig edits a novel 

Chuck goes into his own way of doing revisions.  This is like a bonus but everyone should find their own way after a while.

5. Chuck's Project Plan

Chuck then gives a project plan of how much to do each day.  Well I call it a project plan. Yay. I'm going to be following that plan.  FIVE PAGES A DAY. Which in Chuck Wendig maths counts up to 1000-1500 words a day. I'm using the word count because I've drafted my book in Scrivener.

 I also use the trial version which I shall upgrade when NaNoWriMo is over.  You get a discount of 20% for just showing up and attempting to write a novel and you get 50% of Scrivener for actually completing 50,000 words. In lean times that is quite a lot.

He also says do only five days a week so one has the weekend off. Sounds like a good plan for me.  However since I'm starting today. I'll start my five-day shedule on Monday. So I'll work the weekend this time.

Here is Chuck's plan in all this profanity ridden glory.



I'll let you know how it works for me!

-----------------------------------------------------------
 Check out Bigga Day's books on

Smashwords.com
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/bigga
Apple iBooks
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/bigga-day/id595585425?mt=11
Barnes and Nobles
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/bigga-day
Kobo
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Search?query=Bigga%20Day&fcsearchfield=Author

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Up Date on Happenings: Newly Single & 17% pay raise.

Hey Everyone, So update since my last entry. Well I had a brief fling with Mr Sexy Guy and decided he wasn't the one for me. He was cool but I learned the difference between lust, chemistry and personality. It just didn't tango for me. I'm still grossly overweight, well, fat. I don't think there is anything wrong with being called fat. I am fat. I need to lose weight but that means getting organised and stop eating delicious food. Then again my knees are hurting me and joints feel the ache. I also haven't been to the gym in three months despite paying for it. But when I do, I normally go for the sauna, hot tub and   steam room session. I've thought of cancelling the exorbitant membership but in the climate apart from bills it's the one thing that is just for me...that when I use it. Work is fine, managed to get a 17% pay raise. A big thanks to my boss who also pushed for it. It's good to work for people who support you in that matter. I think tha...

Goals - one thing at a time - weekly or less frequent blog. Yoga was HARD! Still on track with eating plan,

Despites all my good words, I am slipping back into old bad habits and overloading myself with things to do. Distractions. Everything is important. So I've decided to get tough with myself and focus on my major goal. The one that will be most beneficial to me and a causality of that will be writing this blog daily or near daily. So I'm going to be focusing on my major goal and push myself to focus and I think all the other activities, and I mean a lot are diluting from the process. This means getting rid of non-value adding activities. Oh dear, I sound rather corporate. My week so far. If Pilate nearly killed me, then in Yoga was the firing line. OMG! What is it with these gym classes being so dynamic! When I mean dynamic I mean break-into-a-sweat dynamic. I'd never hadn't had such a difficult class - obviously I was the largest. Okay - let's go fat-shaming- don't you just love that word? I was the fattest by a long stretch. And the unfittest. My body was ou...

HAPPY NEW YEAR - LET THE GOALS ROLL

Hello all. Happy New Year! So last year was awesome for me because I managed to achieve one goal. The biggest goal which was to get a new job. And that came with financial reward as well. Yay! It was hard, challenging, horrible. I hate change but I had to get out of the rut I was in. Dudes, I was desperate to move. So I dug deep, did my interview practice, attended a number of interviews and hit one. Yay. Now longer gaming. I didn't need the escapism with my new positive work environment. I also abandoned the iPhone family and went Android. To cut a long story short, I got bought an iPhone 8 but it was faulty - however Apple weren't transparent about their return policy - ALWAYS ASK ABOUT RETURN POLICY. Nor did they believe the phone was faulty. It was. Anyway I was so disgusted the arrogance of the 'apple people', I decided instead of getting a replacement to spend my money elsewhere. I'm still part of the Apple family. But the Apple Store sales assist...