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Revision Tip #5 & love from Missouri

This one might seem obvious on the surface, but writers are very good at rationalizing and can come up with all kinds of logical-sounding reasons why they should ignore it.

Three words.

What. Happens. Next.

Stories are supposed to flow like a river, not remain still while your character treads water neck-deep in a pool of exposition. One of the fun things about revising is figuring out how to make the story move forward while slipping in those little bits of backstory that contribute to the reader’s understanding of the character.

For me this often winds up being a pacing issue.

Yesterday I was working on a chapter that had three scenes in it. Scene #1 transitioned from the previous chapter. Scene #2 was rather lengthy, but interesting, I thought, even though the main character was mostly observing the action around him, and that action (while based on fascinating historical evidence) only had a little to do with the larger Story of my character. Scene #3 was short short, because I blathered on so long in Scene #2.

The first option was to break off Scene #3 into its own chapter. I tried that, but it didn’t work. The chapter that was weighed down with Scene #2 was a big snore. I tried cutting out Scene #2 completely. Nope, that didn’t work either – the reader and character need to see what happens in it.

Just before I went to bed I figured out how to fix it. I’m going to trim back Scene #2 and add one element that has an emotional connection to my character. That will make the first half of this chapter move swiftly (I hope) and build the tension leading up to Scene #3. In that last scene, I’ll have the room to craft both the external and internal conflicts, and lay the groundwork for the transition to the next chapter.

Does that make any sense? Neil Gaiman mentioned this concept in a more elegant style (sigh) on his blog yesterday. (Scroll down to his response to the first reader’s question.)

Emily wrote asking when I was going to publish a book about the writing process.

Answer: As soon as my publisher asks me to. That’s why all these revision tips are wrapped up in fifty layers of copyright protection and guarded by my dog. (But if you are a teacher, feel free to use them in your classroom.)

In other news. TWISTED is a nominee for the Missouri Gateway Reader’s Award (along with two other books that Superintendent Daniel Freeman of Montgomery County School District in KY feels are not suitable in his high school: DEADLINE, by Chris Crutcher, and UNWIND, by Neal Shusterman). The Gateway Award is aimed at high school readers.

Missouri extended even more love my way by nominating CHAINS to Truman Award list (sorry, don’t have a link yet). This one is for middle school/junior high readers.

Thank you, Missouri!


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Award Lists & Revision Tip #3

Santa’s elves arrived in the Forest early this year!

They brought the news that WINTERGIRLS has been named a Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Book of the Year, Kirkus’ Best YA Books of 2009, Booklist’s Editor’s Choice of 2009, the 2010 Texas Tayshas High School Reading List and nominated to YALSA’s 2010 Quick Pick List! It has also been nominated to the 2011 Grand Canyon Reader Award by the very nice people in Arizona, who were kind enough to nominate…


CHAINS as well, on the Tween List for the Grand Canyon Reader Award.

Each one of those lovely lists feels like another filled stocking in front of the fire!

REVISION TIP #3

Many people struggle to find a way to look at the larger picture of their novel. They can line edit a page or take a chapter to their writer’s group, but managing the unwieldy novel is hard.

Here is what I do.

1. Get the largest piece of paper you can find. I go to an art supply store and buy an enormous artist’s pad for this task.

2. You need to carve out three hours of concentration time. Turn off the internet and phone. Loan your dog and children and partner to nice people who will return them fed and watered after the the three hours. Chain off the driveway so delivery trucks and friendly people who don’t understand what you mean when you say "I’m working" can’t drop in.

3. On one of your massive sheets of paper, list every chapter in your book. Describe the action in the chapter in one sentence.

4. Now prepare a separate action list. (This one will take up a couple of sheets of paper. (Did I mention that you ‘ll need to clear off the kitchen table for this? And maybe the floor?) This list will break down each chapter into the scenes. Keep it brief! F. Ex.: "MC (main character) drops homework in fish tank. Fish die. MC hides them in flower vase. Mother sees them and flips out."

5. (This is the fun part) With a colored pen or pencil, go through the detailed chapter list and make notes about the emotional arc of your MC and the important secondary characters. Also, make sure that changes in mood are properly motivated, and that conflicts are set up. You might use different colors to represent different plot elements.

6. The threads of your novel are laid out in front of you. Step back and study it. Do your characters have reasonable emotional responses to the actions in the chapters? Do the building levels of conflict appear in the right order? (I often move scenes around at this stage.) Which scenes and/or chapters can you completely remove from the story without affecting anything else? What characters can you eliminate? Do you have any characters that can be combined because they serve the same purpose in the story. (I do this a lot.)

7. By the end of this process, your papers will be covered with notes, stickies and lots of colored arrows.

8. Sit down with the giant map of your novel and apply the changes to your manuscript. I like to do this on a hard copy first, then type in the changes.

9. Don’t forget to unchain the driveway and let your loved ones back in.

Dang, this is a long blog entry. Still with me? Questions?

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Marvelous Monday!

This is how to start the week off with a smile: CHAINS has been nominated to the longlist of the Carnegie Medal!  What is the Carnegie Medal, you ask? It is the top award for children’s novels in England, sort of a combination of the Newbery and the National Book Awards. I am completely blown away by this – honored, stunned and very, very happy.

  British hardcover                                British paperback

I had a blast at the American Association of School Librarians conference this weekend. I signed thousands of books, met countless friendly and passionate librarians and gave a speech. Thank you to everyone who made my conference so much fun.

Half a ballroom of librarians. (The other half of the room was filled, too!)

Many people asked me to post my speech online. We will be doing that soon. Here are a couple of snippets that people responded to the most. Permission is granted to reproduce, with proper acknowledgments, of course.

I talked about the recent censorship challenges my books have faced and then said this:

"I believe that every time a library budget is cut, every time a librarian’s hours are cut –  or the position is eliminated completely –  it is another form of censorship. It is stealing from children and interfering with their education.


Taking books out of libraries and taking librarians out of libraries are just like ripping the roof off of a school. And maybe that’s how we need to describe it, in the dire, stark terms of reality. You can’t run a school that doesn’t have a roof. You can’t run a school without librarians and libraries.

Book people – like you and me – tend to be a little uncomfortable with conflict. We value discussion, we respect other opinions. We avoid fights.

 When I was kid, I was not allowed to start fights. If I did, I knew that I’d be in a whole lot more trouble when I got home than I could ever be at school.But my mother – she of the hats and gloves and ugly purses –  told me that if anybody ever hit me first, I was allowed to punch back as hard as I could.

“Don’t you ever start a fight,” Mother said.  “But if somebody picks a fight with you, by God, you finish it.”

The people who do not value books or librarians have picked a fight with me. That was a mistake.

They are ripping the roof off our libraries, off our schools. They are exposing our children to ignorance and condemning them to poverty. When they rip the roof off of libraries, they weaken our country."

 

[I’m cutting out a little from this section]

 

"Those of us who truly, deeply care about the health and happiness of kids and teenagers have a sacred obligation to help them along their path to adulthood. We are charged to create and to find the very best books for these children.

 

To hand a book to a child or a gawky adolescent is to rescue her from the unforgiving isolation of illiteracy and transport her to the joyful and rewarding kingdom of an open mind. 

 

I cannot think of a job more difficult or more important than yours. Reading is not a subject matter. It is a survival tool, the  requirement of modern living.  Libraries are not luxuries. Libraries are the lifeblood of our schools and the foundation of our culture."


I hope my words might help, a little.

One last conference note. The other banquet  speaker was Charles R. Smith Jr. Do you know his work? Have you heard him speak? If not, go out RIGHT NOW and pick up some of his books. Then arrange to have him visit your school – he is the best speaker I have seen in a very long time.

Charles and I sitting on chairs that look like thrones…. it was approaching midnight and we had just finished signing a kajillion books and so we look a bit tired. But how can you turn down the chance to be photographed in a chair that looks like a throne?

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Warming Up

I am going to try and write the Mother-Of-All-ALA reports tomorrow. Yes, with pictures. I have a particularly fine one of Neil Gaiman taken from approximately 400 miles away.

First up: thank you for all the kind wishes about the death of my father-in-law. BH and I appreciate each and every one. With the deaths of his father and my mother coming so close together, we’re both a little off-kilter right now, kind of like the earth has become sea and the deck of our ship tilts in unpredictable ways. But between the two of us, and with the love of our kids and friends, we lean on each other and stay upright most of the time.

The Horn Book has many great articles online this month. I strongly encourage you to read and discuss Nikki Grimes important essay, "Speaking Out" about the inexcusable fact that no African-American illustrator has yet won the Caldecott. (Leo Dillon won as a team with his wife… Grimes focuses on singular winners.)

(For the record, I agree with her.)

Love books? Love basketball? Then read this article about the literary basketball league my daughter Stef started across from Word, the bookstore she manages in Brooklyn. She has also started a literary matchmaking service. Yep, you better believe I’m proud. Yay Bookavore!!!

And from the Change Topics Completely File, I wanted to share the cover art for the British paperback version of CHAINS:

What do you think?

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What do you get when you cross a writer with a computer programmer?

What do you get when you cross a writer with a computer programmer?*

You get a book-loving daughter who manages a bookstore in Brooklyn and writes a column about technology. My oldest, Stephanie, aka Bookavore, has started a regular column on Shelf Awareness dealing with developing technology that can connect booksellers to readers and authors.

Her first article explains Twitter and how fast, easy, and useful it is for all of us living in the bookosphere.

BTW, if you do live in the bookosphere, you ought to sign up for Shelf Awareness. It comes out M-F and contains publishing news, bookselling news, library news and great reviews. It’s the only e-newsletter I get.

Other tabs to close. The Christian Science Monitor has a very nice review of CHAINS.

If your Internet habit is interfering with your writing, you should read Cory Doctorow’s advice.

I still have a handful of questions about writing and publishing to answer. I’ll get started on those tomorrow. Right now? Another chapter!

Scribblescribblescribble…

* I would love to claim credit, but it was Stephanie who came up with this line. Her biological dad, Greg Anderson, is the computer programmer. Which would make me the writer, yeah.

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