Revision And Self-Editing Read online

  I'll look at you when I'm good at ready, Sarah thought. She walked into the kitchen. She was a lovely woman of thirty, popular among her friends. Just not with her husband at the moment.

  Another black and white pulled up in front of the apartment building.

  Frank and Sarah heard the bullhorn. "We know you're in there! Come out with your hands up."

  They freaked.

  Sarah knew this meant prison.

  Frank knew what Sarah knew, because he was omniscient.

  Here's a clip of first-person POV. Underline the places where the POV is violated.

  I walked into the deli, looking for her. The place was packed, the people busy with their own food and own problems.

  Then I saw her. She had her back to me, sitting in a booth by the wall.

  With a determined look I went to the booth and sat across from her.

  She was not pleased.

  "How you doing, Sarah?" I said.

  "How do you think I'm doing?" She shook her head disgustedly.

  A waiter with a plate of scrambled eggs came up behind me, said, "I see you've got a friend," and put the plate in front of Sarah.

  "I'll have coffee," I said.

  Coffee is one of those products with a fascinating history. It was primarily known in the Muslim world, but gradually made its way to Europe by way of the Dutch. It was in the Dutch East Indies that European coffee was largely grown. Its health benefits have been debated, but current scholarship indicates that moderate use is beneficial.

  Sarah didn't like having company. "What are you doing here?"

  "I came to find out what you know," I said, my blue eyes flashing.

  Sarah reached in her purse and fumbled for a key. She tossed it on the glass table, where it clanked in front of me.

  "That's all you need to know," she said.

  [ SCENES ]

  In the English countryside they have stone walls to keep in the sheep. Some of these walls have been around for centuries, amazing architectural achievements. The flat stones are not uniform. They differ in color and shape, yet they fit together to form the whole.

  Your scenes are like the stones in an English wall. I prefer that image to bricks, because bricks all look the same. You want your scenes to vary in shape and feel, but when you step back they should all fit together.

  You don't want any stones sticking out at odd angles, or cracked through the center. If you make each scene stand on its own and contribute to the story in an essential way, your novel will be structurally solid. But if you have weak scenes your story may crumble. In this chapter we'll look at approaches to self-editing scenes so your edifice will stand the test of time.

  WHAT DOES A SCENE DO?

  Your scenes must do one or more of the following:

  • move the story through action

  • characterize through reaction

  • set up essential scenes to come

  • sprinkle in some spice

  In addition to these purposes, each scene must have a degree of intensity. This doesn't mean equal intensity throughout. You don't want the cartoon feel of a coyote chasing a roadrunner in every scene.

  But something does have to be at stake in the scene; something has to matter. Even when the characters are taking time to breathe or reflect or regroup, the underlying story question needs to roil, like the bad goo under the streets of New York in Ghostbusters II.

  It is best to approach scenes as primarily involving action and reaction, setup, and spice, which are examined below.

  ACTION SCENES

  An action scene is any scene where a character is trying to get somewhere, solve a problem, move forward in the story. Action doesn't mean a car chase or shoot-out, though those certainly qualify. An action scene is found when you have an objective, obstacles, and an outcome.

  Objective

  Each action scene must have a scene objective. That is, from whatever point of view you're in, there must be a moving force in the scene trying to make something happen.

  • A cop is questioning a witness, trying to get information.

  • A mother who has lost a child is trying to forget her pain.

  • A Navy SEAL is trying to kill five assassins at once.

  • A man is drinking to keep from confronting the fact that he has cheated on his wife.

  And so on. In addition to that, you need some sort of...

  Obstacle

  What person, place, thing, or circumstance is keeping the POV character from gaining the objective?

  • The witness is lying to the cop, and even has a gun.

  • The mother keeps seeing her missing child in every object in the house.

  • Assassins are good at what they do. That's why they're assassins.

  • Alcohol dulls, but doesn't destroy, the conscience.

  As you can see, the opposition element can be outer (as in another character) or inner (as in the character's psychology and thought patterns).

  Further, you can have social opposition. Any group of people who have an interest in the status quo can provide this. For instance, Rick Dadier in Evan

  Hunter's The Blackboard Jungle is a teacher who thinks he can make a difference in a tough school. Most of the other teachers, and the administration, don't think so. This makes for several tense scenes in the book and movie.

  Finally, nature itself can provide opposition in a scene. It can provide the basic opposition for an entire novel or script, as in Stephen King's Storm of the Century. Don't ever get stuck on an island off the coast of Maine in winter if King is writing the story. He's liable to drop a pathological killer in there.

  Nature or circumstance can be a great obstacle when time is of the essence. The character needs to get to town, but the bridge is out. Or a storm puts a tree across the road. Or the car itself breaks down. The nice thing about being an author is you get to choose.

  Outcome

  Each scene has to end at some point. In general a scene can end:

  1] well

  2] not so well

  3] terribly

  In the realm of fiction, the worse the scene ends, either overtly or implicitly, the better.

  Because people read to worry. They want to watch a Lead they've bonded with go through the trials and tribulations of the story. The more success, the less worry.

  Design your scenes, for the most part, so the Lead is in a worse position after the scene is over.

  She doesn't get the information she wants. Worse, she gets some information that hurts her. Worse still, she is knocked out by a hammer. There is an infinite variety of bad outcomes to choose from. This doesn't mean that the occasional scene can't end well. For breathing space, have something good happen from time to time. But get her back into trouble as soon as possible.

  REACTION SCENES

  Where action is mainly about forward progress, reaction is mainly about emotion. It's a window into how the character is dealing with the story

  issues around her. Reaction scenes can be complete unto themselves. Or yon can put a reaction beat into an action scene. When you break it down, the reaction unit goes like this:

  Emotion

  When something happens to us our first reaction is usually an emotional one. This is part of what makes us human. Our emotions are there to protect us, give us instant direction. Sometimes it's a wrong direction, but there you are.

  Your Lead finally gets into the hotel room and finds her husband dead. Emotion is first. The greater the stimulus, the more explicit you make the emotional reaction.

  Analysis

  When the emotions cool, the character must now decide what to do. In the case of the woman and her husband's body, she has some options:

  • hide the body

  • call the police

  • tell the mother-in-law

  • sit and do nothing

  Decision

  Finally, a decision must be made, or the story stalls. This decision leads to the next objective, or action sc
ene. The following diagram shows the perpetual plot motion that action and reaction provide.

  Dwight Swain, in Techniques of the Selling Writer, and Jack Bickham in Writing and Selling Your Novel, cover action/reaction in depth (calling it scene and sequel). For further study, I recommend these books.

  SETUP

  A scene that's primarily used for setting up other aspects of the story should itself contain all the elements of an action or reaction scene. Such scenes should be relatively short and come early in the story.

  For example, a writer may need to set up the family life and a particular trait of one of the characters so when a kidnapping takes place, the trait may come into play later. Let's say the victim is a five-year-old boy with a fear of the dark.

  Select a POV character and create a scene that utilizes or mentions this trait. Say it's the mother, the Lead in your story. You might create a scene where she is arguing with her husband, and they're startled by the boy screaming in his room. She goes to comfort him, thinks about his fear, then comes back to the husband.

  Like spice, below, setup information should be "marbled" into a scene, carefully spread throughout the whole.

  SPICE

  Spice is an ingredient best used sparingly. You can sprinkle it in just about any scene, and sometimes (rarely) make it the basis of an entire scene. Stephen King did this in his novella The Body when he had one of the characters make up a pie-eating story.

  The plot stops, but the spice added draws us in further. Used within a scene, spice can often be the difference between an average scene and a truly memorable one.

  An example is a scene from Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, which was adapted from Mario Puzo's novel. In the film, after Don Corleone has been shot, Sonny orders a hit on Paulie, a low-level soldier they suspect of giving up the Don. The hit is given to Clemenza, the rotund capo regime.

  The spice begins with Clemenza leaving his middle-class home, saying goodbye to his wife, who asks when he'll be back. Just like a guy going to work. She reminds him to pick up some cannoli.

  Clemenza gets in the car that Paulie is driving. Another soldier is in the back seat. They are, according to Clemenza, scouting locations lor a possible mob war. There's small talk in the car, some laughter, then on a back road Clemenza tells Paulie to pull over. "I have to take a leak," Clemenza says, and walks over to the weeds.

  We now get a long shot of the car from the side. We see Paulie at the wheel. And only the weeds and, in the distance, the Statue of Liberty.

  A hand comes up from the back of the car, holding a gun. Two shots to the head.

  Clemenza zips up and goes back to the car and says to the hit man, "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

  The hit man hands the little box of cannoli to Clemenza, and they go their merry way.

  What makes this scene so strong and memorable is the spice of oppo-sites. The normal, family man routine mixed with a mob hit. That's what spice can do.

  SCENE TENSION

  Every scene in your novel should have tension, whether that comes from outright conflict or the inner turmoil of character emotions.

  You create outer tension by remembering scene structure and giving the POV character a scene objective. What does he want, and why? It has to matter to him or it won't matter to us.

  Next, what keeps him from the goal? It may be the opposing action of another character, or a circumstance in which he finds himself.

  Finally, make most scenes come out with the character suffering a setback. This ratchets up the tension for the scenes to follow.

  Even in scenes that are relatively quiet, characters can feel inner tension—worry, concern, irritability, anxiety.

  In Evan Hunter's The Moment She Was Gone, Andrew Gulliver's twin sister, a schizophrenic, is missing. Andrew and his mother, brother, and sis-ter-in-law take stock.

  The sister-in-law tries to lighten things:

  "Then maybe she's hiding out in St. Patrick's Cathedral," Augusta says.

  "Or the Museum of Modern Art."

  I hate it when my sister-in-law tries to be funny about Annie. I think she does this only to gain further favor with Aaron, who by the

  way has never thought any of our sister's little escapades were in the slightest big comical, even when they really were. As for example, the time she peed on a cop's shoes in Georgia.

  "Or maybe we ought to go look for her guru," Augusta adds, compounding the felony.

  "Augusta, you're not being funny," I say.

  By throwing Andrew's irritability against Augusta's "humor," Hunter increases the overall tension in the story.

  Every scene should have one or more of the following elements:

  Conflict

  • Inner: The character's emotional argument with himself.

  • Outer: Obstacles to the objective:

  a] Character: Another character or group of characters with a different agenda.

  b] Social: Rules or circumstances of the community.

  c] Natural: Anything about the physical setting.

  Tension

  • Uncertainty: The character doesn't have enough information.

  • Worry: The character has more than enough (bad) information.

  • Doubt: The character doesn't have confidence in her abilities, other characters, or the circumstances.

  SCENE PATTERNS

  Consider your scene openings. Once the novel is rolling along, you want to jump into scenes fairly quickly.

  A logical pattern of a scene goes like this:

  A = the opening description, to set the scene B = the characters coming on stage

  C = the actual meat of the scene, the conflict or central point

  Many times you can get right to the characters and drop in description as needed. A scene pattern might look like this: B, A, C, or C, B, A.

  Here's an example of a traditional scene:

  [A]

  The bar was dimly lit, and smelled of stale beer. Country music was blaring, some song about lost trucks. Two or three people looked his way.

  [B]

  Steve decided the best thing to do was order a beer and look like he belonged. Then he'd approach Manfred and suggest they talk. That way, there was less of a chance it would look like he was trying to start something.

  He got the beer at the bar, taking note of the gilded wall mirror with various liquor bottles lined up in front of it. He thought of the old Westerns, the way a six gun would wipe out the glass and send people diving. He wished he had one right now, just in case. Manfred was not going to be happy to see him.

  Steve took one more sip, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and walked over to Manfred's table.

  Manfred's red hair was hidden under a black cowboy hat. His pale blue eyes were trained at a big-screen TV showing the Bears game.

  [CJ

  "Manfred?" Steve said.

  Two eyes shot bullets. "What?" "Can we talk?" "I'm watching the game." Steve pulled out a chair. "Won't take a second." "Don't even think about sitting down."

  And we're into the conflict of the scene. This pattern is fine and always usable, but it's a little clunky, like grandma's shoes. You can vary the pattern and achieve a better effect, even cut what isn't necessary. Here's an example of a different pattern:

  "Manfred?" Steve said.

  Two eyes shot bullets. "What?" "Can we talk?" "I'm watching the game."

  Manfred glowered under his black cowboy hat. Only a bit of his red hair was visible. The big-screen TV showing the Bears game competed with the country music coming from behind the bar.

  Steve pulled out a chair. "Won't take a second."

  "Don't even think about sitting down."

  We're at a point in the book where we know who Steve is, know where he's going. We started the scene with the conflict. Now we can drop in details of the setting as we see fit.

  The most debilitating thing about writing is that the voice inside us, the voice we trust more than others, says, "You're not good e
nough, you're not smart enough, what you wrote yesterday really stinks." What aspiring writers should keep in mind is that we all hear that voice, and sometimes that voice lies to us. In fact, when it comes to writing, that voice almost always lies to us. Midway through a book you are going to read back and think, "This is awful."Now it may be awful, but it also may be wonderful and you've simply read it so many times your ear has gone deaf. Don't listen to that voice.

  —Randy Wayne White

  GETTING HIP

  In Plot & Structure I have a section on getting HIP to your scenes. HIP stands for hook, intensity, and prompt. Let me briefly reiterate.

  Hook

  Where you begin a scene is just as important as where you begin the novel. You don't want to give a reader any reason to put your book down. You may think you have some time to take a break once you're rolling along. No breaks.

  Create something at the beginning of a scene/chapter that pulls the reader in. You can introduce a new character. This is what Steve Martini did in three consecutive chapters in The Jury:

  Chapter Six

  Jimmy de Angelo is forty-seven, a former street cop turned detective.

  Chapter Seven

  William Epperson is the mystery man in our case.

  Chapter Eight

  Dr. Gabriel Warnake is a private consultant under contract to the county crime lab.

  Dialogue is another good hook technique, as it means something is happening now.

  "Don't turn on the light," she said.

  I didn't dare. Didn't want to be seen from the street. The apartment smelled of last night's pizza.

  You can use setting to begin a scene if you make it interesting enough, and then get to the action. Here's how Max Phillips does it in Fade to Blonde:

  Halliday's office was in one of those modernistic buildings that look old six months after they're built. It had a two-story lobby with a streaked glass wall in front and steel and terrazzo staircase in back. Everything was covered in dusty green bathroom tile. It was trying hard not to seem cheap. It looked like Rebecca's boarding house in a ten-dollar suit. As I climbed the stairs ...

  How you open a scene is a matter of strategy. What is the feel you want your book to have? Is it fast moving or does it take its time? Is it more about the interior character life or outward threats? Is your intended readership those who like commercial fare or literary fiction? You will choose scene openings accordingly. Do you want a leisurely opening for your scene? One that sets the mood and then eases into the action?