Story Magic

105 - Revising chunks of your manuscript

• Golden May

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about revising large parts of your manuscript!

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • Rewriting words is so normal
  • How to know you have to do it
  • Tips and tricks for rewriting 

Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic

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Emily:

Foreign. Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're **** proud of.

Rachel:

I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And today we are talking about cutting words. Cutting them from your manuscript, Trimming them.

Emily:

Out, killing them, throwing them away.

Rachel:

I was a little more dramatic, but that's fine. Getting rid of. We're talking about killing him. Yeah, we're talking about cutting words because recently. So I brought this topic today because recently I have seen a lot of writers and myself have a need to cut words, and it usually elicits, like, a really strong emotional reaction and emotional response to have to cut chunks of your story. So let me paint a picture of, like, what I'm doing right now, because we've been through a lot. Right. We're a little seasoned in this process, but it still is necessary to have to do this. So I wrote a whole draft. It was like 130,000 words. You know, yay. In the middle part, I had a really hard time figuring out, like, what were we doing for plot points? What are we up to? I, like, knew the midpoint on and I knew the Act 1, but that Act 2, A. Act 2, I had no idea what I was doing at the time that I was drafting it. And I knew at the time I'm probably gonna have to cut all of this or a lot of this or whatever because it's just not. It's not what it needs to be. But there are need. There are words that need to be in this place.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

While I was writing, I knew that that would have to cut. So fast forward, finish the draft. I'm now here cutting those words. And it's like 30,000 words that I'm just taking out and, like, having to completely redo and like, yay, I'm here because, you know, we finished the draft. It does not feel good, but it's necessary. And like, I. I don't love it, but I definitely knew that this was going to happen.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And that there, it just needed to be done. You know, like, you know when you have a task that, like, you don't want to do, but you just know, like, once you. When you got to do it. And once it's done.

Emily:

Yeah, it's done.

Rachel:

Like calling the dishwasher repair man.

Emily:

Like you had to do this morning.

Rachel:

Like I had to do this morning, and now it's done. So anyway, so I'm doing this, and at the same time, I'm working with a lot of other writers, like one on one clients, editing clients, People in tenacious writing that I'm seeing also have to cut words. And everyone kind of had, like, a really different emotion brought up by that. And some people felt like, a really great surprise. Oh, no, I have to cut words. Um, some people felt, like, really frustrated and like, kind of a perfectionism vein of, if I would've only done it right the first time, I wouldn't have to do this. Um, some people were like, okay, I. I knew that this was coming. I'm excited. Let's get into it. Um, and this is all true. Like, one of my one on one clients cut 60,000 words. Like, we did that and took to her manuscript. We knew when we were writing it. This is gonna be really long. We knew that was coming. But I. I really want to talk about how people think that they will get to avoid this and you won't.

Emily:

They think. I feel like people think they will get to avoid this. People think that if they have to do it, it's somehow failing. I feel like those are kind of the two approaches. There's like the pre fear of, like, the fear of having to cut words in the future, and then there's like the present fear when you're actually cutting them of like, oh, this makes me a terrible person.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

And neither of those are true.

Rachel:

Yes. Yeah. And like, you know, this is one of those things that you hear and you're like, oh, yeah, I know that that's gonna happen. And then you get to it and it just like, feels like a punch in your gut of, oh, my God. I had no. Like, I didn't think it would be this bad. Yeah. It's like, nope, everybody does it. Like, this is my podcast today is normalized cutting words. Right? Like, it. It's totally fine. Everyone does it. Um, it's nothing to feel like a failure about. It's also nothing to be like, oh, if I cut 10,000 words, that's acceptable, but if I cut 30,000 words, somehow that's a failure. Like, there's no method. It doesn't matter how everybody does it.

Emily:

I also feel like there's. I think it can be helpful to differentiate that. There's. There's cutting words and there's rewriting. And I think. I think mostly what we're talking about is, like, when you have to cut words to rewrite them versus, like, I, you know, for behind the Crimson Curtain, when I was editing it, after I sold it on submission, we had to. Or no, when I went. When I was editing it, editing it to go on submission, my agent Wanted me to cut 35,000 words. Like, that's just like trimming. Right?

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

I feel like that's one. I feel like that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about cutting words because we have to rewrite scenes, sections of the book. Like, and so.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Emily:

And like, that's just part of the process. Like, so I sent you. I'm working on a. My third story right now. Just call it Project Storm. I sent you, like, 15, 20k of it. And like, I've thrown all that out. When you read it again, it's going to be completely different.

Rachel:

Totally different.

Emily:

And I feel like there's, there's this fear, especially if you've never finished a draft before. I feel like that's where I see this fear the most. If you've never finished a draft before and you've never actually experienced, like, true revisions. And when I say true revisions, I mean, like, you have finished a manuscript and you are now revising that manuscript if you've never actually experienced that process before. I think that a lot of people have this fear that if they don't get the first draft, like, right. That it means that they're terrible or something. And I feel like what I have learned, the more books that I write, is that the faster I can just write it wrong, the better. The faster if I just, like, plan on throwing it all out. Like, then I get somewhere where I can figure out what I'm trying to say. I, I, and I say this from, like, a place of understanding, because I used to be. I mean, if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know, I used to be a chronic rewriter, which meant I threw out words all the time, but I was throwing them out by, like, I would finish act one and then I would throw it all out, rewrite it. And that never got me anywhere. Cause I didn't, I hadn't finished the book. I didn't really know what I was trying to do. Yeah. And it wasn't until I, you know, I got to that place of really knowing what I was trying to do that I was like, oh, like, for me, that's a really fun moment. Because I get to be like, oh, I'm gonna throw a bunch of stuff away. But now I know what I'm doing.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

You know what I mean? And to me, that's more exhilarating. Like, I, I just this morning started my second draft of Project Storm, and I'm like, ah, I can see it now. Like, I know what I'm trying to do. So I don't have that, like, I'm throwing words out willy nilly because I'm like, I can see the vision better than I could for the first draft. And that's hard for me. First drafting is really hard for me knowing that I'm gonna have to throw it all away. Like, I still struggle with that, but I know outside of my body that that's just how it's gonna be. So, like, I'm gonna have to do that once I figure out what I'm trying to do. And so just getting the words out as badly as I can allow myself to, as fast as I can allow myself to, makes it easier to throw them away.

Rachel:

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's a good lesson. And like, I, I've talked about one of the one on one clients that I have where for 10, 15 years she would, she would write like half of a draft and then realize that it had problems and just throw it out and like, start a new story idea. And it wasn't until she finished like, her first draft that she like got it and could see that, oh, okay. I actually really like revisions. This is a fun place to be. And like, I think there's, you get to a point. Drafting really fast is also my preference. I love getting it all out there, but I just like doing that. But I think that, what if you spend so much time on that first draft and like time and investment and emotional weight and pressure on that first draft, it does become really hard to think I have to rewrite these things. What, why? And that there's like a switch that's gotta be changed there of. I'm not saying rush through your first draft because that can't be everybody's process, but I am saying that, like, your first draft, take like £10 off of it, like, get less precious. Wait, you. Yeah, yeah, get rid of the weight. Because it, like, doesn't, it's gonna change so much. And I, I, this is a reminder for everyone. We've said this before, but I think Tiffany Grimes was either on the podcast or was talking to one of our classes and she was like, did you guys know that a book has on average 10 drafts? And like, the people that she was talking to, I think it was in one of the classes that Tiffany Grimes had done for us. But, like, you could see their eyes, like, widen in fear and like, also surprise of like, what, like, not realizing that that's how much time and effort that this takes. And I think we just Talked about this with Caitlin Fisher, but it takes so much time. And if you put all this emotional pressure on it, of course you're going to feel bad. Of course you're going to feel like, oh, what a waste. But it's not. I mean, that's. That's the reframe. It's not a waste. You've not wasted time. The first draft is just a learning, a discovery. And even if you're doing the second and third draft and you're still rewriting or still restructuring and cutting words, um, so it. Like, it's just part of it. It's just part of it. And the sooner that you can move from denial to acceptance, the happier your process is going to become.

Emily:

A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Rachel:

Because it's like, rewriting can suck sometimes. It's not always super fun, but it's just part of it.

Emily:

Accept it, and it doesn't mean anything about you. Like. Like, I think you're a great example, because Blood in the Water, I feel like just like, came out of you and it. Like, structurally, I imagine that you didn't do a ton of rewriting for that one.

Rachel:

No, I did. And this is. This is what I want to talk about. I changed the first half of that book. I just added scenes to. So I wrote more. And then, like, act two would be. I didn't do much two. I rewrote all of act three. Like, the plot of act three for Blood in the Water was completely different the first time around. So all of that was rewritten.

Emily:

Gotcha.

Rachel:

And that was just a straight. We're throwing this away, and it's brand new ideas, rewriting all of it. But I did do a lot of other structural work to, like, move scenes around and add them. But then Only Fools rush in. I didn't have a lot of.

Emily:

Okay, that's the one movement. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel:

And I just.

Emily:

And I feel like. So my. My point that I'm trying to make is that, you know, you wrote. What's the second one called?

Rachel:

Only Fools Russian.

Emily:

Only Fools Russian thing. I was gonna call it the third one. I was like, that's not right. So you wrote Only Fools Russian without having to restructure a lot. But that doesn't mean you're never gonna have to restructure a book ever again. No, like, it's not. You know, And I feel like people have this idea that, like, the better you get at writing, the less rewriting you're gonna have to do, and I don't think that's true at all. Because every book comes to us differently and we learn about it differently. I'm having to do a lot more rewriting with Project Storm than I did for up in Molten Lights. And that's just like, it's a different process because it's a different book. And it says. My point is, it says nothing about the author and their skills that they reach the end of a first draft and it's in some kind of shape. Like, there's no goal for finishing a first draft except that it's finished. And then you get to, you know, you get to rewrite it however many times you want to get it closer to that vision. But you can't know what the vision is until the book is over.

Rachel:

Exactly. Sorry.

Emily:

You just can't.

Rachel:

Yeah. I mean, like, it sucks. Sorry. Period. Like, but you have to be in a position where you can trust yourself that you're still going to figure it out. And, like, trust yourself that the answers will. Will come when you need them. Yeah. Because when I was writing this draft of Caught in the Crossfire, I actually wrote. I'm looking at my document now because I want to count how many words this was. That was five, eight. I had already written 10,000 words more than that. It must have been the first time I wrote, like, probably 10 to 15,000 words of 2A and was like, this isn't right. Scrapped that. Started over, then wrote all of 2A, knowing this isn't right.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

But I don't like it. And then now coming back to it and being like, okay, I can see how I want to connect these pieces now.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

So I was even scrapping as we went, but I did get to a point where I was like, I just have to commit. We just have to go with these ideas even though they're not right, and move on and, like, keep, keep going. But I did want to talk also about, like, how do you know what you have to cut or when? Like, how to do. How to do.

Emily:

What to rewrite.

Rachel:

Yeah, what to rewrite. I also think, like, for this one on one client that I was talking about where we cut 60,000 words, we did cut those and then we had to restructure a lot elsewhere. So depending, like, I think right off the bat, length is a good indicator that you're probably going to need to cut. It's more important if you're going the traditional route. Like, only I don't care the length of this book right now. I am. If it's 140,000 words, great. But I'm self publishing it so no one's going to tell me no. Cool. I don't. I can do whatever I want. But if I was going to try to pitch that to an agent or to an editor, that would be a no. That probably would not get accepted. So I think, like, length is a good indicator that you might need to cut to fit within genre expectations. But if you're going to rewrite, your gut tells you a lot. Like, at the time, I knew that wasn't right, but I couldn't let that derail me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Emily:

I feel like a lot of it has to do with, like, zooming out and doing your revision plan and figuring out, like, what it is that you're trying to achieve with the book. Like, I'm not thinking, you know, now that I'm approaching Project Storm, second draft, I'm not thinking about it in terms of, like, which scenes am I keeping in, which am I cutting? Because I'm going to keep pieces of things here and there all over the place. I'm going to move stuff around. Like, what I'm thinking about instead is, okay, now that I know the story I'm trying to tell, what do I need to introduce? Like, let's. I'm working on. I work in acts, so I'm working on act one just like, on its own right now. And so act one has to, like, introduce the character and, like, what they care about and their beliefs and stuff. And now that I know more about those things, I can think strategically about. Like, okay, where does. Where do I need to introduce information? How am I going to introduce it? What do I need to change about the scenes that I have? What scenes do I need to add? And then just in that process, like, I naturally just. Other words will fall away. So I think taking it out of that language of like, what do I need to get rid of? And instead being like, what do I want to do now? I think can be a helpful reframe so that you're not obsessing about everything that's falling to the wayside.

Rachel:

Yeah. And to be honest, this can take a lot of big changes. Like one of the other one on one clients that I'm working with right now, we finished the most of the first draft of her third or fourth book, like, a month or two ago, a couple months ago. And then she took it to a. To a extra outside dev editor that could get outside eyes from the two of us. And that dev editor came back with really good feedback. But we, we realized we wanted to change, like, a core fundamental piece of, like, each of our characters. Character arcs. It's dual pov. So that basically meant we're gonna rewrite a lot of this. Yeah, a lot of it. We were able to. To reuse some of it, but it's changes in every scene, and then we changed some plot points. So she really did have to, like, rewrite the whole.

Emily:

Almost the whole thing. Normal.

Rachel:

Normal. Everybody does that.

Emily:

Fourth, fifth book, whatever you just said. Yeah.

Rachel:

Huh? Yeah.

Emily:

It's just part of the process. So if you get hung up on fearing it, you're never gonna finish your first draft, or when you do that second draft is gonna be really painful.

Rachel:

So just let go and. And, like, use it to prove to yourself that you can do it. Yeah. Because once you can do it once, then you're like, oh, well, I did it before. Of course I can do it again. It feels, like, really painful and hard and in the midst of it. But then when you're out the other side, you're. It's like having a baby. You're like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah. So I think, like, doing your revision plan is a great advice. Looking at, like, what are the big picture pieces of the story? How is that going to impact the changes that you need to make? What does that look like? In each scene, I make a little spreadsheet. It is the only time I ever use spreadsheets in my writing process for revisions.

Emily:

That's so funny, because I don't use them for revisions. I was just talking about this with our community yesterday. Somebody mentioned it. I think you were working with someone on a revision. They were like, she sent me a spreadsheet. I was like.

Rachel:

I mean, like, use it if you want.

Emily:

But it just made me realize that I'm not. I don't. I haven't used a spreadsheet for a while. And I was like, oh, that's, like, against my personality.

Rachel:

Yeah, it is. No. I got to a point where I was like, there are so many pieces to this story. There's no way I can keep them all. I have a great, brilliant brain. I am very, very smart. But even I make mistakes. Even I forget things. Wow. Um. Yeah, so I actually do use a spreadsheet for revisions, but I make, like. Like, a list of notes for every single scene. And I like, that's when I highlight scene structure, as in revisions. Like, do I have. I just do the big beats on the spreadsheet, like, pro goal, conflict, choice, consequences. And I'm like, are they there? Are we seeing it? If it's not there, then I'M like, this needs to be rewritten or this needs to be changed. So if the scene structure is missing, how does it fit? You know, with my big picture goals. But that's probably a scene that's going to get overhauled and changed a lot. And then I'm trying to, like, connect all the pieces and make them make sense. And it's. Sometimes they're big changes, and sometimes they're little changes, but it. It's just all rewriting.

Emily:

Yeah. And I think if you think about. If you try not to think about, like, quote, unquote, heavy quote, unquote, you know, everything you've wasted, everything you're throwing away. Like, if you try to, like, get out of that mindset and instead be like, look at this new draft. Like, look at this new, like, updated, better version.

Rachel:

Right.

Emily:

Because every time you're making a change, every time you're throwing stuff away, it's because you have. Your gut is leading you towards the. You know, towards the vision that you. I say towards because you don't know, you might rewrite it again, but it's getting closer and closer to your vision every time. And so if you can just focus on that and celebrating that instead of, like, everything that's behind you, like, none of that matters. All that matters is what you're moving towards.

Rachel:

Yeah, I keep copies, too, of everything I take out.

Emily:

Yes.

Rachel:

I always take copies. Yeah. You never know if you're going to need it again. Um, but also, I really like to see how much work I've done. You know, like to be like, I. This chunk that I'm about to remove, it's in this little folder, and I can click on that folder and be like, that's 33,000 words. Cool. Like, I like to be able to have that. To be like, look at all this effort that went into this book to make it better. Like, to make it more in line with my vision. And then I'm. I know when I finish this book, I'm gonna feel probably way more proud of it than my other two. Not that I didn't, like, feel over the moon proud of my other two books, but there just is such a. A feeling that comes from hard work and seeing results, you know, and, like, feeling I like this. You know, I like it better. I'm happy with it. Um, yeah. What else? Do we have any other tips and tricks?

Emily:

I don't think so.

Rachel:

If you're listening to this and you're like, I've never made a revision plan, what is that? We have a couple I think we have a episode about it. Let me find it. I. Well, I know we have an episode about it.

Emily:

We did record one on revision plan in the community. We have a whole course on revisions.

Rachel:

Yes.

Emily:

So if you're in Tenacious Writing, definitely go check that out.

Rachel:

Episode 22 22. How to Start revising your book. Wow. That's going to be such a blast from the past. Because the first note in this episode is Emily is in revisions now. And I think you might have been.

Emily:

Revising behind probably or for to send to agents maybe. I don't know. Something.

Rachel:

Yeah, something.

Emily:

So that's funny.

Rachel:

That's pretty. That's pretty early in our recording. That will be fun to go back and listen to. How did we feel at the time? I will guarantee you though, I complain about revisions in this episode because they are not my favorite thing. But I have accepted part of the process. Right. I. I like drafting way more. But we do it. This is. It has to be done. Um. Yeah. And so we have that course all about revisions in our community. You can join Tenacious Writing and get hands on guidance from us. What is it hands on? I guess you have us like coaching.

Emily:

Step by step guidance.

Rachel:

Step by step guidance.

Emily:

Step by step guidance with hand holding if you need it.

Rachel:

I think there's even a copy of my spreadsheet in. So if you want to see the spreadsheet that I use, go check out that course.

Emily:

Awesome.

Rachel:

Okay.

Emily:

If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Rachel:

Sign up now to get our free email course, the magic of character arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Emily:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Bye. Bye.