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Thought I'd put up some Easter-related items here, since we are into March. This is part of a licensing package I've been working on.

Yesterday afternoon I had the privilege of reading Never Fall Down, Patricia McCormick's most recent young adult novel.  Never Fall Down is inspired by the life of Arn Chorn-Pond, who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide and went on to become a musician-peacemaker celebrated by Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and many others.  Rare is the writer who could take on such a subject and do it honorably.  For very good reasons, Chorn-Pond trusted Patty, a journalist whose earlier young adult novels—Cut, My Brother's Keeper, Sold, Purple Heart—are both deserving literary prizewinners and commercial successes.  Patty McCormick's career is proof that you can write with great meaning, originality, purpose, and more than a little poetry and still find a fervent readership.

I'll have more to say about Patty McCormick in the weeks to come.  For now, please watch the video above, in which Patty and Chorn-Pond (introduced to one another by one of Patty's neighbors) speak of the making of Never Fall Down.

4 Ways to Slim Down Your Novel

After reading over the first section of the novel that I’ve just revised, I realize that I want to cut some of it. It’s not bad the way it is, but cutting 10-20% will help.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vernonwhite/3327754571/

Beats. One way to do this is to look at the individual beats or actions within a scene. Is each one necessary? Can I shorten each scene in the novel by 10%?

Cut scenes. I also realize that I might could cut one small scene entirely. The problem is that this scene is in the alternate POV, so if I cut it, then I have to give this character a different POV-scene.

Combine scenes. I don’t want too much going on in one scene, it needs to stay focused. But there might be one or two scenes that don’t have a sharp enough focus in this novel. If I take the narrative parts, information that needs to be given to the reader, and put that into other scenes, spread it around, I might be able to eliminate a scene.

Brisker Prose, Please. One critiquer of a novel manuscript asked for, “Brisker prose, please.” This is partly using great verbs, cutting adjectives, etc. But it’s also about writing tighter overall.

Related posts:

1. Writing a Novel in Scenes
2. 3 Ways to Salvage a Scene
3. Big Scenes

I can see this getting addicting, and since it is only mildly dangerous - so what?
Dangerous only because I am slightly reckless with knives. I did, once, in a job interview, saw off part of my thumb with a knife while cutting lettuce. Strangely enough they offered the job anyway. Beginning of the boom in alberta where they just needed people I suppose. I was a cook for a long time though and I do still have all my fingers!

So, aside from that disgusting diversion, here is the latest piece in my quest for clothing of cut paper. The faces are done in gouache, background in acrylic and clothing in cut paper.

10 Ways to Start the Process of Re-Envisioning

How do you start revisions? You’ve got a great draft, and it’s pretty settled in your mind that this is how the story happens. BUT, readers aren’t thrilled with it. Editors and agents pass it by with a nice personal letter. Great, you think. There’s something here, but it’s not quite right. How do you start the process of re-envisioning such a story?

Some suggestions:

1. Add, subtract or combine characters. Add a new best friend, or a new villain. Take out a character who has supported the antagonist, leaving the antagonist to his/her own devices. Combine two friends into one, especially when it will combine contrasting characteristics in a quirky way.
2. Give a character a definite attitude. Find a certain scene that troubles you and do this: give one of the characters a definite attitude about what is happening. The character loves the current event, despises it, wishes his sister were here to deal with it, - anything. Give the second character a competing, but not opposite point of view: this character also knows the sister would do a better job of things, but is determined to do it herself, without sister’s help. Now, re-write, focusing especially on the dialogue.
3. Switch POV. Write a scene from a different point of view and see where it takes you.
4. Change setting. Put the scene in a different setting, a different time of day or season. What changes? What is possible in the desert is not possible on the beach! What difference does this setting make to the story?
5. Cut the first three chapters. Begin the story at chapter four and make it work; don’t allow any back story to come into the story until page 100.
6. Question assumptions about characters. Yes, Snively Whiplash is still the villain, but maybe he sings rock music and you never even knew it. And he’s striking back right now against your character because at a Karaoke, the antagonist didn’t recognize Whiplash in his disguise and actually laughed at his singing. OK. A bit melodramatic (Snively does that to a story!), but you get the idea. Have you assumed a character is all good or all bad? Find the opposite quality in him or her. Question something basic about one or more characters and carry it to the logical extreme.
7. Raise the Stakes. How can you make the outcome of a scene matter more to the antagonist or protagonist? The lost necklace belonged to Melanie’s grandmother, who brought it from Poland when she fled the Nazi regime. It had been given to her by her fiance before he went off to war and was never seen again. THAT is the missing necklace and it matters deeply to Melanie, who loved that grandmother. Or, make the stakes broader, with wider effects: the fire set by Jimmy and Prissy in the woods has spread and now threatens the whole community.
8. Rethink the Plot Complications. What obstacles does the main character confront? Can you add one more, in the form of a subplot? Try to change the obstacles in intensity, scale, or sheer amount of aggravation. Instead of one puny kid objecting to the character’s call as a soccer referee, let the biggest kid argue the call; or let the whole team gather round our poor character and let him talk his way out of that one! Or, instead, the whole team heckles him throughout the rest of the game, nothing enough to get them thrown out, but enough to aggravate.
9. Drastic Rewrite #1: Retype the whole manuscript, with the idea that you must change something on every page as you rewrite. But when a revision takes off, follow it and give it free rein.
10. Drastic Rewrite #2: Put the manuscript in a drawer and open a new computer file or take out new notebook paper. Tell the story again, without looking at the first telling. Do this chapter by chapter if you have to until some new idea takes hold, and then go with it.

Caution: NEVER delete an old manuscript or type over it. always keep a copy, in case you need to go back to it. Often changes go too far and you need to back track some. The previous drafts are helpful to remind you of the options you have already explored and which worked and which didn’t.

Post from: Revision Notes Revise Your Novel! Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Characters That Count
2. 3 Ways to Salvage a Scene
3. Talk, revise, streamline, investigage, read, envision, play

At first I wasn't sure what I'd do for this, but the first thing that popped into my mind was a song called "Enough." Then I remembered a sketch I'd done about 4 years ago - I was doing a lot of stained glass back then and it was a design for a glass panel (entitled "Ascension"). It also reminded me of one main aspect of my faith - that Christ's death and resurrection were "enough." The debt is paid in full.

Ramble Underground seeks fiction and poetry submissions. Submit one story or up to 3 poems, 100-4000 words. Pays US$15 per story. More details...