Hot damn I love this, and I also talk to the tv in a similar way. It drives my daughter crazy, so I’ve tried to rein it in. I suppose if I can do that I can also stop the endless revisions!
Your suggestion of reverse outlining (going through all the chapters backwards back to the beginning) is the first best story editing strategy I have ever seen. My novel is not completely out of my head onto paper or into a Word doc. But whether all the bits, pieces and chapters fit in or contribute enough to the central story (in particular, the ending) is already on my mind as I go. Second, your suggestion of checking the flow some time after finishing, when there is enough time to read the entire novel in one sitting, is a great continous spot check strategy. To me, writing a novel is in some ways similar to sailboat racing. The boat (book) that sails smoothly enough through rough seas (agent or acquisitions editor) finishes first. Experts say on the boat (book) that wins, the skipper (author) who makes the most number of best decisions (writing or editing decisions) and least mistakes and whose boat (book) has the best flow over the entire course (over all the pages) gets published and reaches best sellerdom or some similar desirable state or at least gets read by more readers than it otherwise would. Both of your editing suggestions are extremely valuable tools to have in one's writing toolkit (Stephen King concept).
Somewhere I have a picture of my failed novel (2007-2013) printed out and hanging on my office wall. It was still 140K words and I was physically cutting up whole sections of the printout and taping them into other chapters hanging elsewhere on the wall. This physical wrestling with the thing seemed to help, but ultimately nothing did.
Hot damn I love this, and I also talk to the tv in a similar way. It drives my daughter crazy, so I’ve tried to rein it in. I suppose if I can do that I can also stop the endless revisions!
Michelle,
Your suggestion of reverse outlining (going through all the chapters backwards back to the beginning) is the first best story editing strategy I have ever seen. My novel is not completely out of my head onto paper or into a Word doc. But whether all the bits, pieces and chapters fit in or contribute enough to the central story (in particular, the ending) is already on my mind as I go. Second, your suggestion of checking the flow some time after finishing, when there is enough time to read the entire novel in one sitting, is a great continous spot check strategy. To me, writing a novel is in some ways similar to sailboat racing. The boat (book) that sails smoothly enough through rough seas (agent or acquisitions editor) finishes first. Experts say on the boat (book) that wins, the skipper (author) who makes the most number of best decisions (writing or editing decisions) and least mistakes and whose boat (book) has the best flow over the entire course (over all the pages) gets published and reaches best sellerdom or some similar desirable state or at least gets read by more readers than it otherwise would. Both of your editing suggestions are extremely valuable tools to have in one's writing toolkit (Stephen King concept).
Somewhere I have a picture of my failed novel (2007-2013) printed out and hanging on my office wall. It was still 140K words and I was physically cutting up whole sections of the printout and taping them into other chapters hanging elsewhere on the wall. This physical wrestling with the thing seemed to help, but ultimately nothing did.