The Five Principles of Revision | what to look for when editing a novel

[@leech1355]

Here are my 5 Cs for revision: catastrophising, cringing, crying, choking on my ineptitude, chloroforming myself

[@ShaelinWrites]

this is too real

[@engleharddinglefester4285]

Chloroforming lol. Pass the rag!

[@kevinwest2798]

You’re already on C? I’m still revising my 5 As for revision…once I get past angrily amalgamating I get a serious case of Lister‘s Block.

[@cjpreach]

My current revision plan includes 12 Revisions/Drafts. Each Draft focuses on a single perceived weakness in my novel. A few are (1) Verb Strengthening, (2) Specificity, (3) Character Voice Consistency, (4) Set-ups and Pay-offs, (5) Sensory Details (sights, sounds, tastes, textures, smells), (6) Pacing (Does it drag or rush ahead?), (7) Sentence/Paragraph Lengths, (8) Elimination of low-impact material. I plan to send Draft #11 to my editor and Draft #12 to Query Agents.

[@shebreathesingold8043]

Shaelin, you mentioned finding causality problems that you later had to fix for months. Could you make a video focusing on the "biggest" edits you've had to make on each of your major novels? The ones, like causality, that took the longest to fix? Speaking in general terms, and not giving any specific plot details to any work you intend to publish, of course! Anyway, I'd love to see videos like that because some revision issues like causality are pretty big when you don't even know they are present in your work and so many editing/revision videos focus on cosmetic problems. I like that you're focusing on big narrative problems.

[@ShaelinWrites]

I go over this for Honey Vinegar in my video on every draft of my novel! It's linked in the description!

[@keyraedynamite]

Shaelin, you are my literary lifeline 😭 lol

[@ShaelinWrites]

💛💛💛

[@joyrebeccapalmer]

Hi Shaelin, new subscriber here 🙋 your videos are just what I've been needing! Your insights into writing are incredible, thank you 😊!

[@nebelblade1809]

my biggest challenge is the internal conflict stuff and natural plot flow. i was a beginner pleb at writing; now that im more experienced and using vital resources, i think i can actually rewrite my novel now. thanks.

[@imaginativebibliophile549]

Shaelin, I often find the process of revising and editing more difficult than the process of writing a draft. I can easily find problems in my manuscript, but I need to be able to effectively fix such problems in the story. I have been editing my short stories, The Graveyard’s Wish and The Path Departing From Whispering Fields for submission to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. I have also bern coming to the end of my historical fiction novel that I spent the past year working on. The winds carry a sense of love as I write and this video certainly helped with the revision aspects. Clarity is an important issue in my writing. I love you

[@SOLIDSNAKE.]

You are seriously the best!!! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! I've been gaining so much more confidence

[@jackhaggerty1066]

*Some writers we know by voice, like singers.* Critical Distance - A Literary Education with Elizabeth Hardwick. By Darryl Pinckney. *The New Yorker* September 19 2022. This issue has an insightful review of Elizabeth Strout's new novel, a poem by Jorie Graham and short story by Ben Okri.

[@campwriter9289]

This is brilliant and so timely, I am deep in the credibility stage! I don’t know how many times I thought this manuscript was done only to realise nope there’s more to add! I’ve also just decided to take a portion of the beginning of my book and break it up in pieces and distribute it throughout the story in flashbacks, so that’s fun🤦‍♀️ Thank you for this, it will be a great resource for future projects!

[@lesliemoiseauthor]

I'm revising my 100,000 word historical novel about Julian of Norwich, and this was very helpful.

[@jackhaggerty1066]

I look forward to reading your novel. Mother Julian's medieval context has interested me since Barbara Tuchman's *The Distant Mirror : The Calamitous 14th Century* (Wiki). I searched Wiki's List of 14th Century Religious Leaders and she is not mentioned, an omission, nor is Dun Scotus, died 1308. I am Scottish hence interest in Duns Scotus. I wonder if Julian had thoughts on the Western Schism and on the popes of her time. I am thankful Boniface VIII was dead by her time; Boniface, a thug, said men were damned unless they were in communion with him !

[@lesliemoiseauthor]

@@jackhaggerty1066 Thank you so much for your interest--and for giving me these good leaping off points.

[@jackhaggerty1066]

@@lesliemoiseauthor Correction : *The Jewish Poets of Spain* Penguin Classics. Look up these great and still unknown poets online. Rabbi Singer gave a KZbin talk a few days ago from Jerusalem about Christian fundamentalists targeting Jews in Israel.

[@jackhaggerty1066]

My second comment did not go on. I mentioned The Book of Margery Kempe, Gawain and the Green Knight & the Gawain poet (the Pearl) about the Black Plague. England's land-owning class spoke French, after the Plague, which killed 50 p.c. of England, the peasants wanted higher wages. The French-speaking elite badly needed labour for their estates and there was a shortage of labour after the Black Death. The Pearl is a long poem about loss and trauma, focussing on the death of a child, riddled with numerology & symbolism. I suggested in my comment that Jews may have been scapegoated for the Black Death, Rabbi Singer has much to say on this. Robert Gluck published a novel in 1994 about Margery Kempe.

[@lesliemoiseauthor]

@@jackhaggerty1066 Marjorie Kempe makes an appearance in the novel, after Julian is in the anchorage.

[@BlackHermit]

I love the table at the end! Thanks, Shaelin!

[@nesser52]

Great timing, I'm revising 2020 story for publishing finally 😌

[@surgeorosgo]

I am a novelist, looking for inspiration from other novelists. I am looking to be a Beta reader if you would like one. I would love to read the project you're working on. Maybe I can help🤷‍♂

[@MariJadeWrites]

I am editing my standalone debut novel and it's indeed true, consistency is something i needed to look out for. Had some clarity issues as well and developing needed to be edited by my editor because i have a hard time spotting what's not clear. Thank you for the tips ☺️

[@surgeorosgo]

I am a struggling novelist, looking for inspiration from other novelists. I am looking to be a Beta reader if you're looking for one. I would really love to read part of this novel you're finishing.

[@MariJadeWrites]

@@surgeorosgo hi, hopefully you can get your writing done regardless of some struggles! And that would be great if you would like to read my story ☺️

[@AdamFishkin]

Today was where I scheduled the start of huge revisions, so these principles are nick-of-time reminders. The cohesion part was already a top-tier priority in the undertaking, but clarity and causality are the constant crevice (as in slipping through the cracks) casualties. So that shall be fixed.

[@tomlewis4748]

Everything you've said here is very important, and I agree totally that to do revision effectively one must examine things at all these different levels and try to be guided by these principles. It's good to have feedback from you that helps convince me that I'm on the right track. So thank you for this. I am also going to take a screenshot of that little chart at the end, and refer to that every time I revise a scene. Your timing is good because I've been a little concerned about something lately: I have a trilogy in which the global genre is a courtship love story. But there are two main subplots-a buddy love subplot and an action/crime subplot. There are also internal genre subplots some of which are very integral. At times a subplot may begin to actually dominate things, in a particular scene or a particular chapter or a particular sequence. I'd been worried the story had been jumping around between all of these things too much. Eventually, I came up with a particular guideline, which is 'if an event in a subplot also impacts the main plot (and vice versa), then it's OK to structure things where a subplot might dominate for a short period'. IOW, that helps make it all one connected story. The reader won't feel as if they are being forced to leave a particular storyline that they're enjoying to get to a different storyline in a subplot. Or the story feeling disconnected or anthological It seems like this is kind of what you're saying about coherence. If you have a clearer take on that (clarity regarding coherence!), please don't hesitate to let us know. Of course, it would be difficult to do this in certain genres that typically point to a big climax, such as a performance story, war story, horror story, or in particular a thriller. A love story is much more about the journey than it is about the destination, so I think (I hope) I can get away with this based on the global genre in the story. Once I realized that this is already what I was doing, making the events in the subplots impact the main plot, I understood what I was doing was probably the right thing to do, and that it wasn't just an incoherent mashup.

[@AshleysThoughtTalks]

Thanks for giving us the 101!! 💕👍 I don't like Google's definition which says giving someone the 101 is a basic thing like it's bad--- I always said it in a good way. I thought it was fitting because you're at 101k subs. (When someone asks me what time it is and it's 1:01 AM or PM, I'll hold the phone up to them and say "just giving you the 101. :)" I found your channel a few days ago and really enjoy the tips. I very much enjoy writing, as well as seeing what others have to say about it. Keep being you and enjoying what you do! Also, thank you for sharing. :)

[@PoetlaureateNFDL]

Thanks will share this with my writing group.

[@atablarasa]

I have found that listening to the story helps find all the Cs.

[@KSCdd]

Congrats on 100.000 Subs! Totally deserved😊

[@wrigleyextra11]

pacing is currently beating my 🍑 with my revision, especially at the end - it seems like it should be simple but I am having trouble land the beats in a way that has the gravity a third act needs. Very frustrating but encouraged by this video! 🍜🥡🧃 sustaining my soul right now 💛✊💪

[@surgeorosgo]

I am a novelist, looking for inspiration from other novelists. I am looking to be a Beta reader if you would like one. I would love to read the project you're working on. Maybe I can help🤷‍♂

[@evilgenius97]

My problem is i need to move forward,ive done enough re editing for now

[@royaldigitalmedia]

We're all going to be pros after this.

[@uglyluffy7815]

Another banger as usual

[@MeganFarison]

You are so awesome! Thank you for your videos!

[@GenLiu]

To me, the easiest to get through is consistency. Not that it's easy, mind you, but just that it's the one that tends to stand out when you reread your manuscript. Now, of course, it's easy to miss things (especially the kind of example you mentioned, with the black lamp that becomes yellow three pages later) but compared to the rest it's the easiest to navigate (at least, for me, personally). The hardest is, by far, clarity. The problem with clarity is that you, as an author, know what your story is about. You know your characters, know where you're going...The reader does not. This is where troubles start because it's extremely easy for a writer to miss some information or think something is explained well while, in reality, it's not. Also, as you rightfully pointed out, you may face situations where something has to be explained but you didn't even think it was necessary. It's not usually the hardest issue to fix once you spot it but it's the hardest to spot.

[@katherinecooper8694]

Great advice as always :) thank you

[@leech1355]

Now that I’ve finished the video, serious comment time. Something I’ve been dying to ask for a while, and your credibility section really gives me a chance to, is about your process researching to bolster your story’s credibility. I feel like someone who doesn’t know anything about anything. I have projects I’m scared to take on because I know how much work it will take to make my subject matter authentic. So would it be possible for you to please maybe do a video on your research process? Particularly I would want to know how much of it you do up front, considering you’re a discovery writer like me and doing pre work isn’t really what we enjoy, and what do you do when you’re drafting and get to parts that are outside of your understanding, do you carry on and make notes or stop right there and research? And what tools do you use etc? Sorry for the long comment but I think this topic isn’t spoken about a lot and it’s my biggest insecurity with writing. Thanks as always!

[@ShaelinWrites]

Okay so...I really wish I felt more able to do a video on research but it's something I feel Bad™ at lmaoo and something I kind of do randomly/without a real process haha. I do most research on the fly because it's hard to anticipate what information I'll need, except for stuff that I know I need to pre-develop a concept in some way (ex. i'm planning a book where the protagonist works in a morgue so that requires some pre-research). I liked looking at a mix of first and second hand sources, but find first hand sources especially helpful. For my historical book, I lucked into finding some books my grandma had that were someone's lived accounts of the time/setting the book took place, so those were invaluable.

[@kokoro_flow]

@@ShaelinWrites wow~

[@jackhaggerty1066]

Hey Leech, heavy research must feel like climbing a mountain. I am no Hamish MacInnes, but I'd say that finding the best route of ascent is all important. You can only do so much climbing in one day, so it is essential to keep the summit in mind (even when it's very misty). You can make pre-work research enjoyable, or at least tolerable, if you keep drafting bits of the the story as you go along. Kate Atkinson wanted to write a novel covering the whole of WWII, but set down limits for herself and wrote *A God in Ruins*. Research on postwar Europe could begin with Keith Lowe's *The Fear and the Freedom - Why the Second World War Still Matters*. Lowe's is a backward view and begins with an elderly Viennese woman who was living in south London when Lowe interviewed her. Richard Cobb was an Oxford Uni professor and wrote much about France - *French and Germans, Germans and French* Penguin. The discovery writer is searching for material all the time, as often as not in old books found by chance. Chance is a good friend. There are two kinds of chance finds. Material directly related to the project and extraneous material which adds depth to the project. A bunch of old magazines ( *The World of Interiors* ) gives you an idea about an old house in England, France or the Italian Alps. So the houses and the people who live there will become a part of your emerging story. Discovery research is part of discovery writing. The other day I found *The Life of an Irish Soldier* (1939) by General Sir Alexander Godley who was born in 1867, a very eventful life. A military story set in this period would be impossible, but a photo of Godley & fellow officers in Gallipoli in the snow drew my attention. Perhaps the great-granddaughter of an officer who survived the hell of Gallipoli would be the story. The route of ascent will surprise you. Keep a discovery journal like Lydia Davis's eclectic *Essays* (2019) which take her everywhere. Clarity will emerge from the confusion.

[@Barjavelle131]

@@jackhaggerty1066 That was such a precise, realistic and valuable comment on this complicated topic, I'll remember what you said, thank you.

[@jackhaggerty1066]

@@Barjavelle131 What do I know ? but I am glad you found it useful, Aesthete. I am rereading one of Hamish MacInnes's best books, *Climb to the Lost World* which took Hamish and his team through the dense rain forests of Guyana to the forbidding summit of Mount Roraima. He opens with an enigmatic quotation from Walter Raleigh. The dangers faced by the writer are with one's own mind, despondency can lead to despair, and many writers just give up. I was sad to learn that Randolph Stowe, who wrote a brilliant novel *Visitants* , lapsed into silence. David Malouf another Australian novelist (*The Great World* *Harland's Half Acre* ) has said he no longer has the same drive. Michael Shnayerson's biography of Irwin Shaw has a comment from Norman Mailer who said writers need a superhuman drive to be productive : Mailer said the writer needs an internal engine to stay airborne, something he learned from studying aeronautical engineering at Harvard. New Zealand novelist Maurice Gee said he is all written out but he gave us a steady stream of first-rate novels over the years. Barbara Pym's publishers dropped her in the 1960s : the support she got from Philip Larkin got her into print again. Read her wonderful biography *The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym* by Paula Byrne. Penelope Fitzgerald started fairly late and gave us a number of perfect novels with very different settings. That is why writers must recreate themselves by going to science, music, theatre, film, painting, dance, architecture, sports. Writers hunt for images every time they go on holiday, go for a stroll, watch theatre & films, attend concerts, go to a party. Nabokov said of Henri Cartier-Bresson : *His eyes were like darts, sharp and clever, limpidly blue, and cleverly agile.* Read Nabokov's lectures on literature and the 2 volume biography by Brian Boyd. His pupils said he was the best teacher ever.

[@ShuyaTheDark]

1:50 Reminds me of the joke about "What did the writer mean that the curtains were blue? ... That they were friggin blue!" In reality, I think the writer SHOULD have a reson to point out small details like that. Don't say the lamp is red if it doesn't matter, you'll forget about it and say it's a different color later on. If instead, the main character noticed it was red becase "he hated that it was brightly colored instead of simply white or black and it didn't match the room and other furniture", maybe that's important to point out.

[@slandersir7255]

wow 100k subs well done

[@jackhaggerty1066]

Writers engaged in revision should read Sidney Lumet's very intelligent memoir, *Making Movies* (Vintage paperback). Chapter Nine *The Cutting Room* has lessons for the writer of fiction, the biographer, the poet and memoirist. Pictures are NOT made in the cutting room, explains this supreme professional.. But editing scenes can make some movies feel longer. The director of Serpico, Network & Long Day's Journey into the Night, gives a poignant description of Margaret Booth, brilliant film editor. She was an embattled woman, in continual conflict with studio management who knew nothing about film making. She broke down in tears. *A good place to make an audio cut,* he writes, *is on a plosive, a P or a B. An S works well.* *Most consonants will work as the point where you can splice two different audio tracks together.* *Vowels are harder because they are rarely at the same vocal pitch and you might hear the difference at the splice or cut.* You can see an old interview with Sidney Lumet on KZbin. Charlie Rose is the interviewer.

[@coreyh1956]

Hello. I have learned a great deal from your show. I feel guilty, because I am getting all your knowledge for free. I will have my novel completed and professionally edited this year. Do you review books? If there is a cost, I would like to know the amount. I live in Niagara Falls Canada Kind regards, Corey

[@thesamuraiman]

💜⚡️

[@FalloutUrMum]

Here's another tip. Print a bunch of punctuation on the last page and tell the reader "If anything is missing then you know where to shove it"

[@jackhaggerty1066]

The wittiest wee book on punctuation I have read for a long time ... *Semicolon* by Cecelia Watson (Fourth Estate paperback). She has the grace and savvy of a New Yorker reporter.

[@brianketaren5132]

👍👍👍

[@ThatBoomerDude56]

You changed shirts between videos today. 😝 (Your latest Reedsy video uploaded 2 hours after this one.) 😎😎

[@ShaelinWrites]

Haha I don't film them on the same days!

[@billyalarie929]

I AM SO BAD AT CAUSALITY I NEED A WHOLE FUCKING SEMESTER ON IT

[@PuffPets]

Unfortunately - the only way I can address clarity is to set it aside for 30 days or have someone else tell me what they dont get.

[@ShaelinWrites]

Those are honestly the best ways to find clarity problems!

[@JoseGonzalez-yw5iz]

I'm stuck and don't know where to take the story.

[@tejaswinisureshkrishnan4228]

Me watching this video after being done with editing is funny 😂

[@ShaelinWrites]

congrats on being done with editing!! you're living the dream!

[@tejaswinisureshkrishnan4228]

@@ShaelinWrites Thank you 💗

[@lexuschambe5787]

Wait but why seussical😭😭😭

[@ShaelinWrites]

literally bc my elementary school did Seussical and so when i think of elementary school musicals it's all i can think of lol (also some thematic stuff but it's pretty subtle)

[@LucijaC24]

Clarity problems are best found with help of Beta readers.

[@rev6215]

I got the notif.. came here to comment "first" and my internet connection went off. Maybe it's a sign that I need to stop this cringefest