Season 2, Episode 31: Every Chapter Is My Problem Child
IN THIS EPISODE
This week, Mel reviews chapter 12, and she’s horrified – and not in a good way (that you might want to feel while writing something thriller-ish). She wasn’t happy with it at all.
“Damn, that sucks!”
Kemlo advised her not to think about it being “objectively good”, but about what she wants her readers to get out of this.
Abby quoted Jennie, who was quoting KJ Dell Antonia, in regards to sending your manuscript to agents: “It’s got to be good enough to send out, but not so good I don’t want to change it.” It’s a good mindset to be in if you’re preparing for traditional publishing because it’s going to go through a lot of hands before it sees a bookstore, and changes will happen.
Kemlo cited a writer who said recently that she never reads a book once it’s in print because she sees too many things she’d change, even after all the work of getting it published. You may never be happy with the final product, but that’s OK – focus on your personal best, your personal goals, and aim for that.
Mel’s goals for this chapter were to shore up the internal workings of her protagonist. She thinks she’s improving incrementally overall both in this chapter and the revision, but she still misses stuff all the time. The scenes she’s working on in this chapter are very physical, and making sure everything flows is important – and that level is worked out. Now, she needs to go back and figure out what it means and why it matters to her protagonist.
“There were a lot of places where you were showing her fear and agitation, but it’s how anyone would react. Of course, you’d be shocked and terrified, …but why does that matter to her, given her agenda?”
It’s the magical, making-us-care quality that makes a book hard to put down, which makes it relatable, even if the characters’ lives are vastly different from our own. It’s a skill that takes a lot of trial and error to get right, and that’s revision in a nutshell.
