6 Essential Truths about Editing a Novel, Learned the Hard Way

Revision is one of the most exhilarating and, at the same time, daunting aspects of writing a novel. Although typing “The End” does mark an important milestone—after all, you just created an entire world out of nothing—“The Beginning of the End” might be a more fitting tag. A successful novel must satisfy on so many levels (language, logic, characterization, world-building, theme) that is can take multiple passes get everything working together to maximal effect.

I recently finished revising, for the umpteenth time, a novel that I wrote over five years ago. Back then, after several rounds of revision, I sincerely believed the novel represented my best effort and could not be improved in any significant way.

How wrong I was!

The current version of this novel is so much stronger that I’m embarrassed I ever thought those earlier versions any good. In many ways, this latest version hardly resembles those earlier incarnations at all.

When I began writing fiction, I had no idea how important—and lengthy—the revision process was. Since I’m a plotter who writes very slowly, agonizing over every sentence, I naturally considered those sentences, and the chapters they comprised, more or less “finished” once I squeezed them onto the paper. However, once I started critiquing the work of other writers and seeing how their manuscripts evolved and strengthened over multiple drafts, my resistance to editing softened. I’ll now be the first to admit that only through extensive serial revisions can a novel reach its fullest, most satisfying potential.

Experience has taught me these truths about editing:

1. You can’t know the real story until you have the entire thing down on paper.

No matter how carefully you plan out your story ahead of time, new ideas surface during the act of drafting. The more you write, the more you discover about your story and characters. It is difficult to know exactly what you are working with until the entire mess is down on paper. Only at that point can you see the relationship of the parts to each other and to the whole. Over time, I’ve learned it's much more effective and artistically freeing to plow through the initial drafts of a story, focusing on plot and character development without getting hung up subtler issues, especially language. Once you’ve got a mass of lumpy brown clay on your wheel, you can begin to spin and tease and shape it into something beautiful.

2. If you have misgivings about some aspect of your story, don’t ignore them.

Listen to your heart, as the old song advised. If, once you have your initial draft on paper, something doesn’t feel right, figure out what it is and fix it. Don’t be afraid to change things up just because you wrote them a certain way first time around. I see now that in earlier versions of my novel, I had forced the plot in a certain direction because the story had too many characters. I had to distribute motivations and actions among them all, making it very difficult to fit all the pieces together in the end. I managed to do it, but this forced resolution never rang true. Removing a couple of characters crystalized motivations and allowed the resolution to evolve in a more natural and convincing way. I would have saved much time and mental anguish if I’d admitted earlier on that those characters, intriguing though they were, unnecessarily complicated the plot.

3. Focus on one particular issue per revision.

A single edit doesn’t have to fix every problem in a manuscript. Often, it is more helpful to read through a manuscript several times, focusing on different aspects with each read. For example, read through first for plot continuity and plausibility problems. Strengthen characterization on a second read. On a third, find ways to clarify theme. One of my last revisions, for example, focused solely on deepening a certain relationship in order to achieve a more emotionally satisfying dénouement. Although it is difficult not to polish as you go, try to save language tweaking for the final edit, after all cuts and additions have been made. You don’t want to waste time fixing awkward phrasing or repetitive wording in passages that might disappear for other reasons.

4. Other eyes are crucial in determining what's wrong with or missing from a manuscript.

After working on a novel for years, it is difficult to have enough distance to assess its flaws. A trusted reader, be it a well-read friend, a critique partner, or a skilled agent, can uncover issues and make suggestions that could lift your manuscript from good to great. It can be useful to have different people read subsequent drafts, so that their impressions are always fresh and not colored by what they remember from before.

5. Less is more.

This truth, the hardest for me to learn, is now the mantra I repeat over and over as I review my material. It is easy to locate and excise superfluous adjectives and adverbs, repetitive phrasing, and wordy transitions. However, less obvious things can bog down a manuscript: excessive internal thought, projection of future events, detailed stage direction, unnecessary description, filler dialogue. Over-explaining, my particular weakness, can also bloat a draft. Trust the reader to fill in gaps and make connections—readers want to play an active role in the construction of sense. The goal of editing it to remove the dross so that the gold can shine.

6. It can always be better.

Now, instead of dreading revision, I look forward to it. I embrace it as a challenge, rather than evidence of failure. It is exciting to see a strong, engaging text emerge from a flabby mass of words and ideas. Though he spoke of sculpting, Michelangelo's words capture the purpose and joy of editing:

"I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free." 

Free the angels in your own work! Happy editing.

******
Do you have any editing tips or techniques to share?

An Anne by Any Other Name: What to Do When Historical Characters Share the Same Name

In the novel I am currently working on, this sentence:

François said to Charles, "Never cross Anne."

could mean sixteen different things.

Yes, you read that correctly. Sixteen.

You see, in this novel there are four François, two Charles and two Annes: four different subjects who could be counseling one of two characters against annoying either of two others. The King could be warning the emperor not to vex the royal mistress, or the court portraitist cautioning the prince not to betray the grand master, or perhaps it is the Arabic-speaking Italian painter tipping off the prince about the duchess... If I've done my math correctly, readers of my novel could understand the aforementioned sentence sixteen different ways.

Did I intend to confuse and confound them?

No. That's simply what happens when historical characters bear the same name.

At one point or another, most writers of historical fiction face the challenge of how to differentiate between historical characters who share identical given names. The task is not trivial, since readers will abandon a book if they are unable to keep its characters and their relationships straight. Writers of contemporary fiction avoid the danger by endowing their characters with unique and unusual names that distinguish them from every other member of the cast (and imaginary characters, unlike modern children, are not burdened with having to repeat and spell these original names aloud each they make a new acquaintance). Writers of historical fiction, however, are bound to respect the given names of their historical characters if they wish to remain true to the historical record. In early modern Europe, convention forced parents to choose baby names from a restricted roster of saints, historic figures, and ancestors; in some regions, the birth order of the child limited these options even further. Just as an author of historical fiction has little freedom in choosing which characters figure in the action of the historical events she recounts, she has even less leeway in deciding what to call those characters.

These circumstances can result in the author having to tell a tale involving, ahem, four François, two Charles, and two Annes, with a Catherine thrown in for good measure.

The problem becomes even more complicated when one takes into account other issues, such as the fact that historical figures are often referred to by different names in different countries and that what the characters call each other is not necessarily what the narrator must, or should, call them.

So what can an author do to prevent her reader from becoming hopelessly befuddled? Here are some of the strategies I've employed:

1) Provide contextual clues. 

It happens that one of my Annes is a man (the duc de Montmorency) and the other a woman (Anne d'Heilly, the duchesse d'Étampes). So if a passage describes the cut of Anne's gown or examines Anne's duties as Grand Constable of France, the reader should be able immediately to surmise which Anne is in question. Likewise, one of the four François is king, the other three artists; the king would probably not bemoan the laziness of apprentices, nor the artists debate the details of a peace treaty. Setting (boudoir versus council chamber, throne room versus studio), interlocutors, topic of conversation, actions and inner dialog should all offer clear indications as to the identity of the characters. If not, there is more wrong with the scene than faulty nomenclature.


2) Use honorary titles and/or place names instead of given names.

In my novel, I usually refer to Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, as "the emperor," "Charles-Quint," or "le Hapsbourg" in order to distinguish him from the king's son, Charles, the duc d'Orléans. Since another duke figures prominently in the action, I cannot, except in precise circumstances, refer to the king's son as "the duke"; I must call him "Orléans" and the other duke "Montmorency."Anne d'Etampes, on the other hand, is the only duchess, so she enjoys the privilege of claiming that title and avoiding confusion with Anne de Montmorency. As two of the Italian artists are Francescos, one becomes Boulogne (French for the man's city of origin, Bologna), and the other goes by his last name, Pellegrino. Using honorary titles or designating characters by their place of origin avoids the problem of identical given names altogether.

3) Substitute nicknames.

Another way to simplify the problem is to invent or unearth nicknames for your characters. As King François's best friend and his lover are both Annes, I have him call his mistress by the diminutive form of the name, Annette. Anne d'Étampes and Orléans, when speaking of their common enemy Anne de Montmorency, refer to him by a private nickname known only to them--"l'Autre" (the "other" Anne). One of the artists, François Clouet, goes by the historically documented nickname Jamet. Both he and his father, Jean Clouet, used the nickname interchangeably throughout their careers (much to the chagrin of art historians). In the novel, I restrict use of the nickname to the son, thereby distinguishing him both from his father and from the other two artists named Francesco.

4) Provide a list of characters at the beginning of the book.

It is particularly helpful to include, for the reader's easy reference, all the titles and nicknames associated with each character throughout the story.

5) Ensure that the names of fictional characters are different from each other and dissimilar to the overused historical names.

When creating fictional characters to round out a historical setting, endow them with distinctive, memorable names. Like any good modern parent, I found obscure, yet historically documented, names for my fictional characters: Tiphaine, Agnolo, Sandro, Faustine. Little chance, I hope, of the reader confusing them with the more prominent Annes, Charles and François.

Final words of advice: once you, as author, decide how to distinguish between similarly-named characters, BE CONSISTENT in the terms you use. Don't refer to a character one way in the first chapter and a different way in the next. Of course, characters will refer to each other in varied ways, depending on their social status and degree of intimacy; again, decide how each character will address the others and do not stray from those conventions.

Your readers will not only thank you, but might even remember your name.

*********
Readers: How do you prefer to see an author handle this issue?

Authors: What devices do you use to avoid name confusion?

I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Lessons from Barcelona

No, this post is not about Lionel Messi beating Christiano Ronaldo in the race for the Pichichi (yay!) nor about Pep Guiardiola's resignation as head coach of the soccer club (boo!). It is about a book, an international bestseller an agent suggested I read as a "how-to" guide on creating successful historical fiction.

Set in fourteenth-century Barcelona, Ildefonso Falcones's CATHEDRAL OF THE SEA recounts the adventures of Arnau Estanyol, a fugitive serf who rises to become one of the city's richest and most influential citizens--and ultimately a target of the Inquisition. The story of Arnau's life parallels that of the elevation of Santa Maria del Mar, a magnificent cathedral built by the humble fishermen and dockworkers of Barcelona and to which, over the years, Arnau contributes his labor, his money, and his devotion. A six-hundred page novel of "friendship and revenge, plague and hope, love and war," CATHEDRAL OF THE SEA invites comparison with epic novels like Hugo's LES MISERABLES and Dumas's THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. First published in Spain in 2006, Falcones's novel has since been published in 32 counties and has sold more than two million copies worldwide. It won the 2006 Euskadi de Plata award for the best novel in Spanish, the Qué Leer 2007 Prize for best book, and the Giovanni Boccaccio 2007 award for best foreign author.

Falcones obviously struck a chord with readers of all types. What lessons does CATHEDRAL OF THE SEA offer for writers of historical fiction hoping to achieve similar success? Here are some guidelines I gleaned from my reading of the novel:

1) Think big. The scope of CATHEDRAL is grand on every level. The time span covers some sixty years of Arnau's life and Barcelona history. Every level of Catalan society, from prostitutes and dockworkers to merchants, noblemen, bishops and kings contributes to the expansive cast of characters, all of whom find their point of intersection in Arnau. Historical topics range from pottery production to money-lending to architecture to canon and civil law. Passions--love, hate, revenge, forgiveness--rage with little restraint. The rising cathedral serves as a metaphor for the book itself, growing stone by stone, word by word, to encompass a vast expanse of space and light.

2) Celebrate the unusual. Fourteenth-century Barcelona is a relatively unfamiliar setting compared to Tudor England or Revolutionary France, yet it is familiar enough for readers not to feel lost. As Catalan history is but a footnote in most history books despite the region's historical significance, Falcones had a wealth of material to share with readers hungry for novelty. CATHEDRAL explores out-of-the-way corners of Barcelona, exposing hidden facets of Catalonian society: life in the walled Jewish quarter; the travails of the tight-knit community of indispensable bastaixos, or stevedores; the methods and psychology of the rural Inquisitor. Exploiting heretofore unexamined niches in political and social history hoists a novel above its more conventional competition.

Photo credit: ferran pestaña

3) Throw any and every misfortune you can think of at your characters. Arnau's loved ones face execution, die of plague, kill themselves, abandon him; he carries boulders on his back, withstands starvation, rots in a dungeon, loses an immense, hard-won fortune; misunderstandings separate him for years from those most dear to him. Writers are advised to "get the character up a tree and throw rocks at him"; after scaling a giant redwood, poor Arnau had a quarryful of boulders catapulted at his head. Sometimes I wanted to scream, "Really?" BUT I KEPT READING. I read on not only to see what Falcones would dream up next, but how Arnau would weather the ever-lengthening list of misfortunes. Was he physically, spiritually and emotionally strong enough to withstand the onslaught?

4) Create definite heros and villains, who receive their just desserts. Arnau remains ever the strong and virtuous character--patient, generous, loyal, industrious, guided by principle. The few dishonorable acts he commits cause him immense guilt. He seeks vengeance on his enemies, but only after they have treated him with inexcusable barbarity. The villains often border on cliché, but Falcones is careful to display enough of their motivation to preserve them from caricature. In the end, the good characters win, while the evil ones suffer horrible fates. As rewards are seldom distributed equitably in real life, it is immensely satisfying to the reader to see justice meted out in fiction.

5) Rape all the women. I'm only partially kidding here. All of the female leads in CATHEDRAL suffer sexual or physical abuse at the hands of men. Not wishing to psychoanalyze the author, I will extract this lesson from the evidence: Don't whitewash social conditions and practices of the past that offend our present sensibilities. Poverty, injustice, and oppression affected medieval women to an inordinate degree; physical abuse was an inescapable consequence of a woman finding herself in dire circumstances. Compounding this is the fact that some of what we now consider physical abuse was regarded as normal, even responsible behavior in times past, behavior women were conditioned to accept and even expect. To gloss over such realities because the modern reader wants "strong female characters" distorts the historical record and borders on fantasy.

6) Treat universal themes. Theme links the world of the past to that of the reader's present. The oppression of the disadvantaged by the rich and powerful occurs as often in the twenty-first century as it did in the fourteenth, albeit by different means. Likewise, forgiveness and generosity of spirit continue to heal individuals and societies now, as then. Despite the material differences of life in disparate eras, general truths persist; give readers thematic fingerholds to cling to as they navigate the unfamiliarity of the resurrected past.

7) Leave some issues unresolved. There is no need to explain everything or tie up each thread neatly. Most readers like to have questions left to wonder about after they have finished reading a book. Does it matter what Character X was doing during those years he was absent from the main action? Is Character Z's ultimate fate of importance once her interaction with the main character has concluded? Leaving spaces in the narrative for the reader to exercise her imagination allows her to become more involved and invested in the story.

8) Over-the-top works, as long as the characters are equal to the action. Grand actions require grand emotions, and vice versa. Extraordinary events will overwhelm petty characters; expansive characters will wither in restricted circumstances. Compatibility between character and action conditions the reader's "willing suspension of disbelief." If, from the start, a book's characters confront extraordinary events with singular courage and resourcefulness, the reader will be swept into the current and able to accept what might otherwise be deemed outrageous. Don't be afraid to go for the gusto, as long as you apply the broad strokes of your brush to the characters as well as the action.

A superbly crafted and intensely engaging novel, CATHEDRAL OF THE SEA deserves the acclaim and awards it has garnered. It is the type of novel I, as an author of historical fiction, ultimately aspire to write. But examining how Falcones fashioned his masterpiece and successfully incorporating its lessons into my own writing are two entirely different matters... If only writing a novel were as easy as analyzing one!

But I'll continue to strive towards my goal, for, as Arnau (and the footballers) have made abundantly clear, great achievement requires the greatest of effort.

Visca Barça!

Words to Write By

Moonrat, the anonymous editor at editorialass who shows us what it's like on the other side of the desk, advises writers who are obsessing over the slow pace at which the publishing industry moves to distract themselves by writing. She says:

The thing is, and I can vouch for this, writers develop really quickly and constantly, so the next book you write will--guaranteed--be better than the one  you've already written. This is a reason for you absolutely to keep writing and writing.

Just what I needed to hear. Thank you, Moonie!