Author profile: Gabrielle Harbowy
Gabrielle Harbowy is a freelance editor who has edited many published and forthcoming works of science fiction and fantasy. She is Editor-in-Charge at Dragon Moon Press, and is the San Francisco Bay Area chapter coordinator for the Editorial Freelancers Association.
Website: Gabrielle Edits
Website: Gabrielle Edits
Some writers will do these scenes first, then drop them into place with a little refining when their time arrives in the manuscript. Others will keep them in mind, or simply outline them for later.
For today’s purposes, we’ll call these scenes the “good parts”. The parts you’re most looking forward to writing.
A first draft will often have two types of content: the “good parts” and the “other parts”. The other parts are the parts that need to happen to get to the good parts. They’re the bridges that link pivotal scenes together, or impart important information, or provide backstory and exposition and otherwise set things up.
You know exactly what I’m talking about, right? You can’t wait to write the confrontation between the monster and the heroine. But you know that first she has to go check out the abandoned building where it’s hiding so that it can see her, and her colleagues have to scoff at her for monster hunting so that she’ll be all alone for the confrontation you have in mind, and she has to go to the library and find clippings of vague and creepy stories about the monster that give her an idea what its weaknesses might be. You don’t especially want to write those parts, but you need to get through them to get to the part you do want to write.
If you’re the type of writer who hurries through the other parts to get writing on the good parts, that’s fine. For a first draft, it’s fine.
When you put that manuscript away for six months like Scott Sigler’s told you to do and you take it out of the drawer again, you’ll be able to tell the good parts from the other parts pretty easily. The good parts will be descriptive, lush and involved. They’ll draw you to keep turning the page. The other parts will be, well… utilitarian. Light on detail, heavy on marathon dialog or marathon movement sequences, without much combining of the two. You won’t know what anything looks like, sounds like or smells like, you’ll just know What Happens Next.
Here’s the thing, though: When you want to sell readers on your book and keep them engaged, all the parts have to be good parts. If you lose your readers in the in-between passages, they won’t stick around for that great scene you’ve got fifty pages from now. They won’t care what happens when the heroine meets the monster.
The rewrite is the time to identify the other parts and turn them into good parts. Make sure every scene is there for a reason, and make every scene a good scene. Don’t just go back in and sprinkle adjectives around, or toss gratuitous movement around the dialog and call it done. It’ll show. Choose words that add something to your story. Add description and ambiance where they belong. Give each scene something pivotal, something endearing, something humorous, something surprising… something special. Draw the reader in. Do something memorable. While in practice, every scene might not make it to become someone’s favorite scene, every scene should at least have the potential.
If a scene is a boring necessity to you, it’ll be boring to your reader. And it won’t be a necessity to them. There are plenty of other books for them to read out there that are interesting all the way through. Here’s a great goal for your rewrite: Don’t give your reader any hint at which scenes were easy or hard or interesting or dull for you. Cut out anything the story doesn’t need, and add life to anything your eye skips over as boring. Flesh out anything that’s necessary but that was undeveloped in your haste to get it on the page so that you could move on. And this should be the larger goal of your rewrite: make every part a good part.
For today’s purposes, we’ll call these scenes the “good parts”. The parts you’re most looking forward to writing.
A first draft will often have two types of content: the “good parts” and the “other parts”. The other parts are the parts that need to happen to get to the good parts. They’re the bridges that link pivotal scenes together, or impart important information, or provide backstory and exposition and otherwise set things up.
You know exactly what I’m talking about, right? You can’t wait to write the confrontation between the monster and the heroine. But you know that first she has to go check out the abandoned building where it’s hiding so that it can see her, and her colleagues have to scoff at her for monster hunting so that she’ll be all alone for the confrontation you have in mind, and she has to go to the library and find clippings of vague and creepy stories about the monster that give her an idea what its weaknesses might be. You don’t especially want to write those parts, but you need to get through them to get to the part you do want to write.
If you’re the type of writer who hurries through the other parts to get writing on the good parts, that’s fine. For a first draft, it’s fine.
When you put that manuscript away for six months like Scott Sigler’s told you to do and you take it out of the drawer again, you’ll be able to tell the good parts from the other parts pretty easily. The good parts will be descriptive, lush and involved. They’ll draw you to keep turning the page. The other parts will be, well… utilitarian. Light on detail, heavy on marathon dialog or marathon movement sequences, without much combining of the two. You won’t know what anything looks like, sounds like or smells like, you’ll just know What Happens Next.
Here’s the thing, though: When you want to sell readers on your book and keep them engaged, all the parts have to be good parts. If you lose your readers in the in-between passages, they won’t stick around for that great scene you’ve got fifty pages from now. They won’t care what happens when the heroine meets the monster.
The rewrite is the time to identify the other parts and turn them into good parts. Make sure every scene is there for a reason, and make every scene a good scene. Don’t just go back in and sprinkle adjectives around, or toss gratuitous movement around the dialog and call it done. It’ll show. Choose words that add something to your story. Add description and ambiance where they belong. Give each scene something pivotal, something endearing, something humorous, something surprising… something special. Draw the reader in. Do something memorable. While in practice, every scene might not make it to become someone’s favorite scene, every scene should at least have the potential.
If a scene is a boring necessity to you, it’ll be boring to your reader. And it won’t be a necessity to them. There are plenty of other books for them to read out there that are interesting all the way through. Here’s a great goal for your rewrite: Don’t give your reader any hint at which scenes were easy or hard or interesting or dull for you. Cut out anything the story doesn’t need, and add life to anything your eye skips over as boring. Flesh out anything that’s necessary but that was undeveloped in your haste to get it on the page so that you could move on. And this should be the larger goal of your rewrite: make every part a good part.
