Lauren Bjorkman Debuts with MY INVENTED LIFE
Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. Last year, I featured many of the Class of 2k8 on Revision Notes, as they told the stories of how 2k8 Novels Were Revised.
Today, I’m glad to continue the 2k9 Series of revision stories.
Class of 2k9 with Lauren Bjorkman.
Critique: Noose or Lifeline? OR SOMEONE thinks I should change my story. Should I?
by Lauren Bjorkman
The Three Year Novel. My Invented Life is the second novel I both started and finished. At the time, my critique group consisted of four talented writers that I trusted. The first draft took me a year to complete, and the revisions another two.
Here are three examples of how my critique partners helped me in the early stages:
- Strengthen Shakespearean ties. One critique partner commented that my main plot about concealed identities and deception mirrored a Shakespeare comedy. After re-reading several Shakespeare plays, and contemplating this parallel, I changed my main character, Roz, into a theater geek, and set much of the action during rehearsals for As You Like It.
- Include action scenes. Another critique partner, a screenwriter, noticed that I used too many dinner table scenes to show family interactions. Low energy settings are the death knell of movie scripts. She gave me a few ideas on how to change this. In the end, I used one of her suggestions, a miniature golf course, for my opening scene. What an enormous improvement.
- Exaggerated character toned down, but not all the way. But sometimes critique must be considered and then rejected. One of my critique partners thought Roz was too shrill. I stewed for a few days before asking him to clarify. He gave me examples. From them, I figured out that he didn’t like the way Roz exaggerated her feelings. After much consideration, I left in many of these moments because they fit with Roz’s character. But I took some out, and toned some down.
- Give character a redeeming quality. Something an editor recommended at conference helped me with this. She advised us to study our main character’s first ten actions in the story. Was she whiny and self-absorbed, or otherwise annoying at the beginning? The reader could forgive some flaws if the character had a redeeming quality—say, bravery or thoughtfulness.
- Character becomes slightly more introspective. A later critique partner felt that Roz was not introspective enough. That had been my intention, so I chose not to make a big change in my novel. But I did allow myself to loosen up a little, and let Roz reflect more. I believe this made the story more compelling.
None of this magic is possible in the wrong critique group. One writer I know mentioned that every time his critique group met, he felt like hanging himself afterwards. Fortunately, he left the group before anything bad happened. And even with an awesome group, it’s important to sift through all the comments, and decide which are valid for you, and which don’t work for you.
After several revisions of My Invented Life, I showed it to a trusted friend. She loved it, but felt the story lacked gravitas. She believed that I had held back. This was true to some extent. Because of her feedback, I changed a more light-hearted storyline into a suicide attempt.
Critique by Agent
Then, I started submitting my novel to agents. It soon caught one’s attention. He liked my hook and loved the first three chapters. But when I sent him the full manuscript, he decided to pass. After I recovered my balance, I asked him why. He gave me specific feedback, and offered to look at my story again if I rewrote it. His comments resonated with me, so I decided to follow them:
- Skip the tragedy. GLBT teens need upbeat books to read.
This had been my original idea! It was freeing to go back to it. I took it as a green light to up the level of humor.
- Streamline the subplots and characters.
I enjoy complicated and twisted subplots. It’s a weakness of mine. So I followed this advice to some extent, but not fully.
- Focus the story on the main characters, and include more rehearsal scenes.
This made perfect sense to me.
Revisions are NEVER Wasted
The revision took almost a year to complete. When I finished, I sent it to the agent. He chose not to represent me. Still, the time spent revising was not wasted. I wrote a better novel because of his comments. By returning to my first vision for the story, I recaptured the spark and the passion.
With the help of yet another critique partner, I completed one last revision. She made sure that Roz acted herself in every scene. A few months later, I found an amazing agent, who found me an equally amazing editor. The rest is history. My Invented Life will be in bookstores and libraries this today!
Lauren Bjorkman: http://www.laurenbjorkman.com/
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ROAD TO TATER HILL by Edith Hemingway
Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. Last year, I featured many of the Class of 2k8 on Revision Notes, as they told the stories of how 2k8 Novels Were Revised.
Today, I’m glad to begin the 2k9 Series of novel revision stories.
Class of 2k9
“When your editor says your character isn’t stepping up to the plate…” by Edith M. Hemingway, author of ROAD TO TATER HILL (Delacorte Press, September 8, 2009)
Structural Changes?
I consider the process of revision to be the true meat of writing. In fact, I revised my middle grade novel, ROAD TO TATER HILL, for three years before I decided it was finished and polished enough to submit to an editor. So, when I heard from Michelle Poploff, VP and Executive Editor of Delacorte Press, that she was interested in talking to me about my manuscript, I was confident that if she wanted it, there would of course be changes, but surely not major structural revisions.
She was interested and wanted to set up a telephone conversation a week later. I asked if there was something I should be thinking about in terms of revision before we talked. She said, “My assistant and I think your character, Drew, isn’t stepping up to the plate. We’d like you to consider removing him entirely from the story.”
I was thankful this was communicated through email and not face to face or over the telephone because there would have been a groan, a gasp, or a fleeting look of panic. My immediate reaction was, “How on earth could I take my brother out of my book?”
What I neglected to say earlier is that the seed for ROAD TO TATER HILL was my own childhood experience of the premature birth and death of my baby sister. Since I started writing it as a memory of an emotional childhood incident for a creative writing assignment, of course I included my older brother in the story. He was a significant part of the whole experience within our family. As the story evolved into fiction and took on more characters and an actual plot and story arc, the brother in the story tagged along, too. We had always been close, and I could not imagine life without him for either my character, Annie Winters, or me. However, the student in me that constantly strives to improve my writing urged me to be open to all suggestions—especially those from an experienced editor.
Yes, to Editor’s Suggestions
By the time our telephone conversation rolled around, I had come to terms with the change and realized the loss of a longed-for baby sister would be all the more poignant if Annie were an only child. I had even taken the necessary steps to mark every point in the story where Drew had appeared physically, through dialogue with other characters, or by reference in Annie’s thoughts and memory—especially those scenes where he played a significant role in driving plot points. Drew had appeared in 81 pages out of the then 154 total. I had also figured out the perfect character to beef up and take over the plot points that Drew could no longer control—Bobby Miller, the neighbor boy, who not only now became Annie’s best friend, but also added an interesting boy/girl dimension to the story.
Michelle and I talked for nearly two hours—going over those ideas in addition to many other lesser points and clarifications she needed. She ended the conversation by saying she would mail back my manuscript with all her written comments and suggested I think it over for a couple of weeks to decide if I wanted to move forward with these revisions. I did not tell her then that I had already decided—of course I would make those changes and even take them a step further!
Taking Time to Plan Revision
Once I received the manuscript, I spent several days reading through and taking meticulous notes. Then I put together a 4-page revision strategy list which included 9 detailed character improvements, 17 other considerations based on Michelle’s questions, a clarification of the time span of the entire story, and a plan for resequencing some of the major scenes.
Before scheduling our next telephone conversation, I emailed this detailed revision plan to Michelle, so she had time to look it over first. When we talked, her first words were, “You’ve really stepped up to the plate.” I had demonstrated that I was ready, willing, and able to make the revisions they wanted, and they were ready to offer me a contract, even before I completed the revisions.
Yes, there were more revisions required after I finished the first round and even before we reached the copy-editing stage. I even rewrote the entire novel in the first person point of view in order to dig deeper into the emotional core. It sounds as if I made every single change my editor suggested, but no, I didn’t. There were a few ideas that just didn’t ring true to my characters, even though I tried. In those cases, I came up with alternative plans that worked as well or better. I also learned that revisions often need to be done in layers, rather than all at once. One change perhaps leads to another change, which in turn reveals another problem that must be fixed, and so on. The hardest thing for me is to know when to finally stop revising.
I firmly believe, however, that my willingness to trust my editor, listen to her suggestions, and follow through with revisions was critical in landing my first “solo” contract!
Edith M. Hemingway
[email protected]
Road to Tater Hill
Delacorte Press, Sept. 8, 2009
http://www.classof2k9.com
Related posts:
- Cheryl Renee Herbsman: 2k9
- Rosanne Parry: 2k9
Introduced first in 2007, authors debuting children’s books have formed a cooperative effort to market their novels. Last year, I featured many of the stories of how the 2k8 Novels Were Revised. This is part of the ongoing stories from the Class of 2k9 authors and how they went about revising their novels.
Will This Novel Revision Change My Vision of the Story?
by
Cheryl Renee Herbsman
Revision is such an interesting subject. In college and graduate school (in psychology) it was always something with which I struggled. Revision felt to me like I just had to change what the professor wanted me to change to please him/her. And as I did that, I found that the story or novel felt less and less my own.
Agents say, “Drop that character.” The first literary agency that expressed interest in my novel, Breathing, asked me to do a revision. They made a number of suggestions and I worked hard at incorporating the revisions I believed would make the book stronger (such as developing the character of Mama further). But they also wanted me to drop one of the key characters (DC) from the novel. And that was something I just couldn’t do. While they praised my work on the revision, they rejected the novel. This made me wonder if I was going to have to give up my vision for the book, but I pressed on.
Next agent loves novel, as is - and sells it! The next agent loved it as is and sent it out to publishing houses immediately. The book sold quickly, which was very exciting.
Editor requests revisions. When my editor sent a revision letter for my book, I became nervous. What would happen if I didn’t make every change? Would it be tolerated? I decided to hope for the best.
Will Herbsman’s vision of the novel stick? I made all the revisions I believed strengthened the novel (such as giving Savannah a summer job so she spent less time moping, revising the timeline for the program in the mountains so it made more sense, increasing Jackson’s passion for his painting). And I didn’t make the other changes in my book – the ones that just didn’t feel right to me on some gut level (such as removing Savannah’s visions or her saving Jackson from the train). And I sent it in. And . . .
. . . the editor loved it. And she told my agent how impressed she was that I stuck to my own vision of the story and didn’t make every change she suggested. That felt huge to me.
So what I learned with this first book is that it’s important to make changes, yes, but it’s also crucial to be the one holding the vision of the story that gave itself to you.
Post from: Revision Notes
Revise Your Novel!
Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.
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