Amateur To Published: The Fiction Writer's Guide To Publishing

2 - The Developmental Edit

This stage is not about rewriting, but rather about re-structuring your story so that you have stronger characters and a stronger story. You'll be looking at the plot, characters, theme and structure – not the way you worded the story (that will come later).

STEP 1: START WITH THE LEAD CHARACTERS

We discussed how to develop round and vivid lead characters who have personalities, background, objectives and motives behind them. What you're looking for now is:

- Are the lead characters interesting enough for thestory? Are your leads well developed e.g. a distinct personality, a tangiblebackground, well explained motives and with an objective in the story?

- Is the antagonist strong enough and a good complementto the protagonist?

- Are the characters goals and motivations clear,believable and resolved?

- Are the things your character is doing true to hispersonality, background and motives?

- Do the characters sound like themselves all through thebook?

- By the time we get to the main conflict in your storyis the reader rooting for your lead (even if they didn't like him/her at thebeginning)? Have you adequately shown your character's motivation?

- By the end of the book has the character undergonea change?

- By the end of the book does your character stillhave the same physical description?

STEP 2: CHECK THE SUPPORTING CAST

Make sure that you have a supporting cast who aresupportive to your lead and memorable. To do that, ask yourself:

- Do you have a sub-character who is overshadowingyour lead? Their role in driving the story is significant and they have a bigpart in the final outcome of your story? Either graduate them to a leadcharacter, develop them better and add more scenes with them OR reduce theirrole in the story, transferring more of the work to your leads.

- Do you have named characters who disappear without areason? Either add scenes where they appear or remove them from the book

- Is your cast list too crowded? Are there charactersyou can combine?

- Are the members of your supporting cast, distinct inbehavior and appearance and are these elements consistent in the whole book?

STEP 3: ANALYZE YOUR PLOT

Once you're done fixing your characters, yournext step is to evaluate the strength of your plot by asking:

- Is the story interesting and engrossing to the verylast page? Or are there sections that lag?

- Are there too many subplots making the storyunnecessarily long? Or are there not enough subplots thus making the story seemincomplete or too short?

- Is the story introduced in an engaging way? Doesyour story start too early? The book should start as close to the incitingaction as possible.

- Does the conflict gradually but inevitably escalatethroughout the novel i.e. things get worse?

- Does the climax of your story have the most powerfulconflict possible?

- Does the story make sense? Are there things thathappen in the book that are too much of a coincidence, too convenient,logically impossible or physically impossible for a human being? These usuallyappear when you want to get your character out of trouble.

- Do the time lapses within the story make sense and arethey clear?

- Are all your sub-plots resolved satisfactorily? Makea list of all the conflicts that were in your book and make sure that they'veall been resolved.

STEP 4: FOCUS ON SETTING

Making sure that the setting is used appropriately isjust as important as making sure you've got a good story and well-roundedcharacters. To do that, ask yourself:

- Is the setting shown sufficiently?

- Is it appropriate for the story? Or would a differentsetting work better?

- Is the setting used to advance plot, to createtone, or to increase tension?

- Are all the elements of the setting consistent anddo they make sense?

- Does the setting overwhelm the action and plot? Is itemphasized too much that it drags the forward movement of the story?

STEP 5: LOOK AT THE SCENES

You've taken a general look at the book as a whole, nowit's time to go through the book scene by scene. Your first task is to gothrough all the scenes in your book asking yourself:

- Does this scene matter? Is it pushing the storyforward, revealing something about my lead character (s)?

- Is there some sort of conflict in this scene thatis introduced or left unresolved will keep the reader moving to the next scene?Is the conflict sufficient enough to carry the scene?

- Is there a balance of dialogue, narration,description and internal narration? Is the pace of each scene appropriate i.e.not too fast and not too slow?

- Is there a clear Point of View character in eachscene? Is this the person who has the most stakes in that scene?

- Is the setting clearly expressed and appropriatelyused in each scene i.e. the reader has a good idea of where the characters are,the time and the atmosphere?

- Did you get bored in some places? Why? Can you makethose scenes more interesting by adding tension and action or delete themcompletely?

Mark the strongest or most powerful chapters. Youshould have at least one strong chapter for every ten thousand words i.e. a50,000 word novel will have at least 5 strong chapters that are either veryemotionally driven or very action driven. The more strong chapters you have inyour novel, the more you'll keep your readers on their toes. Make sure thesestrong chapters are spread out through your novel. If there are none in themiddle of your book, then you have a sagging middle and need to re-plot yourstory and add a few scenes to juice up that middle.

STEP 6: SEEK OUTSIDE COUNSEL

Some people move directly to the rewriting stage after they're done analyzing their story. However, I'd advise you to write a synopsis of your plot then ask someone else (a fellow writer or editor) to analyze it to see if they too can spot any character inconsistencies and plot holes. The next chapter will show you how to write a synopsis.

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