First, news! A draft cover design shaped thing has arrived in my inbox for We Are All Ghosts In The Forest! Next week subscribers will get some behind the scenes insights into the process of developing and agreeing a cover design, and some sneaky hints about what this one might look like!
Also, with our novella publication approaching, I will be inviting fellow Luna Novella author and beloved friend Knicky L. Abbott to share the opening chapter of her breathtaking Bajan dark folkloric romance Tanglewood in a fortnight, and hopefully asking her a few questions about the story behind the story.
If you like your stories dreamy, dark and mesmerising, keep your eyes peeled!
NOW THEN!
I am in the midst of my Big Edit of a book called The Salt Oracle - a same-world-but-not-sequel follow up to We Are All Ghosts In The Forest that will hopefully hit the shelves maybe possibly in 2025 if my editor doesn’t hate it.
This edit is where I do my most significant changes, where I turn a first draft into something that I’m not horrified to share with other people. It’s a kind of reverse outlining that while I love it, can feel huge, so a lot of my methods are about breaking it into tangible, unscary pieces.
I thought I'd share the process I go through at this stage in the hope it might be of interest or use to you wonderful creatures. With the usual caveat that there is no one rule to rule them all when it comes to editing, and this is a process I’ve jury-rigged from various other systems - we all need to find the methods and tool that work for this book and this self, but I hope you enjoy my explorations here regardless of how well they fit your own needs.
So without further ado. Take one (1) first draft. In this instance of a dark academia / lit SF / murder mystery and begin…
Step 1. Gather the Index Cards
The aim of this step is to populate a stack of index cards with a very brief summary of what happens in each scene/chapter.
If I have a single Point of View character, then I might use different coloured cards to indicate chapters that occur in different locations, or on different timelines. In this instance, I have three PoV characters (1 major, two secondary), so I’m using different colours for each.
Again if I have a single PoV, I’ll have one card per chapter. But in this case I have one card per PoV scene (some chapters contain two PoV sections).
This stage is fairly easy to race through if you use Scrivener and can click between chapters/scenes quickly. It’s even smoother if you just so happen to keep a note in Scrivener’s Synopsis box of the scene contents (hello yes, I learned to do this specifically to make this stage easier, but it also helps navigating the document, I find).
Step 2. Data, Beautiful Data
This stage involves a little more mental wrangling. It’s also super subjective so use this stage to think about the metrics that matter for your story, whether that’s emotional tension, external plot dynamism, fear levels, etc.
For each index card, I fill in a few key datapoints. For The Salt Oracle they were:
The plot function of that scene - what did it do to the external or internal arc of the character. This could be a note like ‘REVEAL OF NEED FOR FREEDOM’ or ‘FIRST HINT OF X’S MOTIVE’ or ‘MONSTER ATTACK’.
An index of emotional tension from 1-5. This is super rough and I do lots of scowling at the card wishing I hadn’t banned myself from half marks. But it gives a sense of where my character is sitting in terms of trauma, anger & general feels intensity.
An index of external tension from 1-5. Again, super rough, and concerning the action level, the physical dramatics going on.
Because it pleases me, I tend to do each of these in different colours. Sadly, my spoons are so depleted that this time I couldn’t get up the energy to corral my coloured pens from their various hidey holes, so it’s all in pencil. I know. The tragedy. HOWEVER. I do put each one in a specific place around the outside of the card. Each index has its own corner, for example. This makes for easy scanning in step 3.
Step 3. The Lounge Floor Of Joy
My cats love this stage.
I lay out all my beautiful index cards in order across the carpet. I remove the cats that are sitting on them and take a moment to appreciate their glory.
Then, I take a deep breath, make a cup of tea, set some chocolate within easy reach and grab a stack of plot structure books. Now. I’m not an advocate for the hollywood-beloved rigid 3-act structure. I think we should be embracing all story structures, and that all story structures are there to be played with. To be tested and interwoven and adapted to your specific story and its specific needs.
That said, I know external plot pacing is one of my weaker points as a writer. I tend to focus on internal character arcs and the terrible lure of beautiful language when I’m drafting. So one of the most important facets of this stage for me is to analyse and correct the external plot. I like to read Save The Cat Writes A Novel (Jessica Brody), and 20 Master Plots (Ronald B. Tobias), amongst others. Or, for other projects, essays on the Kishōtenketsu model, or my course notes on cyclic story structures, whatever it is that closest approximates the intention of my plot.
Reading these texts forces me to think about the bones of my story. Is the femur really too long and spindly, is that vertebra currently sitting in an arm, is the collarbone kinda broken and possibly actually a frog?
I’m not aiming to get my plot perfectly aligned with Story Type A’s beats, because my story likely half-fits 3 different types. But I find being challenged to justify my pacing really helps identify weak points. For The Salt Oracle, for example, I read the Save The Cat chapters on ‘Whydunit’, ‘Monster In The House’ and ‘Institutionalised’, and from 20 Master Plots, I read ‘Discovery’, ‘Escape’ and ‘Transformation’. Bits of each of them sparked thoughts and ideas and questions which helped me see my story afresh.
Armed with this list of questions - and dipping frequently back into the texts - I then start a close study of my cards & note any necessary changes on each one. I am doing things like:
Checking the balance of PoVs (or in other books, timelines).
Rearrange my cards by shifting them up or down a little according to their internal or external 1-5 ranking - like music notation. This allows me to see at a glance how the tension levels flow through the plot and whether there’s any obvious issues.
Tracking motifs & subplots through the chapters, noting for example where I forgot about them, whether they show enough change, whether they’re fully bedded in throughout the story etc. In Salt Oracle one motif was a set of superstitions, some subplots were the romance, the kitchen boy, and a friendship’s backstory.
Checking where plot turning points happen & whether they need to be redistributed.
Checking the development of story-type specific plot beats / motifs. For example it’s important in the ‘Institutionalised’ story type that the choice between joining, fleeing or destroying the institution is made very clear & powerful. I had it for my main characters, but it was not well developed enough in my secondary characters.
This stage takes a while. It’s a lot of reading books, staring at the lounge carpet, having small lightbulb moments and repeatedly moving the cats off the card you’re trying to write on.
The edits can be anything from ‘DELETE THIS SCENE’ through ‘MOVE TO CHAPTER X’ or ‘MOAR SADS’ right the way to ‘ADD AN OTTER’. Some chapters end up with just one thing to change, some with tonnes. That’s okay, it’s all good.
Once I feel like I’ve asked and answered all the questions about the structure of my story that I can think of, I pile all the cards up and curl around them like a mama dragon. My preciouses.
Step 4. Prep For Take Off
I know it’s not for everyone, but I now print my manuscript out (two pages to a side, double sided to minimise tree guilt and also the scary giant stack of paper). I find it far easier to do the big editorial work in this format than on screen. Ymmv, of course.
I staple each index card to its page in the manuscript. This means when I get to each page I have a reminder right there of exactly what I need to be focussing on at that point.
I usually also have a list of more general edit notes. For The Salt Oracle, the main one is ‘cut words goddammit’, but there’s also ‘don’t forget the tattoos and weather flags’. They go on a blank sheet of paper that sits on the top of the stack so each day I can’t help but see it just as I get stuck into edits.
Step 5. Oh Frabulous Day
Editing the book!!
This is where I confess an unhealthy love of Pilot Frixion 0.5mm ballpoint pens.
They come in many colours. They are super fine so I can write small words in between lines. AND they’re erasable. So I can change my mind as much as I like. If you want my expert opinion (of course you do), green makes for a very reassuring and friendly editing colour, but purple is quite validating too.
Now, this time around I’m hoping to achieve all my edits in one pass. Sometimes I feel I need two passes to deal with different editorial aims (structure and trimming words perhaps, or structure and voice). I’ll do each pass in a different colour to help me keep some separation in my mind.
As I have three PoV characters in this book, I’m reading through each PoV in its entirety, in turn. This helps me keep track of each character’s arc and voice. So far I’ve done the smallest PoV - The Salt Oracle herself, and am now on the middle-sized PoV, my male mc.
Transcribing this stack of edits never takes as long as I fear, and much as it gets boring, the transcribing process is a useful step in itself - it’s where I familiarise myself with this changed version, tasting it and testing it. There are always small amendments at this stage, and I feel I gain far more from this ungainly process than I lose.
And there it is. From a daunting first draft, to a more or less structurally sound, unembarrassing second draft in one pass. I love the structure of this method and also its flexibility to fit every story. It gives me the framework I need to not be frightened of big changes, the challenge of being pushed on my weakpoints, and the freedom to ask only the useful questions.
My hope is to get this pass completed by the end of February and out to beta readers. Some of that will depend on We Are All Ghosts In The Forest copyedits and my agent’s timeline for All The Birds Will Be Hostile. But for now - onward!
Next week, cover designs! Next free blog, my first hosted interview with my friend Knicky L. Abbott, and her stunning novella, Tanglewood.