This is the meaty part of Cheryl Klein's revision process from the SCBWI NYC Metro evening. Remember, much of what Cheryl teaches is on her website: http://cherylklein.com/
I'll pick a couple of highlights as I undertake them. This could take a while.
Are you ready?
Change the font. (I like this!)
Print out and read the entire manuscript on the page before making any revisions. (note to self: This is not easy. No marking up the page?)
As you read, take notes on both the good stuff and the bad stuff.
List the first TEN things each significant character says or does (includes internal thought for your POV character). This is a way to find out what your characters are up to at the beginning. Are they sympathetic characters?
OK, off to work. As I said, this may take a while...
I *love* resizing the whole manuscript while I'm revising. I've done that for years.
ReplyDeleteI change the font and I also put it 1.5 spaced and pull the margin in on the right side to three inches or so - so it looks like an actual typeset book. It reads a whole lot different when I do this! It also gives me a sense of how big/long the paragraphs are and if I want to rearrange or shorten or break in two. Doing this is really, really helpful. After I've revised my manuscript like this for a few weeks it's really odd to take it back to regular font and 1 inch margins, double spaced. :-)