A (More or Less) Orderly Revision Process

Chester (the dog) and Ranger (the cat) on the trail near our house a few years ago. Ranger’s plan was to see where the dogs and I disappeared to each day.

I’ve been a distance runner for decades, since right after high school, but I’ve never been formally coached. Instead, I’ve tried different training plans from Runner’s World magazine and from books.

The plans that seem to work the best for me come from a book called Run Less, Run Faster. It includes training plans for distances from the 5k through the marathon. The plans specify the type of each workout—like running 5 x 800 meters with a 400-meter recovery—and what paces to run each workout. There are three runs per week.

The specificity makes it so much easier to get up in the morning and head out the door. The plan tells me what distance to run and what my goal pace is for each workout. (The goal pace is different for every runner and is based on your latest 5k time.)

This year, two and a half years after severing the ACL in my left knee, I’m following the 5k plan to prepare for a 5k race in August. Then, depending on how I’m feeling, I’ll jump to a 10k plan or maybe the half-marathon plan and prepare for a longer race in October.

Last year, I didn’t use a plan for running. I was still trying to get back into it, so I didn’t try real speed work. I didn’t do real tempo runs where you speed up for a couple of miles in the middle of a run. The farthest distance I ran was 7 miles.

I ran one race last year, a 10k in September on a reasonably flat surface. The weather was cool but humid and September is just about the worst time for my seasonal allergies. My time was dismal.

So this year, I’m trying harder and am back to using a plan. I can already see progress.

I am also using a plan for the revision of my dog novel, which I’m tentatively calling Chester’s Ever After.

I typed up the notes from the call with my agent and organized them with headings to sort through the feedback. Characterization came up again and again in my notes, so I started with character interviews.

I talked with the easy characters first, the ones I felt most comfortable with. I interviewed 5 dogs, 4 humans, and a guardian angel named Ruth.

Two characters from this list were more problematic—one of the dogs and the guardian angel. The dog, Rebel, didn’t seem to have a clear purpose. Why is she in this story? Do I even need her?

I didn’t want to jump into an interview with Rebel by asking her directly—why are you here? She’d just tell me she didn’t know, because I obviously didn’t know.

So I started by asking her what she likes about being in the canine afterlife. I always had the sense that she’d been there for a while. She told me, “There aren’t any people here. No humans, I mean. Just dogs.”

(Note for any reader who’s alarmed at not seeing your dog again after you die—Rebel isn’t quite correct here.)

I had to ask why that’s something she likes.

Because “dogs don’t put expectations on each other,” she said.

Hm, that sounded promising. I followed up by asking about her expectations with humans. That opened up her back story to me in a way I hadn’t fully thought through before.

Once the floodgates opened around her past and her unhealed wound, I was able to see how Rebel’s arc ties into the main story.

These kinds of revelations are why I love doing character interviews.

My last interview was with Ruth, the guardian angel. My agent questioned Ruth’s role in the story too. Plus, Fiona said, Ruth is just so mean.

Ruth didn’t have much to say because she knew—or rather, I knew—that she was mostly a plot device, not a real character. Nevertheless, Ruth and I discussed how else I could handle the issues in the plot where she complicates things. She suggested how a couple of the other characters could do what she does, but in a nicer way, to resolve the plot issues.

I spent about a month talking to my characters and thinking about their roles in the story. Now that I know my characters’ wants and needs much better, I have a better handle on how to approach my revision.

I’m tackling the major issues first, like removing a character (Ruth) and altering a character’s arc (Rebel). I’m using my inside outline to identify what needs to change. I’ve noted the Ruth pieces. This was the easy part. Next I made notes about where Rebel’s arc could come through better.

Now that I’ve got the big picture sketched out for Rebel, I can go in and do the detailed work of modifying scenes and adding scenes.

It’s easy to get lost in the details of worldbuilding, character arcs, and scenes because they all interconnect. But with a revision plan in place, I’m mostly staying on task.

If managing a revision is something you’d like help with, book a free call with me.