I’ve been working on a story for about a year. Granted, most of last year was spent revising ALLIANCE, but in between waiting on notes from my agent, this has been what I’ve worked on.
I got pretty far into the book, but I couldn’t figure out a way to wrap it up. That’s when I realized that I just kept writing and writing and I had NO idea where I was going. I just figured it would come to me… but it didn’t.
So when I started revising, I saw the story and I loved the characters… but the further I got into revising, I realized that the plot just wasn’t there. The characters were there, the internal motivation was there… but the plot? oh the plot was ALL over the place. Oh and it’s a murder mystery, so plot REALLY needs to be on point.
So instead of continuing to revise, I opted to start over.
Completely start over.
Not glancing at the words I’d written before, no copy/paste the good parts… but pull out a crisp new page rewrite.
And you know what’s happening? Awesomeness.
I’m incorporating things I had never thought of before and shaping the plot in a way that is more exciting. Rewriting has also given me a sort of “god-like view” of the story and so it’s allowing more natural placement of subtle hints.
Sometimes starting over on something that you’ve been working on for so long can be really frightening. Sometimes it’s not smart. But there are times when it’s the breath of change you’ve been searching for.
There’s nothing scarier than a blank page, but who has time for fear?
My fabulous agent Kirsten did not miss a beat and just days after signing me, she spit out a pretty epic edit letter.
I’m not going to lie, when I read it I had a mixture of feeling like this:
and then this:
She had some very specific things she’d like to see addressed and although they aren’t huge, they are the kind of changes that have ripple effects. In other words, the first half of the book is going to get a pretty serious overhaul.
So how do you even begin to tackle a revision based on an edit letter?
Here is what I decided to do, part one.
First off, don’t do anything for a day or two. Keep reading the edit letter and start revising in your mind. I’m serious about this one. Just stew on it for a day or two.
For practical purposes, I pulled my revision plan together from three sources: the venerable Susan Dennard who’s writing advice is beyond amazing, Beth Revis who’s writing guide Paper Hearts is a must read for all writers and then one of my CPs Alexa Donne who has some pretty kick butt blog posts on revising.
The first thing I did was print out my entire MS and put it in a binder (though it’s also fun to get it bound!) I was trying to save on paper/printing costs, so I shrunk it down to 10pt font and put it in single space. That helped cut down the pages printed by over half. I could do that because I wasn’t actually looking to revise on the page, but just read.  I’m sure you could do this just by reading on your computer or maybe transferring it to your Kindle, but I wanted the option of scribbling on the page and I also revise a lot by hand. (Note: you’ll also need to revise your novel in 10pt/single space at the beginning because you’ll want your notes to match up, so keep that in mind.)
I then read my edit letter probably 10-15 times. I wanted to get her suggestions down deep so that as I was reading through, I would know what to look for without having to reference the letter. The same goes for the plot/setting things she pointed out as well.
Then I had a separate blank sheet of paper for every main character (and plot relevant minor character) as well as a page for plot problems and setting problems.
As I read through my entire MS, I was looking for areas where I could deepen a character POV, flesh out a reaction, make the characters fuller. Instead of marking the manuscript, I would just mark it on the corresponding sheet. With plot/setting, I was looking at where I needed to implement my agent’s suggestions and would mark it down on the sheet. I also would mark paragraphs/dialogue in the MS that I didn’t like with “re-work.”
For example, on my plot page, I would write: “On page 47, get rid of “Roger” character and replace with Liam to tie in better with the Initiative.” For a character, I would write down, “Soften the Senator’s reaction on page 6, give him a moment where he is kinder to Willow in this scene.”
Note that I didn’t actually do any revising yet, I just plotted out on a broad scale where I would revise things.
So that is part one!
I’m writing this blog series as I go, so I’ll know what worked and what didn’t.
This post is something I’ve been dreaming about writing for over a year, so you know what that means?
I’m going to be LONG WINDED!
I learned a LOT along the way, so pull up a seat and settle in, because Aunt Dee’s gonna tell you all about it…
So I revised my manuscript last May and then began querying for about a month until I realized that my manuscript was just not strong enough yet.
You see, I subscribed to the rule of send out more queries every time you get a request because that means it’s working. It’s not always a bad theory, that is until you start getting form rejection after form rejection on your fulls, which is agent speak for “I stopped reading because it didn’t keep my interest.” Yeah.
Do you know what a form on a full feels like? Like this:
Then something exciting occurred, I got an R&R (or in layman’s terms: an agent who says this is what I didn’t like about it, why don’t you try to fix it and then I’ll read it again). I totally agreed with her thoughts and so I immediately pulled my manuscript from consideration from the remaining agents who hadn’t gotten back to me and started working on it, but I was having a lot of trouble trying to fix certain areas of the book.
It wasn’t until I decided to enter #pitchwars and was selected and then mentored by the amazingly talented Trisha Leigh, who gave me such a comprehensive edit letter, that I kicked back into full gear. This book became an entirely different beast than the one before. I added almost 20k words, combined characters, changed up plot points, etc. It was a total overhaul!
I ended up getting several requests out of that contest and then additional requests in #pitmad a few weeks later. Then I began querying (not as widely this time) and got a really encouraging response on that as well.
I had silence for most of January. Just nothing but crickets in my inbox. I had basically stopped querying in December, so I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting on responses to requested materials.
Then, one afternoon an email from an agent I was really thinking would be a good fit pops up. Negative nancy over here immediately assumed that it was a rejection. I was already mentally preparing myself for the epic pity party I was about to throw myself because I had really thought that my manuscript would be right up her alley.
I took a deep breath and clicked on the email.
It was only 2 paragraphs… totally a rejection.
BUT THEN I READ IT! In those two paragraphs she gushed about my book and my characters and then told me she wanted to set up a call.
So what did I do?
I started balling my eyes out.
I called my husband and not being one to normally resort to tears, he immediately thought someone had died. It took him a few minutes to calm down from the scare and then he started crying too 🙂 I then called my mom and my sister (who cried), texted my CP’s and just jumped around all night long and consumed some champagne.
We had our call the next morning and we absolutely clicked. We laughed a lot and she GOTÂ my book and my characters. It was like oxygen to my soul to hear her discuss Aniq and Willow like they were real people. Her vision for the book really echoed my own and it just felt right.
Ahhh! I probably talked way too much and interrupted too much (I do that when I’m nervous), but in the end, I didn’t scare her off because she offered representation.
I wanted to accept right there, but I still had requests out and so I needed time to be able to nudge.
Then came the longest ten days of my life.
I had several step asides throughout the week ranging in reasons from didn’t have time to read or didn’t feel passionately about the project to throw their hat into the ring. I then had one agent who read it and loved it and said she wanted to offer, but didn’t think she was the best agent to take it to market. She very graciously told me to go with the offering agent as this agent was just getting into YA and wanted to give me the best shot. It wasn’t until the very last day of my deadline that I got a call from a very amazing agent who has been in the industry a long time. Our call was almost an hour and I was beyond impressed with him and his vision for the book and my career. Both agent #2 and agent #1 had very similar revision ideas and it was absolutely not an easy decision, but in the end, I had to go with what my gut was telling me all along. So on Valentine’s Day (aww!) I accepted representation from Kirsten Carleton at Waxman Leavell.
I’m so incredibly excited to start this new phase of my career and roll up my sleeves and start revising my manuscript again!
Right after I signed the contract!
And now for the thank you part of this speech (cue Oscar music):
I have so much to be thankful for, but want to give special shout outs to Ashley, Rachel and Alexa who let me show my crazy during this intense period in the query trenches and for somehow making me feel normal 🙂 To my amazing husband who saw my crazy, got scared, but still loved me. To the insanely supportive community of PW writers that I’ve been able to share this journey with! Our “secret” FB group has been a God send! And obviously thank you to  Trisha Leigh for taking on my MS and helping it get shiny enough to catch Kirsten’s eye! And finally, thank you Kirsten for taking a chance on me and believing in my writing! I think we are going to make a wonderful team and a force to be reckoned with!
And for the stats for those of you who love stats:
Queries sent: 25 Contests: 2 Requests: 26 — 11 cold query requests (7 fulls and 4 partials – 2 of which upgraded); 15 contest requests (all 15 were partials and 8 upgraded) R&R: 1 Offers: 2
Total time in the Query Trenches: 4 1/2 months (2 months for the first round and then 2 1/2 months in round two)
I’ve taken a lengthy break from writing… part of it was self-imposed distance that I felt like I needed for perspective… another huge part was I just moved back from Europe and that was a bit ca-razy.
But now that I’m reading back over what I wrote, I’m realizing that the first few chapters are just crap. I like the way the book evolves, but especially that first chapter just needs a hell of a lot of work!
It’s a little overwhelming, especially since I’m not really sure exactly how to get that first chapter where I want it to be… but I guess that is part of the journey I am on.
Finished my first big revision and starting on revision number two after I get this next freelance project finished… kids are in school, which is kind of pretty awesome for having a bit more time to write, but I’m also back in language school so that’s a bit less time to write… oh and my brain gets all foggy and heavy from all the thinking.
Regardless, ALLIANCE is coming together… slowly but surely! I’m still not to the point of whether I think this first foray into becoming a writer is good enough to even attempt to get published, but we’ll see!
I’m having fun and learning and that is what this is all about. Oh and world domination.
Destiny Cole 