Congratulations! You have a first draft, bursting with potential, but in desperate need of a good clean-up. The task is exciting, you’re more than capable of handling it, but you may be feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. Here are some easy fixes that will immediately improve your draft and build the momentum you need to wrangle the bigger issues.
Word variety
In a recent manuscript I reviewed, the writer used LOOKED or LOOKING over 200 times in a 220-page novel. Yes, I counted. On one page alone, there were six. But listen, I get it, it’s a first draft! He was so focused on getting the dialogue right and moving his cast of characters through complex scenes, that he couldn’t pay much attention to the individual actions of those characters.
Word variety is the kind of detail that will kill you when you’re writing the first draft. If you fixate on it too much, you can easily overthink yourself to a blank page. But during the revision process, adding more word variety is a very satisfying little task.
Some ideas:
Vary your adjectives. I suggested he replace some LOOKs with GLARED, STARED or GLANCED to infuse the moments with more meaning.
Vary your verbs. Instead of looking, Terence could jingle his keys or re-arrange the cutlery on the table. Some other action that indicates his state of mind. This will also make your characters less opaque and more memorable.
Differentiate characters
Are some of your characters behaving or sounding too much alike? One book I read earlier this year had four, white gay characters, all with Biblical sounding names. The only way I could tell them apart was to keep a post-it to track who had slept with whom.
This is especially important if you have a whole cast of characters and/or if some scenes contain many characters.
Choose a variety of names. Unless it’s a device, use names that are clearly different from one another. Do you have an Elsie and a Kelsey? Or maybe an Elsie and an Elise? Be kind to your readers and search/replace.
Add distinct speech patterns, catch phrase or verbal tics. Terence, for example, could overuse the word LIKE, while Lucas talks about the scarcity of parking in the city all the time. Maybe Heidi always calls everyone CHAMP.
Attribute physical tics or characteristics. The pervy boss that touches his balls while talking to your main character. The HR girl that still dresses from Brandy Melville. Give your people distinct physical markings that only they do/have.
And don’t forget, balance is key, so distribute these differentiating characteristics with moderation. If you go overboard, you may accidentally turn your characters into caricatures.
Information distribution
In one manuscript I recently read, the Damsel in Distress was constantly being whisked off to the hospital and very nearly died on more than one occasion. But I had to wait until page 200 to discover it was due to extreme allergies.
Reread your manuscript and tag when key pieces of information are revealed. Should they be moved up for clarity? Or pushed back for suspense? Even if you don’t move the information right away, understanding of how and when you reveal information will help you write a story that future readers will have no trouble following.
If word variety, better differentiation of characters and information distribution seem overly fussy to you, understand that readers wants a delightful and seamless reading experience. The details are what make your worlds believable and compelling. And if you don’t get those right, readers will absolutely be pulled out of your world and will absolutely start to trust you less as a storyteller.
Let me know how the rewrite process goes! And if any of this was helpful, of course!