by Jane Ryder

We all know it takes a tremendous amount of work to write a novel. We know there is plotting to do, characters to flesh out, scenes to illuminate, dialogue to construct; we know also that actually getting the first draft roughed out is only the beginning. After that there are revisions, additional research, corrections, rewrites, and various degrees of sentence-level editing to go through before a novel is ready for public exposure.

What many of us don't know is that failure to create a clear dividing line between stage one (sitting down and getting the thing written) and stage two (refining and polishing) is a sure-fire way to prevent stage one from ever happening. Just as many of us underestimate the need for reasonably objective, thorough editing, and we tend to skimp on stage two in favor of a sort of blind hope that the good stuff makes up for the bad.

The truth is that both stages are vital, but if you want to stay sane and be productive as a writer, you need to start thinking of them as almost completely separate processes.

This can be harder than it sounds, but the good news is that help exists in the form of two inexpensive, entertaining, and above all incredibly useful books. No Plot? No Problem! (NPNP) by National Novel Writing Month founder Chris Baty takes you on a guided tour of stage one, and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (SEfFW) by The Editorial Department's founder Renni Browne and Dave King leads you through exercises crucial to successful completion of stage two.

In the very first pages of NPNP, Baty creates a conspiratorial, comradely atmosphere that fires up the secret "I've always wanted to write a novel" spark so many of us harbor. He's clearly a regular guy, not some lofty, intimidating literary authority, and we feel immediately that he's treating us as writing equals rather than as acolytes, which in itself feels encouraging.

As we read on we find more explicit encouragement: the first draft of your novel will suck.

Um. That's encouraging?

Yes. Yes, it is, because as we continue reading we come to see that what prevents most people from ever starting a novel is not just the daunting scope of the task, but the ridiculous pressure we put on ourselves by expecting it to be good. This isn't a matter of ability, training, or skill: it's a matter of not killing your muse before you start by overburdening yourself with expectations. Stress, pressure, and worry are not the way to open the floodgates of creativity. You have to approach it as play, as a way to explore and experiment, and you have to give yourself permission to fail gloriously. To quote Baty, "In the context of novel writing, this means you should lower the bar from 'best-seller to 'would not make someone vomit.'"

This is liberating precisely because it illustrates the need for two separate processes mentioned above that are, in effect, two separate jobs: writer and editor.

The whole purpose of Baty's book - and indeed of the slightly insane idea of writing a novel in a month - is to circumvent our inner editors so we can get some writing done. Once you embrace what he terms "exuberant imperfection," not just acknowledging but reveling in the fact that what you write will be very (very) bad in many ways, you're free to listen to those inner voices that are creativity in action. In stage one it doesn't matter if the prose is deathless, the characters fully rounded, the plot holes abundant - it doesn't even matter if every single word is misspelled. What matters is that you keep moving and don't let imperfections sap your determination. Baty devised the somewhat arbitrary one-month deadline and nearly break-neck writing speed specifically to combat stalling and over-thinking, both of which tend to occur if we have unlimited time to write.

The first half of the book is full of practical tips on everything from creating a comfortable work environment and finding the right tools to enlisting friends, family and co-workers in your writing efforts as either a form of support and encouragement or a source of mockery and shame - anything to get you to finish the first draft. The second half is a companion to NaNoWriMo itself, with tips specific to the particular trials of each week of the process. It's like having your own private writing coach to pat your back and kick your butt throughout the month. The two halves together make for a resource that's both inspiring and motivating, as Baty convinces you that failing magnificently is infinitely preferable to never trying.

Fast forward to a month later. You've drunk the coffee, you've torn your hair as the words trickled or dried up altogether, you've done the Happy Dance as almost violent torrents of creativity had your fingers flying over the keyboard, you've cajoled and threatened and tormented yourself over the finish line and you have a completed rough draft. Now what?

It's time to change hats (literally, if you follow Baty's advice for wearable writing totems) and move on to stage two. Well, not exactly. There's a critical interim period you will be sorely tempted to ignore, but don't: put your novel away for a while. Take time to savor the fact that you just wrote a novel! Wow. That's huge. Be proud of the accomplishment. Think about how many people plan to get around to that and never do. Don't even think about the quality of your manuscript - in fact, try not to think about your manuscript at all. What you're doing in this period is giving yourself some distance so you can move on to stage two with at least a small amount of objectivity.

Seriously. This is an important step, one strongly advocated by both NPNP and SEfFW, and in many ways it's the hardest step of all. It's tough to walk away from this world you've created and where you've been spending so much time, and hard to resist the temptation to immediately start tinkering. But "tinkering" is exactly what will happen if you don't put some space between your writing and yourself for at least a couple of weeks. You're less likely to make good self-editing decisions without freshening your eyes a little.

So fast forward again, this time to a point where you've let the novel sit for a while. You have your editor's hat on and your (literal or metaphorical) blue pencil is sharpened. How do you start making your book better?

Pick up SEfFW and start reading. It's not long, it's not full of difficult words or overly abstract concepts, it's often highly entertaining, and it's clear that the information in its pages was gleaned through years of first-hand professional experience. It's chock-full of concrete examples of what you do and don't want to strive for in fleshing out and tightening up the fruits of your novel writing journey. Every section features exercises in understanding common writing mistakes and how to fix them, and this alone helps enormously in the difficult process of learning to locate these same problems when they occur in your own writing. Write notes to yourself when some piece of advice resonates with you, because it may well be something you need to work on. Do the exercises. Don't shortchange yourself by trying to jump right into "fixing" your novel - you need to develop some editing muscles first.

When you're ready to start applying what you've learned, print out a hard copy of your novel. According to SEfFW, this helps you resist the temptation to "fiddle with the text as you read." Your first step as an editor is merely to respond as a reader, so as you go, jot down your reactions (sticky notes are good for this), but don't analyze them, and don't start making any changes yet. Make note of what you like and what you don't like; chances are someone else reading your manuscript will react at least as strongly as you to the same elements.

Here are a few areas this mighty little book teaches you to consider: Do you Resist the Urge to Explain? Do your characters have their own voices, or do they all tend to sound alike? Is there a good ratio of narrative summary to scenes? Do you do a lot of telling? Is your point of view consistent and appropriate? Is there a good balance of long and short sentences, long and short paragraphs? Are you allowing readers to do enough work - or are you making them do too much? Keep the book and your notes on it nearby as you go through your draft and be as honest with yourself as you can.

Don't expect to fix everything in one pass. The editing process is generally a fairly lengthy one. You may be in for major rewriting, but remember that, as it says in SEfFW, "it's far better to rewrite your story in a way that makes use of the good stuff than to simply use your story as an excuse for writing the good stuff" - that is, of course, if you care about making what you've created into something other people would want to read.

One of the key lessons of both NPNP and SEfFW is that you will improve as both a writer and a self-editor by writing and editing. This is such an obvious truth. We generally prefer to ignore the necessary hard work in favor of spinning beautiful daydreams about our international book tours, but what it means is we have a lot to do that involves a great deal of self-discipline. Not only do we need to discipline ourselves to complete each stage, we also need to force ourselves to keep them as separate as possible.

These resources can be your allies as well as your coaches, but the underlying message of the two books combined is this: if you want to get anything written, turn your inner editor off. Better yet, lock her out of the apartment and hide her keys until the rough draft is completed. When you're ready, welcome her in, bring her a cup of coffee, a muffin and a blue pencil, and get out of the way.

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