How to Revise Your Novel: Developmental Editor Joel Brigham's Checklist (encore episode!)

[00:00:00] Hey friends, Beth here. A quick note before we get into today's episode, which is a re-release of the second part of our conversation with developmental editor Joel Brigham. This one is about revising. We love this episode and think it's a great refresher as we dive into summer writing goals. One note, our original recording glitched and didn't capture the very beginning of the episode.

I explain that briefly at the opening. Okay, let's get to it Hi friends, Beth here. Before we dive in, a quick heads up. Due to a recording glitch, we lost the first few minutes of this interview with editor Joel Brigham. That means you won't hear our usual intro or the beginning of Joel's answer to our first question.

The good news, the rest of the conversation is here, and it's full of practical, insightful advice. In this episode, we're digging into revisions, how to approach your first round of editing, common pitfalls to avoid, and how to know when your book is really done. Thanks for your patience, and now we'll jump right in with Joel answering our first question: How do you [00:01:00] recommend writers approach their first round of editing?

I do them in phases. I can tell which phase a writer is at based on their early draft. Very often, phase one for me is plotting and story beats, making sure everything is in the right general place. And I can tell if a writer is a plotter, they may already have those beats in the right place and we can go on to the next thing.

But if you are a pantser, and I believe, ladies, we discussed last time that both of you pants your way through drafts it means really taking stock of what do I have here and what are my ... I call them like tent pole story beats. I know, and I m- may have discussed this last time, there's a lot of ideas about what story beats go where.

But for me, the tent pole story beats are the pillars on which everything sort of sits, and I wanna make sure those are more or less, in the right place. So when I'm assessing a first draft of something that I've written or that somebody else has written, I'm looking for the inciting incident, I'm [00:02:00] looking for kind of the midpoint turn and I'm looking for the all hope is lost lowest of the low moments.

And I might see those aren't really what breaks up act one, act two, and act three. Those really aren't. The all hope is lost is the shift between act two and act three, but the other ones come in the middle of those acts. So I might also look at what's my act one, what's my act two, and what's my act three as well as those tent pole scenes, but I'm looking at those.

So what I find is very common with pantsers is they've got those beats. They've got their inciting incident. They've got their all hope is lost. And very often, and we'll talk about saggy middles here in a little bit, not always, but very often they've got a midpoint or a turn or a raising of the stakes.

But those tend to be in the wrong places. When you're pantsing, you're not really thinking about pacing, you're just getting all the words onto the page, which by the way, is the right approach. But when you're gonna revise, it's time to step back and look at where do these go. So for me, the inciting incident which is the thing that the [00:03:00] main character cannot come back from.

Like they can agree to this challenge that's been presented to them, or they can decline this challenge. But whether they agree or decline Their lives cannot go back to the way they were before this thing happened. We start there, and where that inciting incident goes really depends on the age level and the genre.

So I, I don't need to go through every possible thing, but for, a lot of YA and adult books, that inciting incident is usually in the 8 to 12% range of your book. Maybe a little sooner I could see it in 7 to 10. They certainly have been moving up over the la- last few years as to where editors like to see those.

But if you're writing a middle grade book typically they like that inciting incident to happen by the end of chapter one, which is not what I love. I don't like that. I tend to even steer them against that when I have middle grade authors, but I'm seeing more of that lately.

And then if you're writing a romance whether it's the inciting incident or not can be arguable, but that meet [00:04:00] cute typically needs to happen by the end of chapter one or at the very beginning of chapter two. So I'm looking for where that sits. That midpoint turn, they call it the midpoint turn for a reason.

Is that in the middle? And I look for that because I can tell if this manuscript is gonna be front heavy or back heavy 'cause ultimately once you figure out what that midpoint is and you've established that's the midpoint, you're gonna see, ooh, I've got 55,000 words before this story beat, and I've got 25,000 words after this story beat.

I'm gonna have to either cut from the first half or add to the second half or both to make this kind of fall in the right place. It does not need to hit at 50% on the button. This is not science, this is art. But at the same time, if that midpoint thing is happening at the 72% mark or something we might have lost our readers by then.

It's not meeting the expectation and cadence and pacing of a story. If it happens too early at 36% then everything that follows is gonna maybe feel like [00:05:00] our our build toward the climax, and the climax itself is too drawn out and slow. So that midpoint is there for a reason.

And then that all hope is lost often I s- I find that missing. We don't wanna hurt our characters and so it's just not there. The problem gets harder, but the the character never hits that rock bottom, which is really a necessity in these stories around the 75 to 80% mark is all the things that can go wrong have to go wrong so we can head into that last 20-ish percent of the book hoping that they figure it out.

My first pass is looking at where are my tent poles? Where are my basic story beats in the right place? Because then I can kinda game plan, okay, what do I need to make cuts? What areas need cuts, and what areas are gonna need expansion so that I can fit into this basic formula?

And we have to fit in that formula again, close to, because there is such thing as pacing. There is such thing as reader expectations. And even if they don't know, the readers don't know why a story [00:06:00] feels right or wrong we as authors have to know why a story feels right or wrong, and pacing is a big part of it.

If we're expecting a certain thing to happen at a certain time in a romance and it doesn't happen, we're unsettled as readers, and not in a good way. Getting those beats in the right place is phase one for me. And then, I have a sort of phase two through six.

Don't need to talk about those if you ladies don't want to, but I certainly can There's ... That's funny that you were just saying that you have these expectations as a reader even if you're not quite able to articulate them. I just had this experience with a book that I'm reading by an author that I've always really enjoyed, and this new book, it's not hitting the beats.

It starts in a weird place and it's disconcerting, and I don't like it. And I ... It took me a moment to figure out why I didn't like it, and that's exactly the reason. It wasn't delivering the expectation that I have for her books, but also that genre. So that's interesting. And I have a theory on that.

Keep going. I have a theory on that, too. It's my belief that [00:07:00] once a author starts to become more successful and their books are gonna sell regardless of the quality of the books, that their editors are a little less pushy, and the authors are a little less pliable and open to making those changes.

So they tend to write what they write and say, "Take it or leave it," and the books suffer as a result. I see it all the time. That is so true. Could not have said it better myself. That is so true, and I think that's what's happening with this author, which is such a ... It's so disappointing 'cause I- Yeah

really have loved her work up till this point. So moving on to the next question, thinking about a checklist or a set of questions writers- Yeah ... can use to help evaluate their work as they're getting into that initial round of editing for the first time what are your thoughts on that? Yeah I just made a list of questions.

These don't necessarily have to go in any certain order. I just was thinking in terms of, when I have a book of my own in front of me because we talked about, is it necessary to hire a developmental editor or [00:08:00] not? We discussed that last time. And my, my message was like I, you don't have to.

Do what you can by yourself for free before you pay somebody. So I was thinking what are these questions that I could have an author, ask themselves to maybe challenge themselves in ways to do these things for free without having to pay somebody to have a look. So my number one thing is, have you hit the major story beats, and are they all in the right place?

That's question one, right? We've already discussed that. My second one is, does every character have a clear motivation and their own arc? It is pretty common for the main character to be okay here. In early drafts I actually find that the antagonist is lacking depth in early drafts.

They're there to be, like, the sort of, stereotypical mustache-twirling, Scooby-Doo villain, and it can ... They don't really have well-developed arcs for themselves. I see that. I see secondary characters that are very flat and are just there for, color and for background noise and they don't have motivations or hopes and [00:09:00] wants of their own.

So that's a question too is is your main character the only one that really got the full look here, or did your other characters really get that full look as well? And once you kinda got that figured out, and this to me is one of the biggest questions that a writer can ask themselves in a early draft because, I've come to realize that this really is what makes the difference between a good book and a book that isn't there yet, and it is character agency.

Is the character driving the plot or is the plot just happening to and around the character? I see this a lot. I've written books like this early. I had to work my way out of this issue myself where I felt like if I had a main character where all these bad things kept happening to him that it would create sympathy, and then we could see him work his way out of it.

But that isn't how this is supposed to go. How this is supposed to go is a character behaves in a way that has consequences, and the reader goes there's gonna be consequences to that." And we read on to see what happens, and then sure enough, [00:10:00] there's more choices and more consequences. Is the character really driving the action or is our character passive and just observing or storytelling the things that are happening around them?

It's a really common thing I see in early drafts. It's a common thing I see in finished drafts that it's almost if you don't take care of that early in the process, everything else you do is gonna be moot 'cause the story's not gonna, it's not gonna be engaging. A- agents aren't picking up books where the characters don't drive the action.

They just don't, they just don't work. They're too slow. They're too passive. We wanna see characters act and be heroic and save themselves and others and if we don't have that's a problem. So that's a big one. Early on you gotta ask yourself that question, is the character driving the action?

Ask yourself, if not page by page, at least kind of chapter by chapter, is there tension in every chapter? Is there tension? I see a lot of early drafts where there is none. They are conversations. They're cutesy. They're [00:11:00] exploratory. Maybe they're meant to see what's going on, to show us how some of the magic in the world is built here.

But there's no tension. If we don't have tension in every chapter, even on a small level then that chapter needs to be fixed, or that chapter needs to get chucked. And tension can be something really small. In a lot of fantasy books there's like a chapter where they've run out of food and water, and so that chapter is all about are they gonna find food and water before starves or dies of thirst. That's cool. That's one whole chapter. Is that the main goal of beating the bad guy? No. But that tension of will they get water or not matters, or a lower level monster in a fantasy book, trying to get through this forest to get to where the bad guy is, but a little snake serpent villain stops them, and they have to defeat

Little tension, right? A chapter could be about the main character and their best friend getting into an argument over something they don't agree on. And the whole thing is about them seeing who's gonna win the argument to decide what they do in this next chapter. That fighting between friends is tension.

So there's lots of way ... There's romantic tension. There's all kinds of ways to [00:12:00] like, make us wanna turn pages to see how this plays out. And if you don't have that in every chapter, yeah, you gotta revise it, or you might have to make the hard decision that this chapter maybe just isn't serving enough purpose.

It has to go. Are there stakes? And not like the medium well steak. Like stakes. Are ... what happens if the character succeeds that's awesome, and what happens if the character fails that is catastrophic? That has to be spelled out super early on. In fact, when readers are reading the like Amazon product description or the back of the book in a Barnes & Noble, they're looking for stakes that are just like, oh my God, I have to see If they succeed or fail.

You're drawn into it. That's what agents are looking for in query letters is those stakes. That's what draws us in. If it is not clear what they gain and what they lose through this journey they're on that's a problem that we should fix early on in our revisions. Have you read the dialogue out loud?

This is [00:13:00] very awkward. And I'm not even saying don't have AI read it to you. I'm saying you read it out loud and see what it sounds like, a lot of dialogue feels, in early drafts, not a lot, enough, where it's, I'm making a note of it, sounds unnatural. Like people don't talk that way.

And often if you read your dialogue out loud, you'll go, "Oh yeah, that does not sound natural." And then you can fix it based on how it sounds like, in your ear balls. I recommend doing that as well. Does your book start and end with a bang? That's a question, too. Is your opening scene a killer?

Is your last scene a a mic drop, look at those. Make sure those are the most engaging parts of your story. The last ones are, these last few questions are a little more detail-oriented, so I could give some resources for this if you'd like. But the first one is when you're done, what is the word count, and is it appropriate for your age level and genre?

That's a big one. If you're writing a contemporary romance and it's 140,000 words, it's too long. You're gonna have to cut 60,000 [00:14:00] words probably. And that's gonna be your first order of business is, okay, before I do anything, I have to cut 60,000 words. Or if you're writing a, a adult epic fantasy that is 70,000 words long, it's too short.

It's too short. The expectation is that would be at least 100,000, probably closer to 120. So you have to know what those genre and age level expectations for word counts are because it is an automatic rejection very often for agents when they pull up a query letter and it says, "I have written a adult epic fantasy complete at 70,000 words," it's nope.

They don't even get to your synopsis. It's a automatic rejection because it shows that you didn't do your homework to know enough that the word count is off or you're gonna be hard enough to work with where your hubris is such that, "Oh, I know what the expectations are, but my work is so good that I will break those expectat-" I'm not sure why this person is British, but they

I'm so sorry to the entire United Kingdom. But they, they think that like they're the [00:15:00] exception, and they aren't. Like we're not the exception. We never. No debut author is the exception. You have to earn that. So word count is something to check. Something else you can check are your readability scores, especially if you're writing for children, so middle grade and YA.

And I have to... I should've looked this up, but there's are, there are two, Scores for books. There are two sort of scores that people go by to look at whether or not a book is appropriate for an age level. I'm a teacher, so I work with these. One is the Lexile score, which is the number you get back is the grade level that this would be appropriate for.

And the other score is called the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test which is a it's not a ... the number doesn't relate to grade level or age at all, but there's charts and stuff online that show you what age that Flesch-Kincaid score is meant to direct you toward. And the reason why these are important is that I do see authors who ostensibly are writing for [00:16:00] 11-year-olds but the text i- is written by a 40-year-old.

It, the, clearly, right? The vocabulary is too high. The sentences are too complex. Those kinds of things. And in- you know, when they're ... These scores, Microsoft Word will check these. It, there's a advanced feature, it'll check these for you at the end. These scores really are determined on the number of syllables per word and the number of words per sentence.

So if you're finding that your score you're aiming for a sixth-grade reading level and it's spitting out 11th-grade reading level, the best way to do that is to go through and look at how can I, for lack of a better word, dumb this down or simplify this. Shorter sentences, smaller words, right?

Yeah, you do wanna kinda be age-level appropriate. I will tell you, there are some schools that live and die by the Lexile to the extent that they will not let kids read books outside of their Lexile level, which is really stupid. But I'm not saying whether or not it's stupid, I'm saying whether or not it [00:17:00] exists, and it exists.

And if you're writing for kids the goal is to get them into schools. That's that's ... 11-year-olds don't have income, right? So the goal is to get them into schools. So those scores do matter a little bit. I know I'm rambling on about kid lit, but if you write that, it is important to know, have I overshot my audience?

Last one. I've I have one last good one and one kind of last pep talk-y one. My last really good one is have you proofread? Have you done a really good proofreading? And if you don't feel like you are a capable proofreader, or you're very concerned that your grammar and spelling and all that just isn't at a level where you feel like you can get it where it needs to be, find somebody you trust to get it there.

Guys, these have to be pristine. When you are querying a book, you are effectively applying for a job as a professional writer, right? A professional writer needs to write professionally, and the expectation would be that- even if the story has its gaps and things aren't, and the pacing's off, and [00:18:00] the cha- whatever, the expectation with the, at the very least, the one thing you can 100% control is the, are the periods in the right place?

Is everything capitalized, i- is the grammar and the syntax more or less the way that it's supposed to be, those things really are important. It does need to be pristine. You wouldn't turn in a resume and a cover letter for a job you really wanted with 18 typos on it.

That's a horrible first impression, and that isn't even for a job that's professional writing, and this is, right? That's that. And then my last question, again, this is the philosophical pep talk-y one, is do you feel proud of what you've written? And I know that in early drafts I do not feel that way, but there is a point in revision where I kinda sit back and I get kinda goosebumps even thinking about it where I'm like, "Oh my God, this is a thing.

This is a book." And I start to feel really excited and proud about the world seeing it. Early in the process, I would rather die than have somebody see it, right? But later on in the process I can't wait. So that moment where you feel proud that's how [00:19:00] you know you're close. You feel it.

It just turns, right? And that's kinda my last, question for your writer's checklist with a draft. Oh my God, those are all such good tips. And it's a great checklist. It's funny because I have a book that's basically gonna be on sub I think next week. And but as you were talking about tension, it's like I could feel the tension in my body building as you were going through your checklist.

'Cause I was just like, "Oh my God, is that there? Is that there? Is that there?" And it's funny, I hadn't read the book in a couple months. I, I ... It got sent to my agent, and just, I hadn't thought about it. It's like it was just waiting for it to be in the queue for it to be my turn- to go out. And so I hadn't read it, and so the other day I just was like, "You know what? I'm gonna read this again and see if there's anything I need to change." And it, like I said, it had been two, two months, and I changed one word, and I thought "That's it." I didn't ... There was nothing else I changed, and that is actually the first time [00:20:00] that's ever happened to me.

'Cause I went through it. I couldn't find ... I had my, I have a new critique partner that's an editor. She had gone through it for me. Yeah. And I was just like, "Oh my God, I changed one word." And I just sat there for five minutes dumbfounded, and just thought, "Okay, I think I'm okay." So yeah, it's

And I was proud of it. I'm like, "Oh, you're through it." But still, you still have those questions like, "Did I hit all the right beats?" One thing I wanna ask, and I always worry about this too, because sometimes I feel like it can wander off. Is there anything that you can suggest where writers can strengthen their narrative voice during revisions?

What are ... 'cause sometimes I feel like you it can wander off a little bit. And how can you make sure you're reining that back in, and that your voice is staying on track? V- voice is the hardest thing to teach. I'm not sure it's even teachable, to be honest with you. My philosophy of voice, and I'm not sure if we're talking about voice as a writer or voice for [00:21:00] characters?

Voice for a writer? So- My philosophy of voice is the only way to develop one is to write and read a ton. And I think the best way to start is to like mimic authors' voices that you admire. That's certainly how I started. My, I, my favorite writer as a kid was Dave Barry, who was like a humor columnist, out of Miami, and just wrote nonsense.

And the first writing I ever really did was sort of Dave Barry style, and as I got to be, older and wrote some more, I n- remember the first YA book I wrote was very much I wanted to be like John Green, so I'm like kinda mimicking John Green. And it's that's a great place to start because you can kinda feel how that writing coming out of your fingers is different from when you wrote your argumentative essay in 10th grade how different that feels voice-wise.

You start there, and as you mimic enough authors and as you [00:22:00] write enough you kinda forget that you're mimicking those authors, and your own voice kinda starts to shine through. You get more comfortable with yourself and what you're trying to say and how you wanna say it, and that kind of happens naturally.

But that takes, oh my gosh, so much time. You do, you have to read a ton and get a sense of ooh, I, I don't like the way this, my author's voice is. No thank you. And you realize, like part of what I loved about John Green and about guys like, Jeff Zentner, and a lot of these like YA books where they were so emotional and so serious but they could crack a little joke here and then to relieve that tension and go, like I wanted that for myself.

And so I found ways that, that I could do that myself i- in my own kind of way, but I had to start by copying the way John Green did it. Which is perfectly fine, right? That's completely fine But I always give this example of, at the peak of Harry Potter's popularity, six books had come out and the final book was on the cusp of releasing, and everybody was like, "Oh my [00:23:00] God, is Harry gonna live?

Is Harry gonna die?" Whatever. All this is going on. And then I remember there was a leak of the final book before it was released, and I got ahold of it, and I'm staring at the cover and I'm like, "Do I wanna read this or not? Do I wanna read..." I was, like, trying to decide. And I'm like, "Okay."

I have no impulse control, so I'm I read it. And I read the first page and I'm like, "This is not it. This is wrong." It was a full book. It was fan fiction that somebody had written. The formatting, it all looked just it would, but I knew on the first page that J.K. Rowling had not written that book.

It wasn't right. And that's what we're shooting for is when you read a J.K. Rowling book, when you read a John Green book, when you read a Dave Barry column, you know right away who it is whether or not you see the author's name. That's the goal, right? And those guys didn't get there the first try.

They screwed things up. They got ... dave Barry w- writing a newspaper column I'm sure got feedback, positive and negative, from all kinds of people. That's just ... my number one [00:24:00] tip here for voice is that it is not a quick fix. It is not something you can just do in revision.

Which is why I, I think when a lot of agents say they're looking for, projects with voice what they mean is they're looking for projects written by people with a strong sense of identity and a, and have worked on that voice enough to be ready. It's just one of those things that just takes time.

It is not a quick fix. I think that it helps to write in different mediums, writing a newsletter or a blog, and writing some nonfiction stuff, and writing your fiction as well. And not just longform, but try short fiction too. Write some poetry. Write ... God, what, anything you can think.

Journal entries, right? All of this stuff is a way to develop voice, and writing in different mediums helps you pull this and this and this until you've got it. It just takes time. It is not a quick fix. My advice, I got three little pieces of advice for tip for voice that I think might be actionable.

Again, this is so hard. I can't teach the ... But my advice is, [00:25:00] one be authentic. Just be authentic. What- whoever you are whatever makes you unique and special man, just dump that onto the page. I'm a very, Okay. I hate I'm getting gross thinking about talking about myself in a positive light, so I apologize.

I don't compliment myself well at all. But I'm a witty person, I like to laugh and crack jokes. And that's, everything I write and do is structured around the occasional witty joke. It just is. It's how ... Some people are very deep and somber or macabre or, and whatever that, whatever your vibe is, whatever makes you special and unique, man, dump it on the page.

Do not hold back. Let whatever comes out come out. And as you go back and read it, you're gonna realize, ooh, I love this, but ooh, this is a little much. And you can kinda figure out which parts work. Or, my other piece of advice is to seek feedback. Once you've tried something with voice, maybe something new, give it to your beta readers and kinda see how they receive it.

They might say, "I really loved this part, but this part felt a little too sappy for [00:26:00] me," or, "It was a little too emotional," or, "It was a little too depressing, but this part, oh my God, it was so good." And through that feedback, that's how you kinda figure that out. I got my feedback.

I'm not sure if you ladies know this, but I was an NBA journalist for 12 years on the internet, where I covered the Chicago Bulls and the Indiana Pacers. Public-facing articles and a comment section of meathead sports fans who were consistently angry with me about everything I ever said. That was my first introduction to feedback, public feedback.

But you do, you internalize it a little bit, and it can't help but show up on the page in kind of what you're doing. That does help. So be authentic, seek feedback and then my last one is read it out loud. Again, read it out loud. What does it sound like? What's the cadence?

What's the rhythm of the speech? This is where, if you're not into poetry reading or listening to some poetry can go a long way in the way something is written. The best poets all have that kind of unique voice that really makes them pop off the page. So [00:27:00] read your book out loud, even just to yourself, and see how does it flow.

Does it feel good? You can feel when it's choppy or isn't quite hitting or oftentimes we see this in emails and texts all the time. We say it in our head, and then we write it in the text or email and hit send, and the other person takes it completely the wrong way because there's no tone in writing, right?

And so when you say it out loud, you're like, "Oops I see what might happen there. I'm gonna fix that so there's nothing lost in translation." So I, I think those help a lot. And, I know we're not talking about writing in different character voices but really if you make it a point where hey, this character's gonna be really pushy and impulsive, and this character's gonna be really shy and standoffish, sometimes writing

m- being knowledgeable and cognizant of writing characters in such different ways helps you explore those different aspects of your own writing voice too. The simple answer is that practice is what gets you there. You've gotta write to find out who you are as a writer. And that's just something that, [00:28:00] Ma- Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to, to master something.

Voice just doesn't happen. It's something that we grow. And so don't be frustrated if your first book is not fully developed or if people are telling you, "The voice isn't quite landing with me yet." It doesn't mean that you suck. It just means that you're still learning, and it's still a process, and you can still get there.

You just gotta keep reading and keep writing Yeah, I had a conversation with a book coaching client maybe yesterday, and the first thing I said to her, I was like, "Your voice is dialed in. You've got- ... the voice. So what we're talking about that needs fixing is more mechanical. It's plot points.

It's some pacing issues." But the hardest part, I totally agree with you, the hardest part to teach or instruct or lead people toward is voice. I had another person that I worked with where you could see over the course ... This, of course, was an epic thriller. It was quite long, and over the course of it you could see him figure out the voice.

[00:29:00] So at the beginning, voice wasn't there. The middle, you start to get it. By the end, he had it, and I was like, "The thing that you need to do now is take that voice- ... go back to the beginning, and start over." And then ... but it was so interesting. You could really just see the evolution on the page.

It's such a interesting thing, and it is, I totally agree with you, it's a hard thing to understand if you don't have it. But that imitation and that deep reading of people that you think you might wanna sound like is a great way to speed the process. Our next question- I, I- Oh, go ahead. I was gonna

I, I've always said the best way to start writing for those who don't know how to write is to write fan fiction, it's just, it's the best way to start 'cause it, all that stuff's already established, so yeah. Absolutely, and it's all practice of the craft, right? Yep. You don't get to the NBA on the second day that you're playing basketball.

You've gotta work the craft. So just start where you need to start and build from there. Yep. Our next question is about story structure [00:30:00] and how to figure out if your story structure isn't working. Are there key signs you can look for? Is there evidence that you can look for? What do you look for to be, like, a red flag that the structure needs some help?

I've already talked a little bit about what I'm looking for in terms of structure. I'm looking for those tent pole scenes, inciting incident, midpoint turn and then all hope is lost. I'm looking for a general three-act or four-act structure, and if it's not in one of those things, it's probably really literary.

And the person is aware that they have avoided that four-act structure, and is skilled and smart enough to do a good job without it, right? That I understand, too. But but for someone who's just trying to get published for the first time I think the basic structure of are those tent pole scenes where they should be?

Is my act one, act two, act three kind of, where it should be? Is it ... Are those fleshed out? That's the first thing that I look for. But more importantly I think the biggest sort of red flag for structure when it's [00:31:00] not working, and I'm gonna talk about South Park. Which I'm not a huge South Park fan, but I

The way that Matt Stone and Trey Parker story tell in their episodes I think is a really smart and simple way to put this. So when South Park writes an episode, and for those of you guys that don't know, South Park, they write the episode the week that it airs. So they write early in the week, and then they do the computer animation later in the week, and then it airs, whatever, the next Monday.

So it's all live and very fast, but they structure their episodes so that their story beats between every story beat you could put the word but or the word therefore. Between every story beat. And what tells me that a story's structure is broken is that instead of thinking but or therefore between scenes I'm thinking and then.

So if it's just a series of and thens this happened and then this happened and then this happened. I'm being very flippant. I shouldn't be talking that. But when I see that those and thens, it tells me that, Usually consequences are missing. [00:32:00] It relieves some of that tension because there's no carry over from one scene to the next.

What the but and the therefore does is, so and so wants to do this, but blank is in their way. So they do this. Therefore, this ends up happening and they have to choose. But they can't do that yet because da. Therefore, they have to da. Whereas, and then that's just not as engaging a story format.

Truly, I- it sounds very simple, but I'm just looking for the 10 pull story beats in more or less the right place, that basic structure, so we can meet reader expectations for pacing. And then I'm looking for the but and the therefore versus the and then, which is effectively our character agency conversation.

That's why agency and stakes are so important. The character has to be driving their own story with a clear target. If you've got that, everything else in revision is fixable. Everything else is fixable. Character with agency, stakes, and a ch- a, a clear target, right? Other- otherwise, yeah, it's the 10 pull scenes and it's the it's the and then [00:33:00] versus the but therefore.

I've heard that several times, and that totally makes sense. And again- ... going through my head and going, "Did I do that? Did I do that?" And it's, those are all good questions to ask yourself as you're going through revision, is asking that question at the end of each, at the end of each chapter. Because it, there may be a good ending to it, but does it lead to a new question, or does it, like you said, does it, it's not just like flowing into the next- to the next chapter. So one of the things I've noticed, and I do it myself, and I know when I'm reading somebody's book and I can see they're doing it, we all get sick of the book, and we just want to finish it. And I see often that there's so many people that rush the ending. I'm guilty. My hand's raised r- and wagging and waving in the air 'cause I do it.

Any suggestions on, how to avoid that, how to fix it? Because we, I think as writers we all do it 'cause we just wanna be done with the book. Yeah, I see it in the ending [00:34:00] sometimes, and then I'll see sometimes a malaise in the middle too. I have a cat who's gonna do a little cameo here for you guys.

She's beautiful but very ornery. So usually the the beginning is usually in pretty good shape. We're excited about it we have this new idea and our opening incident, and we've thought all this through, and so we write it and it's really good. The ending's hit or miss. A lot- sometimes the ending is the part the author's been, like, dying to write forever and they finally get to write it.

And sometimes you're right, the author's just cooked and they wanna be done. I'll tackle this two ways, right? I'll speak to those who struggle in the middle of the book, and then I'll speak to those who struggle at the end of the book, and we'll kinda go both ways.

For the middle portion, when we're bored there with the saggy middle is what it's known as in the industry and in, in my shirt size. The saggy middle is, fixable really pretty easily. That midpoint turn I've talked about is a raising of the stakes. It is a changing of the story.

It is a reconfiguring of everything that is going to matter. And hey sweetheart. [00:35:00] And that is ... We're not gonna look at a cat butt for a half an hour here, are we? That is, ... I'm so sorry. That is something that we're putting in there on purpose. So an example of a midpoint turn is if up until this point the character's been having a series of small wins, the midpoint turn's gonna knock them way back down to start.

Or if the character's been having a ton of little small losses, this is like a big giant clue or a big giant step in the right direction to finally build some momentum. It's also an opportunity maybe to, if we've thought the villain or the antagonist was one thing this whole time and now we find out that no, that thing you've been chasing is only like a, an underling, and the real villain is something way scarier and way harder to defeat.

You thought that was hard, guess what? All ... That's a great way to play with the middle. Those are ways to do that, but my, my hey, I'm getting bored in the middle of my book, what can I do list is one, introduce a new obstacle. Just throw something impossible at them. Two, I love this one, [00:36:00] separate characters who need each other.

If you've got this kind of inseparable duo and they work so well together and things are going ... one of them gets kidnapped or one of them dies or something, and now the character has to work by themself like halfway through the book, right? Now what?

They've lost now what? Backstory reveals are good in the middle. So I, last podcast I said I don't wanna see backstory in the first few chapters, I want you to save it. This is why I want you to save it. We've seen a destructive behavior trauma responses for, 35, 40,000 words, and we've asked ourself, "Why is this guy acting this way?"

Oh, guess what? Midpoint, we get to reveal why they're acting this way and the character's completely reframed in our mind, and we get to write that fun flashback chapter we've been wanting to talk about for so long. You get to actually use it in a part of the book where it's appropriate. The middle's a great place to look at maybe some subplots or some minor characters and give them little mini chapters to get what they want a little bit.

Midpoints can be fixed by introducing a ticking clock, and we'll discuss that for the end bits as [00:37:00] well. You put a timer on something it's way more exciting. Change of power dynamic, so whoever we thought was in charge now isn't in charge anymore and somebody else is. And one of my favorites is, finding two characters that haven't had to interact much yet and ma- making them interact.

The Office would do this when they were getting slow. They would just take two characters from The Office that hadn't had much time on, on the screen together, and they'd give them a whole episode of just whatever, ryan and Dwight, who never really hung out, just the two of them, let's go see what they do.

So I love that one too. So those are all kind of ways to save the middle of the book, lisa, you asked about the end of the book. How do we keep ourselves from, rushing through it and making it really crummy or, or just paced poorly. I think the best way to do that, first and foremost, is to make sure that your all hope is lost is all hope is lost-y enough.

If you've dug a big enough hole, you physically cannot tie up loose ends fast enough, right? So if, their big plan to stop the bad guy has failed, [00:38:00] and their mentor just died, and their best friend is pissed at him and won't talk to him, and their magical dagger got lost in the canyon, and and they just found out this, ba- and six bad things happen at once, you

And then, it ... You're giving yourself, "Okay, I gotta wrap all this up now, so I gotta find ways to settle all these," it forces you to to pace yourself toward the end. That all hope is lost is so important. But also, if you look at that act three As sort of its own little story arc that really should be one of the more enjoyable bits to, to write.

If everything has gone to hell, we have to have a redemption chapter where we kinda get the team back together, where there's this grand gesture or some apology or some understanding or some compromise. That's a cool chapter to write, and now the f- the gang's back together again, and now they have to figure out, okay, we, what we tried didn't work, so w- now what?

And then we see them work together with all this growth they've made as characters, all this knowledge and power and strength that they've [00:39:00] acquired over the first 80% of the book, now they're equipped to make a plan that works on their own by themselves without a mentor. And and now we get to go execute it, and we get to write the exciting, climax scenes where they confront the antagonist and whatever else.

And then you get to write that super sweet like final chapter that ties up all the loose ends, like in the movie where the screen goes black and it's like, "John lived to be 74 and started a llama farm." And we get to write that chapter at the end, so I always kinda think of it as the ending, like you, you're gonna have four chapters.

Like they get the team back together, they formulate a plot, they go get the bad guy, and then the tying up loose ends. So if you tell yourself, "I have to write at least those four chapters," I'm guessing your ending's gonna be decently enough paced. And i- if it's not then you look at revision and you realize oh my God, I, I've got my inciting incident here, but my act two's only 10,000 words long.

You know you just need to expand it a little bit, you gotta make that build to the climax a little more slowly. Like you fix it in, in, [00:40:00] in revision, right? I actually don't mind rushing through the last bit, Lisa. Like getting to the end on a draft is super liberating and super necessary sometimes for momentum.

And if you're feeling slow and like unmotivated, and ugh, I just wanna be done then just be done. Like just be done. Finish it even if it's bad, and be done. No one's seen it yet. You can go back and fix it later. Give yourself that momentum. Give yourself ... Type the words the end, which is like the biggest dopamine release that any writer ever gets is the end, right?

Give yourself that sleep for a couple nights, and then come back to it with fresh eyes. And I'm guessing you'll feel more motivated to fill in those areas that needed some help That's so funny. I just started revisions on a draft, and I had a lot of stuff going on, so I gave myself permission, I guess at some point, to just, write later.

I'd have chapter 12, write later. But and so I got to the end, and I was like, "Wow, this is great." I wrote the end. I got the little dopamine rush, felt really [00:41:00] excited. Went back to start revising, and I was like, "Are you kidding me?" Yep. Literally 25% of this book is not actually drafted yet.

So it was a little bit of a shock, but I do agree with you. It's sometimes you just have to be like, "I gotta get as much down as I can get down, take a breath," and then I come back and I can start adding that stuff and making it whole. Yeah. Yeah, and if what you needed was that momentum, you got the momentum.

And when you type the end it's like a private contract to yourself that if it's not really done, you kinda feel obligated to yourself to finish, and so instead of it never having written the end and, "Oh, I can wait till later," or, "I'll figure it out," no, go. Write the stuff you wanna write.

Write the other stuff later. It's gonna be okay. The world's not gonna fall off of its axis. It's also ... Yes, and there's that feeling of, it's something complete even if it's not complete. Exactly. And it's easier to work with something that has a beginning, middle, and end, even if parts of it are a little vague, than it is to work with something [00:42:00] that's still unfinished.

It's like a psychological thing, I think. Yep. 100%. So the industry these days, it's pretty, pretty hard to get an agent. Agents are overwhelmed, right? Yeah. They have a lot of stuff coming across their desks, and they're very busy, and they don't really have time for drafts that aren't polished. So- Do you have any final tips for writers taking that revised draft and turning it into a polished manuscript that they can then send off inquiries to agents without immediately just getting bumped out of the running because it's not clean enough?

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a, this is a good kind of question to end on, 'cause it allows me to recap some of the things I've already talked about, 'cause these do apply. Focus on one thing at a time. You don't put the pressure on yourself to do it all at once, because if you do, you're going to miss things.

The best way to make sure that your your draft is polished is to polish one element [00:43:00] of the story at a time. Like really give it your full attention, and do that one thing well. If it is a plotting, pacing revision, then ignore every typo, ignore every character issue, every tiny little plot bunny.

Just get the thing structured in the right basic form. Like just focus on that. Let the other stuff go. I didn't get into all my phases, but the reason why like proofreading is the absolute last thing is because there's no reason to waste your time proofreading stuff if you end up deleting that entire chapter.

That's wasted time. So you proofread last, so one thing at a time, one thing at a time. Be the best focus on character that you can, then be the best focus on world building that you can, then have the best focus on mood and tone and voice that you can, and just focus on one thing at a time.

That's really big. Two, it, it really is important to get other eyeballs on it. Like somebody else has to read it at some point, and I know beta readers are hard to come by for some people. I know that a lot of authors are introverted, and [00:44:00] so it's hard to go out there and find these people.

That is an entirely different conversation, find your beta readers, find your critique partners. Please don't feel obligated to pay somebody like me, but you can pay somebody like me. You need eyeballs on that because you need feedback. We can't just write in a silo, because we are writing for an audience.

Eventually people are going to read this. It can't just be for us. It can be for us when we start, but eventually it's gonna be for the world. So we need eyeballs on it, and I think- in polishing your manuscript, and again, this is a whole different conversation, but like knowing how to take feedback I, I think is really important.

So many writers that, that come to me, they come to me because they've gotten ... they've had 10 beta readers, and five of them want this, and five want the opposite, and they have no idea what to do with this feedback, right? My, my advice there is if you're hearing the same thing over and over and over again, it's probably worth listening to.

Another piece of advice, beta readers are very good at identifying problems. They are [00:45:00] horrible at recommending solutions to those problems. So you know, , note that they recognize something didn't feel right in this scene. I do think that matters. But if they're saying, "So you should let him sprout wings and set the whole town on fire here," bad.

Don't listen. Bad. Don't do that. That's one of it. And it's okay to weigh some people's feedback more heavily than others. Like writing YA, a lot of my betas are teenagers. 10 teenagers could say one thing, and my adult professional editing friend could say something else, and then unfortunately t- I love you teenagers, but m- my friend's opinion weighs more heavily because she's an expert.

It's okay. And ultimately, this is your book. You can decide what feedback you, you wanna take and don't wanna take. You can be as stubborn as you want about any little part of your book. But getting that feedback is such an important part of the process to getting a book polished. You can't just overlook that.

We, we can't be sh- too shy or too arrogant to think that our book doesn't deserve or shouldn't have to f- deal with, feedback from people. It's really [00:46:00] important. Another advice is in between these kind of like sessions and phases, I do recommend taking a few days off, like in between each revision.

I know people who they finish the one and they start the next one right away. And I really think you need pace and perspective in between these revisions. The metaphor I give is like when you're a teenager and you and your boyfriend or girlfriend break up, like that night you are destroyed.

You are wrecked. You are never gonna be happy again. And if you were to make decisions on your life based on how you felt that night, they would look very different from decisions you might make two or three days later when you've had time to come down and your friends have talked some sense into you and you've seen all the support that you have and you've had time to think through.

And the decisions you make are very different when you have a little space from the emotion as opposed to when you're going from one strong emotion to the next. I really do recommend giving yourself a little rest and a little perspective between these phases. 'Cause if you just go, you're, again, you're too close to this thing emotionally to see it [00:47:00] objectively and then, you're not on deadline, ladies and gentlemen.

S- maybe a few of you guys are but I'm guessing most people listening are not on deadline, and if you are an unpublished deadline who's about to be published, you're about to be not on deadline for the last time of your life, and I want you to enjoy and bask in that sensation because it means you can take all the time in the world to write the book that you wanna write.

Again, I'm the analogy king, but think of how many amazing bands, their debut album is great and their sophomore album is bleh, because that debut album was their life's work. They played garages and bars and writing those songs, it's their whole heart and soul, and the album two the record label said, "I want the second album done in 10 months."

Deadlines can impact what you're trying to get done. You do not have to do it fast. You do have to do it right. Do not impose artificial deadlines. Guys, books have been around for hundreds of years. Books aren't going anywhere. If your book has to wait three more months, despite the fact if your dream agent is only open for queries for [00:48:00] two weeks starting on Monday, don't worry.

They're gonna open again. Books aren't, agents aren't going away. It's b- publishing is always gonna be there. Get your book right because you onl- you really only get that one shot. The whole you get one sh- one shot at a first impression. If you sub or query before it's ready, you've blown that opportunity.

We don't wanna do that. Be right not fast. And the last thing I'll say just to kinda close on this, is like ar- every draft is progress. Every draft is a little bit closer to being where you wanna be, and every draft is this breath of fresh relief that you get, I looked up some stats just to give you guys a sense of where you are.

15% of US adults say that they have started writing a novel. 3% of those people finish. So if you've finished writing a book- Like, you're already above a huge swath of the population in terms of being closer to publication. How many of [00:49:00] those people who have finished a draft of a novel, how many of them are revising four, five, six, seven times?

How many of them are listening to craft podcasts like Writers With Wrinkles and getting all, who, how many are really putting in the work that you're putting in to get to publication? I have heard it said that publishing is an act of attrition, which just means if you do it long enough, you're almost gonna trip and fall into some success at some point.

And that's not because we're doing the same thing over and over again and force-feeding ourselves to the publishing industry. It's that we've put time in, we've learned, we've grown, we've made friends, we've gotten to understand what this means. We have a good sense of the industry.

We've failed. We've learned from that failure. And if you do that over and over again and you stick with, you have that grit and that persistence, it's really hard not to find some success eventually. So if you've written a book, congratulations, you are elite. And if you are still working on that and getting to a point where it's gonna be a polished final draft, my goodness you're [00:50:00] so close, and I hope that you get what you deserve for all the the hard work and love that you put into your books I think that being so close it was

is what makes people so impatient. They've been working, working- ... and I feel like so many writers lose that one shot that they get with a particular agent or an editor maybe because they are impatient, and you just- Yes ... need to slow your roll a little bit and hang on and work through that last final polish, because that is what you wanna put in front of people.

I say that all the time. Just take a deep breath. I know you wanna be done. I know you've been sitting with this project for years if it's something that you're not writing on a deadline. Just hang in there. And a lot of writers frankly it's ... and I don't mean to generalize, but a lot of writers have some form of ADHD, and they just do. And so when we feel ... I have it, like cripplingly bad. So like when we feel that hyperfocus start to [00:51:00] wane toward the end of things and we're wondering, "God, am I gonna have the ADHD hyperfocus to even suffer through revision?" Some of that impatience is truly just like I don't know that I'm gonna have

I'm gonna be on to collecting, stamps next week or something, they move on to the next hyperfocus, i've done it myself. For some reason stories have stuck, but for most things I've done that. So I feel that from my ADHD-ers too, it's just like I, I don't have anything left.

This is what I have, and I hurry up and do before I lose focus. There's that kind of panic. But you're right, I see it all the time where writers they wanna go now, when if they would just put two or three more months into it, it would be ready. Yeah ... and they listen sometimes, and they don't sometimes, I know. All you can do is try to remind people over and over again. It's ultimately their choice, right? Yep. But yes, it is ... I totally get both sides of it. So again, Joel, thank you so much for coming on and doing this second session with us. We are so grateful for your time and your wisdom, so thank you.

Thank you for having me. I love [00:52:00] talking a whole lot, so this is always very fun for me. And listeners, remember you can find out more about Joel by visiting our podcast notes and the blog at writerswithwrinkles.net. I'm also putting together a few cheat sheets based on the content of these episodes 'cause they have so much good stuff in them.

I want writers to be able to have that right next to them when they're working. The way to get those is to sign up for the Writers With Wrinkles newsletter, which you can do on the homepage of writerswithwrinkles.net. And Lisa and I are back next time with

an Ask Beth and Lisa episode. Please see the notes for how to send us a question, or use any of our social channels to submit a question. So until then, happy listeners. Happy reading, writing, and listening.