Revision Check List

Revising a manuscript can be a painful process. The writer puts their heart and soul into this piece and then has to tear down its walls and see what parts of their soul don't fit with the others. Revising is like the worst SAT test problem known to man.

The revision process is a necessary evil. It is the cooking down process that boils away the water and leaves a full bodied flavor behind--one that lingers on the palette.

But I'm not here to argue the benefits of revision. I'm here to break down the process into manageable bits by making a list.

WARNING: Do not start revision until you are done writing the piece. Revising while still writing will only lead to heartache and loss of quality time. Get your story out. Don't worry about rules, just write your story. You can always go back and fix it later, but you can't fix what you don't have. Write it, put it away and a few days/weeks/months later take it out and see what you can do to make it the best it can be.

There are a few ways of starting the revision process. For me, a person more creatively bent than structural, I start with theme and characterization. Others may start with plot, or even grammar, but I suggest editing grammar last.

Things to think about while revising:
1. Theme
2. Characterization
3. Plot/Structure/Pacing
4. Setting
5. Voice/Tone
6. Tricks of the trade: What to avoid
7. Writing Craft/Grammar

For the next few days/weeks I will touch upon each of these elements, so keep checking back for updates!

Synopsis writing...

I wish I could tell my readers, many of whom are writers, that synopsis writing is easy, but frankly it isn't. It could possibly be one of the most frustrating endeavors you undertake. There is an emotional element to writing a synopsis. And here I'm talking about a synopsis that is written after the book is complete, not a play by play to help you remember where you are in the plot.

Writing a synopsis is emotional because you have to deem some parts/characters of your book more important than others--it's on par with choosing which one of your children you love more. Not an easy feat.

For me, synopsis writing started out of desperation. I was a new writer with an unfinished manuscript eager to enter a contest with my first chapter, as contest winners get published. But, I had to have a 5 page synopsis to go along with my entry. I puked out the synopsis after a few tries and ended up writing it first person (just like my book) I found it easier to write the synopsis the same way I wrote the book. The manuscript wasn't finished, so the end of my synopsis was very general.

A few months later as I finished the book and was ready to undertake the editing process. I sat down and tried to write the synopsis. I found I just couldn't do it. Nothing felt right, nothing was fresh--I just flat out wasn't into it. In a moment of divine inspiration, I went to my old computer and fished out the old synopsis. The energy level was good, it still felt fresh. I had to tweak a few more things but then I had a working synopsis.

Except of course that it should be written in third person present tense. I went through and changed all of the tenses and all the I's and my's to her, she or Sam. Done right?

Not quite. I had to cut characters and scenes to tighten up the flow of the story. Not good. Not Easy and a damned near annoying process.

Hints? Tips? Suggestions?

First let me say that the synopsis process could be a bit more difficult for us fantasy, paranormal, sci fi writers. Why? Because we write about things that not everyone will understand. But there is a benefit in all that--it's easy to find readers who aren't familiar with your genre. This is key, find readers who know nothing about your book, your genre and aren't afraid to tell you what they think. Show them the synopsis and ask if it makes sense. Have them point out parts that don't seem to go, or that they don't understand.

Then please please please take these considerations to heart. Really Really Really think about them. Get into an emotional place where you care about your book, but where you care about its end result. This is tough love people. Get into the ruthless militarian state of mind where the greater good of the many overrules the good of the individual. It is just a synopsis after all, merely a marketing tool. It isn't the end all, be all of your book.

Answer one question and then focus on that.

The question?

What is your book about? One sentence, that's it. Mine is: My book is about a woman, going through a major life changing event, seeks to find who she is.

Doesn't sound like fantasy, scifi, paranormal much does it? No, but despite the vampires, werewolves, witches, special powers, murders... that is the purpose of my book. Samantha is trying to find out who she is, where she fits in, what her purpose is. In fact, that is the purpose of my whole series.

Answer your question. The answer is the direction of your synopsis. What parts of the story are most important to show your question and answer?

Then edit the shit out of your synopsis. Cut characters, cut special powers, cut secondary character's motivations and get down to brass tacks. Your synopsis should have a logical train of though containing a beginning, a middle, a climax and a falling action. It should read as a complete story. Emotional lines and plot lines should be tied off nicely. Your best resource is to have people unassociated with the book, read the synopsis.

For more resources...

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/synopsis.shtml
http://www.charlottedillon.com/synopsis.html - a lot of links there.
http://www.fictionwriters.com/tips-synopsis.html
http://www.vivianbeck.com/writing/5_steps_to_writing_a_synopsis.htm - an agent talks about how to write a synopsis

The Writer's Journey.

Writing pet peeves

I'm reading Stephen King's On Writing and he lists his writing pet peeves as does Mr. Strunk from the famous little writing book Elements of Style.

Here are a few of mine...

I concur on the horrors passive writing, however I write passively more than I should.

The word "suddenly" bothers me. In a movie, suddenly works because all of the sudden there is something there, but in books, things just don't suddenly happen. The reader reads at the same pace and to use the word suddenly seems rather silly. Just say what happened and then how surprised people's reactions were.

I dislike headhopping, switching between different perspectives often. I caution writers to be especially careful when people of the same gender are involved. When so many "shes" or "hes" are involved it becomes confusing and sometimes overuse of creative pronouns can be irritating as well. I personally like when each scene is written from a different perspective, much clearer to read and understand.

Too many names. Only name the characters that warrant a name. Too many names is confusing, especially if they start with the same letter or sound. To elaborate on this, only give really important characters last names.

I'm sure I will come up with more for later but that's it for now.

Comparing your work

I'm feelig a bit conflicted today. I can't say who said this as it is one of a "Ya know what they say." Well they said that the traits you don't like in someone else, are the ones you don't like in yourself. I'm wondering if that's true with writing as well.

I just finished a book by a very popular author that I like, but I didn't like this book. I felt the plot was forced, the character interaction abysmal and found the resolution lacking. Now, I think I do a pretty good job on the character interaction in my own writing, but I will admit that there are times when I definitely feel like I don't know to make a mystery work. When the Aha! moment to me seems weak or forced. I think that since I already know what's going on I wrote the damn thing afterall, that the Aha! moment isn't going to be a moment of revelation because I knew it all from the beginning. So I can't really judge that moment very well. Is writing this pinnacle moment something an author learns over time or is it instinctual? Any thoughts on this would be great!

A writer on writing

Writing is easy isn't it? The hard part is coming up with the story, right?

Um... wrong. I have ideas coming out my ass, but not the time to write them all. No, the writing itself is the hard part. Just telling a story in person is easy, telling it well and with interest is more difficult... now writing down that story and making it interesting is something else all together.

When you tell a story in person, you have inflection in your voice, hand motions, facial expressions, you set the pacing. All of those things come naturally, but when you write a story down, you have to implement those into your work with interest. Just saying, Her voice was sing songy as she said "You'll never catch me" Isn't as interesting as it could be. You can't write *insert suspense* or *dramatic pause* Hell you can't even write *pause* the most you can do is put in a comma--ooh how interesting.

So then, how do you make it interesting? Hmm, beats me, you just do. Ha.

No, all of those things I've been listing throughout the past few months are what you can do to make your story interesting. Keep the action fast, show, not tell, watch how passive your tense is. Keep things written in the proper order unless you are obviously telling the story out of order and it all comes together in the end. But of course all these things only work if you have a good story to begin with.

All of these writing techniques are called the Craft, the writing craft. To quote Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Good Craft won't get you published, but lack of good craft will prevent it.

It takes more than a good story to make a good writer, but lucky for us, for the most part, craft can be taught. If the writer has a natural feel for how a story is supposed to be told, the rest is just gravy. If the writer doesn't have a natural feel for how a story is supposed to be told, they should read more books, watch more movies until they figure it out. If they can't? Well maybe they aren't writers.

Not that, as writers, we are some elitest group who don't accept all members. No, being a writer is just something you are or you aren't.

Born that way? Possibly.

The only way to determine if someone is a writer or not is the person themselves. No one can tell you, you aren't a writer. Only your self doubt can do that. If you feel the desire, no the need to tell a story, then you are either a storyteller (actor) a screen writer or a writer. You make that decision. But like any other talent/art, it takes practice.

Common mistakes of fiction writers

1. Passive writing: If you don’t know what this means, chances are, you’re doing it.

Passive: Susie had mentioned that to me before.
Active: Susie mentioned that to me.

Passive: We started to walk to the store.
Active: We walked to the store.

Passive: I’d been contemplating this for awhile.
Active: I contemplated this for awhile.

Passive: There was a rainbow in the sky.
Active: A rainbow decorated the sky.

2. Either too long complex sentences or too many short ones. Long sentences go on and on and by the time the reader has gotten to the end, they have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Too many short sentences make the reader feel stilted. It’d be like reading in a strobe light—jarring.

3. Infamous telling as opposed to showing.

Telling: Tasha was confused and frustrated
Showing: Tasha fisted her hands against her sides as her brows drew together.

Telling: Bob’s head was cut off by Bobbette.
Showing: Sword swinging in an arc, the blade cut cleanly through the already bruised skin of her throat.

You tell me which one is more interesting?

4. Preaching. Pretty self explanatory but as a writer, you may not even know you are doing it.

Preaching: Justin watched as the teens tripped over their pants and blared loud rap music. What was it with kids today? Fashion was one thing, but pants that long, and showing boxer shorts? It just didn’t make any sense—common sense. And the music, ugh, the music. Didn’t old people have a hard enough time hearing without the music blowing out their eardrums?

Not Preaching: ................*crickets chirping*............


Yup that’s right, nothing. Cut out all preaching unless it is essential to your character. Chances are with fiction, you aren’t writing your thoughts about the world down in some philosophical manifesto that will change the world. You want everyone to know that kids with baggy pants are stupid? Make them trip over them. Music too loud? They are criminals and get caught because their music covered up the sirens wailing to come pick them up. It basically comes down to show, not telling again. Show us why these things are bad, or good, don’t just spout your opinion about it and expect the reader to swallow it. I wouldn’t.

5. And last but not least for now. Over use of the exclamation point. It tends to leave the reader feeling like whoever is saying or thinking stuff with !!!! after it is ditzy. Like, oh my god! Everything is so exciting, I can’t contain myself! Typically the exclamation point serves one purpose in fiction: when someone is yelling. Thoughts should not have ! Excited statements, unless screamed, should not have ! Show us the character is excited, don’t show us they’re dumb by making them seem like excited puppies about ready to pee on your floor. No one I know like a pissed on floor and chances are, your reader won’t either.

Til next time…

-ST

And now time for Keith Moon, is really IS excited by everything.

Sandra’s Philosophy on Writing.

Yup that’s right, I haven’t even finished my first novel to completion (Still battling the Dread Pirate Rewrites) but I already have a writing philosophy… in fact, it is more like a philosophy on life.

Here she goes…

Picture this: A kindergartener, sitting on the floor of his classroom in his Osh Kibosh Goulash overalls with a pile of building blocks in front of him. He runs his pudgy fingers over them, beats them together. He messes them up, liking the noise they make when they hit each other. His teacher notices that he’s just sitting there with the blocks but he isn’t building anything. She winds her way through the maze of other children sitting on the floor and gently suggests to our kindergartener that he build a wall with his blocks. Seems harmless enough—a gentle push in a direction of learning, right? WRONG! She may have just squashed any creativity the child would ever have with building blocks. Now he associates them with building a wall, and he didn’t make this association himself, someone else gave it to him. It is very possible that the child would come up with building a wall all on his own, but maybe the blocks weren’t for building to him, maybe they were for making music, or creating art, like a mosaic.

Teach your children HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

And what, all powerful ranting author blogger lady, does this have to do with writing, you ask?

Everything.

I don’t want someone telling me that I need a plot point on a certain page of my book—then I will forever associate that page with a plot point, when it may very well be the case that my story doesn’t work with a plot point there. But it will be ruined forever. Which is why I don’t read rules to writing—grammar sure, you have to have grammar if you want anyone to understand what you write, let alone getting published. But I don’t let grammar slow me down. Grammar can be fixed after the fact, which is what I am currently doing.

Perhaps the process would’ve been quicker had I just learned grammar before hand. However, if I was spending my time thinking about grammar, and less about the story, it wouldn’t matter how great the grammar is, if the story sucks, it sucks, whether it’s written coherently or not. But if you have a great story with bad grammar, isn’t that a problem too? YES, but poor grammar is easy to fix, a broken story isn’t.

I don’t take any chances with my muse… okay I just lied there. In the beginning, I did take some chances, although I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. I sent some chapters out for critique before I had even finished the rough draft. A mistake in the long run, perhaps. I did get some helpful advice, like SHOW NOT TELL, but overall I think it made me a little neurotic and set me back. I know not to do that anymore. I know to trust my instincts as a story teller. It’s my story to tell, only I know how to tell it. Once I have the story down in black and white, then is time for me to take a step back and look at it with a discerning eye. Like I am currently doing. I am not opposed to criticism, in fact I welcome it, seek it out even. I know I am crippled by knowing what every character is thinking and where the story is headed, so I need someone who doesn’t.

Setting the mood and thematic elements

Yesterday I listed a few examples of what to think about when setting the mood: Speed, Weather, Colors, Lighting. Does the living space reflect the person? Chapter Titles: Quotes, Lyrics, Titles, Names, Songs etc...

Anyone who is an avid reader or movie watcher most likely has a good sense of how a story should be told. Go with that. You pick up on clues, perhaps it’s a dark and stormy night, with creepy music playing, doors creek, floorboards squeak, lightning flashes and illuminated a shape that wasn’t there before. This all sets the scene. You know what’s coming next, maybe not exactly what happens but you get the gist. Writing is much the same way, except you are coming up with all of that in your head. You know how you want your characters to feel and to act, and you, as the writer, need to create a physical atmosphere to represent that. There is one exception and I will mention that last.

Now speed may not make much sense in word form, but it does, I assure you. How fast the scene plays out. Is your character frantic? Or perhaps they are stalling, then the scene should play out slower. How fast does your character get from one place to another? Pacing is very important in movies, I believe this should be attributed to being important to books as well. Some books are just Go Go Go (most Dan Brown books I’ve read) These are great books and the kind that don’t put down, which is good, but I tend to feel quite worn out after a reading session like that and can’t read another like it or some time. In order for the fast parts to seem fast, you need slower parts… the intrigue perhaps or the mystery. The calm before the storm…

Which leads me to the next item, weather. This can play a big role. Dark stormy night yes, but then you have the winds of change. A light drizzle is different than pouring. Is it a quick stormy, or is the sky gray as far as the eye can see? The sun is shining, is it nice warmth or a stifling heat bearing down on all the inhabitants?

Colors: This one is bit trickier to play with, as it is opened to much interpretation. There are some tried and true methods here though, White means good, Black means bad. Red is blood or love etc… I encourage a writer to break those molds and create something different. Perhaps your good characters wear blue and bad ones wear yellow, then your main character who is conflicted wears green, or has green eyes, or lives in a green car, drives a green car. Color is where a lot of the deeper level of writing comes into play… or all those little things that most readers don’t consciously think about, but the writer delights in adding, or at least I do.

Lighting: This doesn’t seem as important in writing as inn film, but it can be used to the writers advantage. Most readers are movie savvy. Create movie images using your words. Create a shadow of miniblinds, light the character from behind so the face is in shadow. Tell the readers these things, these visual clues so they can visualize it in their head and make it more real. A brightly lit room will feel different than one with lots of shadows. But a brightly lit room can be a bad thing too, if your MC is trying to hide.

Living Space: In film this would be the art director’s pet project. The buildings, the furniture, the paintings on the wall, all add to the personality of the character. Do they like Monet or Dali, a big difference there. Furniture modern or shabby, hand me down. Is their apartment decorated at all? Do they move a lot? No place is really a home? Is their house pretty mundane with the exception of one room? In the business the saying is Location, Location, Location… and with good reason, people affiliate locations with certain traits, good neighborhood, across the tracks…

Chapter Titles: Ooh, this is my latest baby. Chapter 1, 2… etc. Can get boring. Most of use just overlook them unless we need to remember where we are in the book. Chapter titles have a draw back however. If your reader is so involved that they just have to keep reading, the chapter titles can be distracting and take you a bit out of the story. But a proper chapter title will add quite a bit more to the reader’s experience. The writer can really add to the theme with a proper title. Using a common reference, such as “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” and associating it with your chapter will add a lot, especially if you aren’t referring to the death of someone, but perhaps the death of an idea, a relationship etc.

Physical environment: Samantha, my MC (main character), is feeling aimless and unsure of what to do. I have her walking on a winding path, where she can't see around the next bend. She ends up in a carefully planned garden, surrounded by unknown paths and wilderness. While she may have this one moment figured out... She still has many paths and the only one she knows is the one she came from.

She is feeling small and out of her element... So I put her in a large unknown place that has high ceilings.

Chap 4, Samantha wears a bathrobe that is too big for her. She's going through a major change in her life, she is new to this paranormal world and knows virtually nothing about it, she is as innocent as a child, and appears so by her mode of dress.

The one exception I talked about earlier? When shouldn’t the atmosphere reflect the main characters feelings? When you don’t want it to. When you want to create discord between the environment and your MC use juxtaposition, in fact all of the items listed for setting the mood can be used adversely to set a different mood than the one the character is feeling, thus creating… yup you guess it, conflict. You have a mass murdered going to Chuck E Cheese’s… A person so incredibly happy and it’s storming out. Your MC is shy and is forced to where some revealing outfit. Conflict of images also creates conflict in character and plot.


Training scene from Rocky... notice the surroundings, the clothing, the colors, or lack there of.

Setting the Mood

First let me just say that in no way do I think there is only one way to do things, nor do I think I know everything… that certainly is not the case! So with yesterday’s and today’s blog I am not presuming to know things… I’m simply stating what works for me. These blogs are essentially a way for me to get away with talking to myself without seeming crazy.

I don’t know the rules of writing, in fact I try to stay as far away as possible from them. If I know them, then I feel the need to follow them, and I believe that will cut my writing off at the knees. I don’t pretend to me some creative genius that has all original ideas, I’m not so out of the box to be innovative, I just don’t want to be stifled by rules.

So these blogs about writing are simply me figuring what works out as I go along. I’m sure there are rules or suggestions quite similar to these, but instead of me reading them then wracking my brain trying to find a way to use them, I’m finding the rules out myself as I go. I’m seeing what works with my storytelling, or what I use subconsciously in the bit that I really like, and try to figure out what I did so I can use the same technique later.

I’m sure my way takes longer in the end, but I know what works for me, and this works. So read my ideas or don’t, use them in your own writing or don’t… this is mainly for me, but it may help others.

Setting the mood...

Being trained as a filmmaker has made me quite the visual thinker, which has helped and hindered my writing. It’s helped in the essence of I’m not relying on telling the reader what the character is thinking, I’m showing them. On the same hand, I can go overboard with some description because I have a certain composition in mind for the events that are playing out, and shot composition doesn’t transfer well to the written word.

I be believe though, that filmmaking has helped more than hindered my writing, one of the main benefits is setting the scene. Now here… I’m a fan of the subtle. In film I would use visual clues, colors, shapes, shot composition, clothing, all to add to the feeling of the scene… and all this on top of the acting. I try to do the same when writing.

A few examples of what to think about when setting the mood: Speed, Weather, Colors, Lighting. Does the living space reflect the person? Chapter Titles: Quotes, Lyrics, Titles, Names, Songs etc...

Okay, here I went through and quite in depth on each of the things listed… and that has turned my blog into a candidate for epic blogs… so I will add them tomorrow…

In the meantime a little something to help you on this day, Valentines.

Juxtaposition

Today I felt the urge to talk about how my filmmaking experience helps me with writing, and how it hinders.

The first item I wanted to discuss is Juxtaposition. Basically juxtaposition is placing two or more unrelated objects together and creating meaning that isn't there without the other object. For instance, in film, you have a shot of a very thin man, dressed shabbily, looking down. Then you cut to an overhead shot looking down and on a table you see an empty bowl, clean. The viewer would create meaning between these two shots, the man is hungry and has no food to eat.

Juxtaposition doesn't even have to be as blatent as that, or as direct a meaning. I blogged awhile back about a bad dream I had, pretty freaky to me and to a few fellow readers who let me know as such. The daily video that I choose for that blog was the opening for the old cartoon show Strawberry Shortcake, a very innocent thing, but when in combination with the creepy dream, the repetitive quality most kid's songs have, now seemed creepy... as in "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" kinda creepy.

"Intense amusement." That is an example used in Chapter 1 of Inevitable of juxtaposition in literature. One doesn't have to do with the other, but combined they create new meaning.

Sometimes the combination of two things can add some insight, rather than confusion about a character. In Chapter 1 again, Sam is making pizza dough by hand. How very domestic of her, but at the same time, she's swearing and punching it, how very UN-domestic of her. This shows insight into her character, but also shows that she has conflicting elements of her personality.

Writing in first person it is a tad more difficult to write juxtaposition between scenes but it can be done, the missing space needs to be accounted for however. Juxtaposition is used a lot to create suspense, eerie, creepy suspense. You have a killer on the loose who preys upon young girls, you've just seen him slaughter someone. End chapter. Next chapter opener? Why a young girl playing with her dolls of course.

Juxtaposition comes naturally to the story teller most of the time. Stories need conflict. Conflict of imagery is a good way to create an unsettling mood and enhance suspense. If you are a writer, filmmaker or any story teller really... try using juxtaposition consciously. Feel a scene doesn't cut the suspense mustard? Use conflicting images and see how the mood shifts.

Tomorrow's blog will be about setting the mood and how to take movie imagery and put it into words.

Here is an example of very POOR juxtaposition. These two separate commercials ran back to back.

That Dread Pirate Rewrites again...

Blogger was down when I tried to blog earlier, so this blog is quite a bit late. Sorry for that.

I cut and dyed my hair last night, which means that I now appear to be a completely different person. I have that spy quality to me. Simply change my hair and I have a new identity.

Now, onto my rewrites... well they are being a bit difficult. I know what needs to be put in, and am writing the new scenes, however my character, Sam, isn't at the same place in my head. She has already gone through her character arc and has moved beyond the place where she was in the first book. So it's making it a bit difficult to write. I have to go back there and pretend she hasn't went through the things we both know she's already went through. We all know that hindsight is 20/20, but I can't write it like it is hindsight... so yes, its been a challenge.

On top of that, my writing style has developed and my rewrites may be in a bit of a different style than the beginning of the first book. I have my work cut out for me.

Not being a person who watches tv, at all, I've succumbed to minor peer pressure and got the first season of Firefly from Netflix on DVD. Actually, there was no peer pressure at all. A person with whom I have similiar taste likes it very much so I thought I'd give it a try.

I found some bloopers from the show... Don't wanna give anything away...

Revision... what have I done to you?

Not a damn thing ugh! I did read through about 30 pages of the ms and take notes on what to change (which is what I'm told you should do.) It is kind of difficult to do that. I see a mistake... and I can't change it right then? Hmm, irritating.

And of course I got sidetracked by a million things, not the least of which was Christmas shopping online. Oh how I love to make it through a Christmas season without having to go to the mall. Wonders abound.

I'm sure I will get distracted today. I need to finish addressing my Christmas cards. I also want to put my short stories/writing prompts on my website.

My hubby and sons are going away for the weekend, so that will give me uninterrupted time to work... we'll see if that actually works. I just haven't gotten into the right frame of mind yet.

I thik its mostly because the parts I worked with before were the beginning ones... and I need to start there with the reading... but it's bogging me down. Don't get me wrong, its not that I don't think I wrote good stuff. I do, I like what I wrote... but who can eat their favorite food everyday? Well, not me.

Maybe it'll help if I just skip forward a bit... I know I know, not following the rules. But hey, if the rules aren't working for me right now, why stick to em? Basically I need to get in touch with my characters, and where they end up in the book, so I can rewrite from the beginning with their end in mind. I can insert foreshadowing... make the story much more complex.

And now for a depressing, albeit, lovely song.

Showing, Not Telling

Showing, Not Telling.

I am not talking about playing doctor either!

What I am referring to is a writing tip. Books work much better when something is shown, not told. While that might not make much sense to some of you, considering it's all words, so it's told in words, not shown in pictures (at least in books I write.)

Here is an example:

Telling: 1. "I don't understand said," Tiffany with a confused look on her face.

Versus.

Showing: 2. Tiffany cocked her head to one side and drew her eyebrows together.

While 1. is just fine and tells you information you need to know, it keeps the reader on a superficial level. 2. on the other hand makes you start visualizing things in your head and thinking... I wonder what that character means by that movement. If I made that movement what would I be thinking? It draws the reader in much more effectively and helps the reader sympathize with your characters.

I was doing my... *insert music full of dread* rewrites yesterday and was reading a scene I had written quite a few weeks ago. It is one of my favorite scenes. It's funny, it plays out well, it flows, it's exciting. I looked at it with what I like to think of as a fresh eye and tried to figure out what I did there that was so much better than the others. Not that the others are bad mind you... they aren't I swear! Seriously, in that scene, I did a helluva lot more showing than telling. It made a huge difference! This may not seem like a big deal to seasoned writers or even to people who don't write at all. But for me it is. I've only been writing for 7 months now, only 3 of which on this book. I am learning so much everyday about the craft of writing. I am becoming able to look at my work almost objectively and spot things that could use a little polishing. I think this shows that I am headed on the right path. Man it feels good!