The Art of Fiction:
Revision Toolkit: Part 1

The most effective openings will do the triple duty outlined in my February, March, and April 2007 columns about your hardworking first paragraph:

• set the pace
• plant the seeds for all that comes after
• establish the fiction’s mood

Good openings do not, in general:

• open with a character waking up in the morning
• start with a prologue
• start with a dream
• beat around the bush
• beat the bush itself

2. Do the parts fit together as a whole?

Yes, you may love that scene at the casbah (or the cash bar), but if it doesn’t belong in this fiction, it needs to exit, stage left. You don’t have to toss it entirely. Put it into a file of its own. Maybe it will fit into a novel you’ve not yet written, or perhaps it will make a great short story. But scenes that don’t belong need to get out of your fiction before it starts making the rounds of agents and editors. Be harsh now and you’ll thank yourself later.

3. Is there anything extraneous?

This question is a companion to the one above, but in this case, I’m not talking about scenes but all those other extraneous things: conversations that begin too soon (or end long after what’s important has occurred), drives with no purpose other than to show how well you know your way around Denver (or Detroit, Dorset, or Dubai), and protagonists waking up, going to bed, brushing their teeth, and otherwise doing things that have no place in a fiction.

Then there are those walk-on, walk-off characters who appear for one purpose only. If there are a lot of these one-trick ponies populating your fiction, consider whether some (or all) of them can be glommed together to create one multidimensional character. Such consolidations often not only better serve your fiction but have the additional benefit of a one-man (or woman) show who turns out to be far more intriguing than those confusing multitudes.

Ah yes, the blessed and accursed thesaurus. Little did Mr. Roget know what the computer age would do with his marvelous compendium: create a monster of misused words and over-the-top descriptions. Readers are nearly universal in their dislike of words they don’t know, lengthy descriptions and flowery or esoteric language that showcase the author not the fiction, and circuitous routes where a straight line will do. A fiction is not the place to exhibit your Guinness-record vocabulary. For that, get thee to a Scrabble board.

5. Do I say the same thing twice in different ways?

Guilty as charged. When I’m writing at full speed (which is very, very fast), I often describe the same thing twice, as in, “It was a dark and stormy night, black and starless.” I’m especially alert for these two-timings when I go back to revise a manuscript, and I pick the one that’s best and delete the other.

6. Does the ending seem inevitable?

The best endings will leave the reader surprised, satisfied, and eager for more. How can one aspect of fiction fulfill so many contradictory expectations? By seeming, after it’s been read, as if it was inevitable. The reader may not have expected this outcome, but once it’s occurred, it will appear to be the best one possible, much to the reader’s joy and satisfaction.

The Long and Short of It

And that’s the key: your reader’s satisfaction. Fiction writing is at its best when it’s about your reader rather than you. Next month, I’ll explore some other tools that will help you connect with that reader, including the difference between a terse style and not saying what needs to be said, and digging beneath the surface to discover your fiction’s depths.