What’s Clicking and Clunking in Your Manuscript?

Back in the fall, during my 8th grade son’s middle school walk the schedule night, I was eagerly anticipating talking to his English teacher.

It’s no surprise that English was my favorite subject in school. I’m probably not alone here, right? The reading. The essay writing. I loved all of it. Don’t get me wrong, I was no fan of deciphering Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying as a 16-year-old, but overall, that class had my heart during my extended schooling career.

Anyway, back-to-school night. School had been a few weeks in session at this point and the class was knee-deep in a novel already. As we entered the room, I noticed that every wall surface was covered with easel-sized paper with a variety of examples of middle school handwriting (side note: the prevalence of technology is not helping our children’s penmanship, people) scribbled on each. When I got a little closer, I spotted the details.

Each piece of paper was split into two columns: Clicking and Clunking.

For the clicking section, students wrote down what they understood about the story, liked about it, or found interesting. In the clunking section, students wrote down their questions or the things that they didn’t understand.

Amazing!

I thought this was genius. It immediately got me thinking about all the ways in which writers can use this clicking/clunking concept in their own writing process.

Try using this clicking vs. clunking strategy when…

…You ask beta readers for feedback

Ask your beta readers to tell you what clicks and clunks.

Clicking will help you see where your strengths lie and ensure that what your readers are taking away from the story is what you intended.

Clunking will help you see what’s tripping readers up. Keep in mind that every reader and their experience is different so just because something tripped up one reader doesn’t mean it will trip up every reader, but do take a look at those moments to ensure it’s not something you can’t clarify or otherwise enhance.

…You do your first read through

It’s so tempting when we do our first read through after a rough or first draft to pull out the red pen and start marking things up on the line level. If you need practice looking for the bigger picture structural issues (especially true if this is your first novel writing experience and you haven’t edited a large work like this before), grab a legal pad and draw a line down the center. Put clicking on one side and clunking on the other.

As you encounter things about your manuscript that you love, write them in the clicking column. It could be the snappy dialogue in chapter two or a character that’s come alive on the page or a scene that’s really working well. It’s important to recognize what we like in our own work so we can emulate that in places where we might have fallen short.

On the other side of the paper, note the places that aren’t working as you come across them. Perhaps a plot hole or a place where a character does something, well, out of character or a chapter that is all over the place with no clear direction.

You’ll notice I recommend doing this on a separate piece of paper, not in the document itself. This is so 1) you don’t get caught up in line edits and 2) once you’ve read through your whole manuscript, you can analyze the clicks and clunks and look for themes (this analysis will be much easier to do by scanning a few legal pad pages than scrolling through the comments you wrote in track changes in a word doc). I bet you’ll notice that your big clunks are related — maybe character motivation not showing up on the page or lack of stakes or a vague secondary character who falls flat on the page in multiple places.

…You give feedback

Clicking and clunking is a great way to organize your own feedback in a writer’s group, with a critique partner, or within a workshop.

Clicking will give you an opportunity to tell the writer what you like and enjoy in their manuscript instead of only looking for criticism (a danger in some writing/critique forums).

Clunking is a way to think about presenting your feedback with kindness by pointing out where you have questions or need more clarity. Writers who work with me know that my feedback is filled with questions! I figure the writer already knows the answers, but it might not be on the page, and asking those questions helps them to see where they might need to spend some time developing something or getting more specific.

What do you think? Will you give clicking and clunking a try? I figure if it’s good enough and clear enough for an 8th grade English class, it’s definitely good enough for me!