I need to clean my closet.
I keep avoiding the task. (Can you blame me?)
There are easy things to clear out – the hidden leftover remnants from Christmas packages and the pile of clothes my teens have outgrown to donate.
But then there are the harder things. The extra comforter for when we pull our daybed into a king for guests that doesn’t fit in the linen closet. The shelf-full of handbags that I really need to go through seeing as how I pretty much just use two of them on rotation. The clothes I push aside because (let’s be honest) I love them but they don’t quite fit the way they used to and maybe, just maybe, this weighted vest walking I’m doing now for bone health means they’ll fit again eventually?
These things will require thought and decisions and, frankly, may get emotional.
Cleaning things out of our closets can be fraught even when we know we need to get rid of something because we never use it, it doesn’t fit, or we just don’t like it anymore.
Revising our manuscripts can be the same.
In tightening up my manuscript to go on submission, I needed to cut the word count. My agent suggested I take a machete to the scenes with the kids in them.
Okay, it was worded more kindly and with bona fide reasoning, but I loved those scenes. I loved writing them. I loved the comic relief they added. Those little kids are two of my favorite characters and I didn’t want to lose them.
Granted, I didn’t need to lose them, just trim them. Edit them. Reduce the clutter in those scenes.
And you know what? The book didn’t suffer for it. Even if I suffered a little in anticipation of doing it.
Would I have trimmed those scenes if I hadn’t been asked to?
Nope. I would have looked at other areas first.
But someone with outside eyes not so emotionally attached to their little personalities recognized those scenes were a little bloated and slowed the pace of the story.
Just like an organizer might be able to help me see what is and isn’t working in my closet and help me brainstorm solutions to the stuff I just push in the corner.
Revising can be emotional. We think those scenes that don’t quite fit might eventually if we just tweak something else somewhere to make it work. Or that chapter full of backstory might not be noticeable to anyone else like my pile of old picture frames in the corner.
The best part of revising is that you can cut those scenes or those characters or that backstory and put them in a cut file. It’s a lot easier to store than that comforter I don’t know what to do with when it’s not in use.
How can you revise with impartial eyes?
Remember Marie Kondo? She guided homeowners through the task of decluttering with one guiding principal:
Does this item spark joy?
If the answer is no, you thank the item for its place in your life and let it go.
There is a similar question to ask your story:
Does this scene/character move the story forward?
My kid characters were important in many ways, but the scenes that needed to be cut? Well, they weren’t moving the story forward. I just had fun writing the kids, which meant they ended up in longer scenes. Once I went back to revise with a more critical eye, I could see that the pace was dragging because of my own enjoyment. Cutting the scenes shorter allowed the kids to provide the color and context they needed to while moving the story forward. Places where they dragged or simply didn’t enhance the story were places I excised.
If a scene, character, backstory dump, or subplot aren’t moving your story forward (your external plot AND internal character arcs), then it’s time to take a critical look at them.
If you have taken so many revision passes that you can’t tell if it’s a forest anymore not to mention which trees are in it, it might be time for outside help.
Call in a cleaning service. This could be:
- Critique partners. They probably know your story as well as you do. Ask them where you might be holding on too tightly.
- Beta readers. Ask your betas where the paced slow for them? Or where they found themselves skimming. Usually the answer is somewhere they can skim.
- Developmental edit/manuscript evaluation. A book coach or editor can read your manuscript and offer fresh eyes and a path forward to a clean manuscript.
Whatever you do, don’t close the door on your mess and hope no one notices it. When you query or self-publish a book with a mess hidden inside, agents and readers will find it.
Whether it’s your closet or your manuscript, it might be time we face the mess and get to work on cleaning it.
As always, if you need support, I’m here. And this spring I am offering both full and partial manuscript evaluations.
