For the month of December, I really need to concentrate on my novel revisions. So instead of my usual Marvelous Middle Grade Monday and ABCs of Writing Middle Grade Fiction I'll be posting short revision tips from various sources.
Today's Tip:
Learning about book structure from reading and analyzing published books in your genre can be really helpful. I find I get the most out of this process if I do it myself, but there are some great ones out there on writer blogs (for example, see Laura Pauling's Plot Busters posts). When I get stuck on a plot issue, I often turn to one of my novel analyses to see how other writers manage to get their plots to fit together.
Cool Quote: "Analyzing a book through dissection turned out to be one of the most concrete and most helpful revision strategies I tried...the power of the dissection process was that I came to these same conclusions on my own by analyzing how writers I admire created books that I love."
Katherine Schlick Noe, Revision: Turning Spilled Milk Into Ice Cream blogging at From the Mixed Up Files
Oooh! I'm going right over to check out Plot Busters! I have a terrible time with plot and need all the help I can get :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip and link. I will have to check out Laura's plot busters.
ReplyDeleteGreat tip! I'm going to check out the link now.
ReplyDeleteWonderful tip. I love how "tips" -- little tidbits -- can sometimes turn the lightbulb on and make all the difference.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link and I'll look into Laura's too. I absorb most from what I read (books, that is).
ReplyDeleteMarcia, it's true that sometimes a little bit of information you hear in a different way can give you a whole new perspective!
ReplyDeleteI'll add a link to Laura's blog - the day I posted this I had technical difficulties.