How to revise your novel (part 3)

Originally posted: August 31, 2020

This is the third post in a series about novel revision. Part 1 considered characters and pace. Part two covered conflict, flashbacks, and thought vs. action. This post tackles beginnings, endings, and dialogue.

BEGINNING

If you are new to fiction, if this is your first novel, odds are good the true beginning of your story is lurking somewhere past the first few paragraphs/ scenes/ chapter. It’s very likely your prologue, beautifully written though it might be, is unnecessary. Especially if it spoilers the ending. Go find the real start of the story and then delete all the stuff that comes before.

Does your novel begin with a character waking up? (Mine does!) It might be fine but be warned that characters getting out of bed is a very, very common and cliched beginning. And now that I’ve told you this, you’ll start to notice it everywhere.

ENDING

I’ve blogged about endings before but it bears repeating: Do you need that epilogue? Really? Are you sure? Because 99.9% of the time, epilogues, like prologues, are unnecessary. In fact, the last sentence/ paragraph/ scene/ chapter of an early draft is usually redundant. Resist the urge to tie up all the loose ends. Trust the reader to get the story.

An earlier draft of Butter Tea at Starbucks had this final sentence: everything feels miraculous. Someone in my writing group suggested that last line was too on the nose so I removed it and sure enough, the ending was stronger.

DIALOGUE

A common issue in early drafts is an over-reliance on dialogue. It’s the rare, exceptional author who can successfully use direct dialogue to carry a story. Remember that there are many, many other ways to convey information to a reader including: action, narration, and scenery. And when you’re writing dialogue, don’t neglect summary and indirect dialogue.

Coming up next: show don’t tell.

Sense of an ending

In my writing group we have a running joke that no matter what or whose piece I'm critiquing, my advice will always be to chop the last paragraph/ scene/ chapter/ sentence.

There is a tendency, often, to wax on for too long. Or, worse, to be anxious that the reader will not get it, will fail to properly understand the story. And then the writer, in a moment of weakness, crams a horrible summary at the end to explain the whole thing. No. Just erase all that stuff. The real ending is three sentences up. British author Tessa Hadley agrees: "If ever you can take off the last paragraph and it still works then you didn't need that last paragraph.”

It’s instructive to hear authors speak about endings which, in my experience, are either instinctive and automatic or impossible roadblocks that stall everything.

A while back, Hadley was interviewed by BBC Radio 4's James Naughtie about three stories in her collection Married Love. What interested me most - but wasn't discussed much - were her thoughts on endings. To summarize, she says: stories must take a turn and that you should leave something left over, a note of yearning at the end.

To me this means you begin with the characters at a certain point, then in the course of the story their circumstances change, and there is a turn so that they are left somewhere else. Or the reader begins at a point - perhaps with an assumption - and by the end the turn takes place in the reader's mind. The reader comes to a realization or their assumptions are proven wrong.

“...the ending of a short story spins and looks back over the short story and so it’s more retrospective in a way.”
— Lorrie Moore

As for the yearning….there is always that unfinished note at the end of Hadley's stories. The characters feel like they are left longing or the reader is. This is one of those characteristics that I love about her stories, that I want to emulate but can't because I can't even really articulate what it is that she does or how she does it.

And then here’s American short story queen Lorrie Moore talking about the difference between short stories and novels. The former ends with a backward glance while the latter looks forward.

Finally, some wisdom from author Ethan Canin who believes our job, as writers, through the course of the story, is to engage the reader so fully and deeply that emotion overwhelms intellect and the reader is carried along: "At the end of a story or novel, you do not want the reader thinking. Endings are about emotion, and logic is emotion's enemy."

Short story endings

The other day, I ran into Eva Crocker and Susie Taylor and we got to talking about short story endings. They’re so tricky to write, I complained. To which Susie said: Yeah, there are only so many times you can end a story with someone dying or getting on a plane.

Ending a novel is infinitely easier than ending a short story. Actually, almost everything about the craft of writing is easier in long vs. short form. Regardless, here are four ways to end a short story:

“There are only so many times you can end a story with someone dying or getting on a plane.” — Susie Taylor, author and astute person

First off, BACKSPACE. If you’ve already written all the way to the end you might want to reconsider the last sentence, the last word, or the last paragraph. Is it really needed? Many writers, myself included, make the mistake of summarizing things for the reader, just in case they didn’t get the point. Originally, the final sentence of “Butter Tea at Starbucks” was something like: Everything feels miraculous. And my writing group said: you’ve nailed the final scene but knock it off with this dumb line, already. They were right so I did.

Sometimes the ending is lurking somewhere else in the story and the trick is to go back and find it, then cut and paste so that the ending is a flashback. I struggled with “Happy Adventure” for years before finally moving the second last scene to the very end.

Other times, the ending is a flash forward. Check out Tessa Hadley’s story “An Abduction” which ends with a big leap into the future. It’s disorienting in the best possible way.

One way to conclude a story is to take some previously innocuous image from earlier in the story and reproduce in the form of an epiphany at the end. I learned this trick after binge reading a bunch of stories by Souvankham Thammavongsa. Have a look at Souvankham’s O. Henry-prize winning story “Slingshot.” In the third last scene a character talks about a tornado. It’s a bit obscure, what he says, and for a moment the reader is left thinking: “what’s this guy on about?” but it’s also so fleeting that it’s almost forgettable. Except then at the very end, the tornado returns in an unexpected way, gloriously described so this time we are left with a crisp image. (Read the story and you’ll understand what I’m saying)

Why does this particular sleight of hand work so well? Because a reliable way to end a story well is to surprise the reader WHILE making them feel that in hindsight the ending makes sense. And readers also like foreshadowing. Good murder mysteries do both these things well - surprise ending that also feels authentic because in hindsight you realize the gut punch was lying in wait all along.

I don’t mean to give the impression that a neat little trick is going to be satisfying to a reader without substance in place. Fundamentally, stories are about transformation. Something has to change by the end: either the character or the reader’s perception of the situation/ character or both.