I’m hoping I’ll be ready to send Omphalos to beta readers by early August, or mid-August at the very latest. That’s later than I had originally intended, but I’d rather send off a piece worth reading than a half-polished mess.

In the spirit of expanding this blog post into something more than “hey, I’m still working on my novel,” I thought I’d talk a little bit about what my revision process entails. In broad strokes, anyway.

Spira Mirabilis by Isabel CP, on Flickr

Once the first draft of a manuscript is complete but before I actually revise the text, I spend a long time– several weeks, usually– fleshing out each character arc, dissecting the plot, prospecting for plot holes and errors, pulling and pushing the setting into shape, creating scene cards, re-reading writing craft books, creating revision checklists, and so on. The work is both intensive and intuitive, as this is the stage at which sudden creative insights and revelations catapult the story forward.

I get to know my story and characters; I examine them as their therapist, family, and friend. I can’t adequately write scenes if I’m not intimately and acutely aware of each character’s motivation, their pathologies, the oblique details they notice, the cultural and technological subtleties of the world in which they live, the broader mechanics of the plot, allegory, etc. This is where I distill every scene down to its core elements to understand what I’m trying to achieve, what the inner and outer turning points are, and so forth. Most important is how it all ties together, how each story element influences every other.

Aelse #7 by josef.stuefer, on Flickr

When I’ve done this for the entire novel, I’ll go back through and fix anything that occurred to me as I was working. Little notes here and there– for example, if I’m working on Chapter 12, but an unforeseen change affects everything that happened prior, I’ll make a note to go back and fix these issues on the next pass.

Once major revisions and prose-polishing are finished, I do one final pass of the draft before handing it off to betas. At that point, I try not to look at it so I can attack the manuscript with fresh eyes when the comments start rolling in. I might write a short story or develop an idea for another novel in the meantime.

When I’ve received all the beta feedback, I print out the entire manuscript so I can analyze it and edit by hand as I read their comments. Then I work on subsequent drafts until it’s polished and ready to query.

What about you? How do you approach revisions and edits?

• A Tear at the Edge of Creation, by Marcelo Gleiser
• Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern
• The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, by Deepak Chopra
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan

Fiction

• The Giver, by Lois Lowry
• Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler
• Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E. Butler
• Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater
• My Name Is Memory, by Ann Brashares
• Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
• Going Bovine, by Libba Bray
• This Is My Letter To The World: The Omikuji Project Cycle One, by Catherynne M. Valente
• The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

Not going, but interested? Check out the website and think about it!

First of all, my thoughts on using an eReader in general. For brevity’s sake: I love it. Easy to use, easy on the eyes, easy to store books. It’s also comfortable to hold, and I haven’t experienced the purported slow page turning. It’s no slower than turning the page of a tangible book. Also, the e-ink display mimics the experience of reading a paper-and-ink page, so there’s no issue with glare or the potential eye strain of prolonged reading on LCD screens.

Naturally, I customized the wallpaper right away:

I deliberated over the various eReaders (the Barnes & Noble nook, Amazon Kindle, Sony eReader, and Kobo) for awhile, but the nook best suits my needs. Several people were curious about why I chose the nook over the other eReaders, so here you go: features that won me over.

• Barnes & Noble in-store specials, and the in-store ability to read books for free
• Replaceable battery
• Customized wallpaper and screen saver
• The ability to try the nook at Barnes & Noble before buying
• Touchscreen navigation
• Subjective preference of the nook’s aesthetic over the other eReaders
• The ability to lend ebooks
• Memory expansion
• Sudoku :)

I’ve watched video reviews on the other eReaders, and it seems like most people are pretty happy with their purchases regardless of which device they chose. It depends on what you want.

A quick note on Barnes & Noble’s in-store features. It was a smart move on B&N’s part to incorporate this. There are a number of bookstores within reasonable driving distance of my home, but now I’ll probably always choose B&N because of the nook.

Larger photos of the nook and the case I chose are after the jump (click “Read More” below). But first: Do you have an eReader, and if so, how do you like it? If you’re in the market for an eReader, which one do you think you might prefer, and why? What do you think of eReaders and ebooks in general?

Additional Photos

The larger version of the above photo, with customized wallpaper featuring art by Ashley Nava. You can see part of the touch screen navigation menu. By the way, some of these photos are at an angle because of the glare off the plastic/touchscreen from the lights above my dining room table. Sorry about that.

A view of “My B&N Library”, which lists books purchased directly from Barnes & Noble.

Display of a page from an ebook I’m reading.

The case I chose, the Industriell Easel Cover. I liked the ability to clip the nook into place in lieu of the straps I’ve seen on others.

A view of the case standing up. I haven’t used it this way, but I thought some people might want to see it.

But it isn’t fantasy. The exotic, whimsical elements in Omphalos are extrapolated from science and technology; of course, the reality of it within the context of the story unfolds as you read.

I have deep respect for all genres, but science fiction is where I make my home. It’s the borough in which I can recognize myself in the faces of my neighbors, and where the environment resonates with my worldview. It’s also where I find myself the most challenged and have the most potential to grow. It’s in my nature to speculate about the future of humanity using science as the vehicle of conjecture, and it shows in my stories.

From one of my favorite websites, the Symphony of Science, is a video that illustrates just a few of the reasons science moves me. If you enjoy it, I recommend checking out the rest of their musical tributes.

Why do you write and/or read in your chosen genre(s)?

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives. The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in the behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the ways individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment.

“Perception involves all the ways of becoming aware of things, people, happenings, or ideas. Judgment involves all the ways of coming to conclusions about what has been perceived. If people differ systematically in what they perceive and in how they reach conclusions, then it is only reasonable for them to differ correspondingly in their interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills.”

Pinning down the MBTI personality type for each of my characters helps me maintain consistency while writing for them, even as they grow over the course of the story. Just for fun, I thought I’d share the personality types of the main character of Omphalos and her three main allies. When I use this information in my work, I think about how the personality types might manifest in the city of Omphalos, where the culture is, in many ways, quite unlike our own.

Personality type information is quoted from The Personality Page. Of course, the bullet points below are just small snapshots of these personality types.

Ember: INTJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging). People with this personality type…

• live in the world of ideas and strategic planning. They value intelligence, knowledge, and competence, and typically have high standards in these regards.
• are tremendously insightful and usually are very quick to understand new ideas.
• spend a lot of time inside their own minds, and may have little interest in the other people’s thoughts or feelings.
• may have problems giving other people the level of intimacy that is needed.
• are quick to express judgments. Often they have very evolved intuitions, and are convinced that they are right about things.
• live much of their lives inside their own heads. They constantly scan their environment for new ideas and theories which they can turn into plans and structures.

Bishop: ISFP (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving). People with this personality type…

• live in the world of sensation possibilities. They are keenly in tune with the way things look, taste, sound, feel and smell.
• have a strong set of values, which they strive to consistently meet in their lives.
• tend to be quiet and reserved, and difficult to get to know well.
• are interested in contributing to people’s sense of well-being and happiness, and will put a great deal of effort and energy into tasks which they believe in.
• take life very seriously, constantly gathering specific information and shifting it through their value systems, in search for clarification and underlying meaning.
• are warm and sympathetic. They genuinely care about people, and are strongly service-oriented in their desire to please.

Moth: ESFP (Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving). People with this personality type…

• love people and new experiences. They are lively and fun, and enjoy being the center of attention.
• are constantly putting on a show for others to entertain them and make them happy.
• are upbeat and enthusiastic, and genuinely like almost everybody.
• like to “go with the flow”, trusting in their ability to improvise in any situation presented to them. They learn best with “hands-on” experience, rather than by studying a book.
• have a very well-developed appreciation for aesthetic beauty, and an excellent sense of space and function.
• take things on a day-by-day basis, and are uncomfortable thinking too much about the future, or making plans far in advance.

Tower: ENFJ (Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging). People with this personality type…

• understand and care about people, and have a special talent for bringing out the best in others. ENFJ’s main interest in life is giving love, support, and a good time to other people.
• tend to define their life’s direction and priorities according to other people’s needs, and may not be aware of their own needs.
• have definite values and opinions which they’re able to express clearly and succinctly. These beliefs will be expressed as long as they’re not too personal.
• like for things to be well-organized, and will work hard at maintaining structure and resolving ambiguity.
• do not like dealing with impersonal reasoning.
• have a strong need for close, intimate relationships, and will put forth a lot of effort in creating and maintaining these relationships.

For the curious, I’m an INTP. Have you used the MBTI assessment as a character development tool? Have you used it for yourself?

Nonfiction

• The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil
• Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore, by Elizabeth Lyon

Fiction

• (Re-Read) Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville
• Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut
• Utopia, by Thomas More
• The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold

For quite some time now, I’d been under the impression my Unidentified manuscript was finished. And as far as I understood at the time, it was. I’d written it, revised it several times over, edited it, received critiques, revised again, edited again, received more critiques, and so on. It was polished and ready to go.

Then came the Pikes Peak Writers Conference. Several workshops made me re-think a few aspects of the manuscript, but they were quick fixes. And truthfully, it wasn’t really a matter of “fixing” per se– I didn’t think of anything as broken. It was a matter of making shifts, of evolving the story by multiplying its strengths. I don’t believe perfect manuscripts exist; there’s always room for improvement.

Much like writers.

Then I attended the Donald Maass add-on workshop, The Fire in Fiction. And, well… you see what happened. Clearly, there was more room than I’d thought!

I still feel my manuscript was polished before the workshop. My beta readers loved it (and no, my beta readers aren’t related to me. ;) ), and I was happy with it. But now the manuscript is even better because the story itself has evolved, along with my main character, Elizabeth.

A few of the things I did while my manuscript and I were huddled in our chrysalis:

• Increased emotional conflict. It wasn’t absent before by any means, but I’ve excavated more of the emotional subtleties and put them on the page.
• Ramped up some of the dialogue. If there’s anything I’m hypercritical of in literature, it’s dialogue, so of course I want mine to feel authentic.
• This is a multiple-POV novel, but I demoted one of the characters to non-POV. I realized the scenes I least liked working on were his. I know, I know. What bigger red flag is there? The story was definitely strengthened by this decision.
• I’ve been far crueler to my main character. I’m sorry, Elizabeth! But the added struggles have incited an evolution in her, a transformation that was far greater than what she experienced in the previous incarnation of the manuscript.
• Altered the ending in light of those transformations.

To be honest, some of these changes were ideas I’d had well over a year ago, but I didn’t want to implement them because I thought it might be “too much”. I didn’t want to be that torturous to my main character, to cause that much pain. I thought readers might feel overwhelmed or alienated in the face of so much darkness. I didn’t want them to throw the novel across the room in frustration.

But a few of the things said during the workshop just made it click for me. I’m paraphrasing here, but he advised us to pay attention to internal resistance when we think about turning points that could cause great suffering for our characters. It was then that I seriously considered doing what I was resisting. I thought about it. Slept on it. Talked to a few people about it.

I realized it’s absolutely true. Internal resistance has turned into a compass for me.

As writers, we can’t be afraid to push our characters to their limits. And sometimes, that means causing an existential dilemma by removing what matters most.

Do you push your characters as far as you can? Is there something more you could do to push them? Why haven’t you done it?

The piece below features two of the main characters, Ember and Bishop, at Tian Lake.

Click here for the full version.

For the cycles before his death, it seemed endless words poured from my grandfather’s mouth in a slow trickle. I lapped up his brine-soaked legends of translucent, tentacled beings, and of underwater civilizations filled with intelligent, bottle-nosed, flippered people who spoke in song.

My soles have always been red with the blood of this place— its loam and clay— but water ran in my veins.

… Now, there was only desert beyond the shields of the city. Vast, rolling dunes and sand-laced wind hostile enough to shred flesh. They said the air out there was poison.

No, really.

Okay, not really. But close. See, when I was in Colorado Springs for PPWC, I was exhausted on Thursday night. My eyes hurt, and my throbbing head was full of pitch advice. So, I curled up in the hotel bed and watched television, something I don’t actually do very often.

I caught an episode of Community. It was about chicken fingers.

I need to preface this by saying I’m a bit of a health nut. That doesn’t mean I don’t indulge in pizza every now and then, but by and large, I pay attention to what goes into my body. But by the end of this Community episode, I wanted chicken fingers in the worst way. Breaded, fried, dipped in ranch dressing.

Was it because the show was practically spliced with photos of chicken fingers every few frames? Was it seeing those tender poultry bits stacked like gold coins?

No. It was all in the characters. The main characters started a racket to contend with the shortage of chicken fingers on their school campus. Students lined up with ravenous, saliva-drenched expressions, desperate for a piece of that deep-fried poultry action.

I craved chicken fingers for days. And no matter how silly this example might be, my point is this: it’s how you “show” in fiction. Make the reader (or viewer, in this case) believe the characters want something so badly they’re willing to manipulate, lie, throw others under the bus. Make us believe they might do something drastic to achieve their goals. Make us feel what they feel, not through description alone, but through emotion. Preferably conflicting emotion (in this case, the desire for power– or chicken fingers– vs. the deterioration of their social group).

If your characters are willing to throw the planet out of orbit for a platter of chicken tenders, even your health-nut readers will drool on the page.