Pinky Miranda Productions

Revision is painful, but necessary. After all, writing is rewriting!

This is my method to editing: taking it paragraph by paragraph.

Below is a paragraph from my in-progress novel, “The Black Box”:

Gym was my least favorite class, and as I stared out of the steely windows into the soggy sky, I found myself beginning to daydream instead of listening to the lecture. I just had never found myself clicking with anyone in my class. Mainly it was because I couldn’t participate in any game days, because of my “knee condition” and was only allowed by my parents to work on the treadmills and in the fitness center. You think parents would be encouraging their kids to participate in sports, but mine weren’t as bright. They discouraged any competitive sport, saying that it was a ‘waste of my time’ and only bred ‘proud, arrogant cheaters’. The injury excuse was one that was obviously a lie, yet my teacher didn’t say anything about it. Strangely enough, my doctor continued with the facade along with everyone else in charge of my life, so I had no say in the matter.

Ugh. I’m shuddering while I’m reading that. There’s a lot of problems, and to list a few:

• Gym was my least favorite class, and as I stared out of the steely windows into the soggy sky, I found myself beginning to daydream instead of listening to the lecture.
  • This sentence accomplishes little, except for maybe abusing words when shorter phrases would do. From the setting description, we get the weather and a tiny bit of the setting. But really, it’s pointless. The reader thinks, oh, so there’s steel windows and it’s raining. So what? The main character hates gym and is daydreaming. So what? That doesn’t tell us much about the character. And it’s telling us, not showing us!
• I just had never found myself clicking with anyone in my class. Mainly it was because I couldn’t participate in any game days, because of my “knee condition” and was only allowed by my parents to work on the treadmills and in the fitness center.
  
  • This sentence is better. We get a more insightful view on the ‘whys’, although the subject changes abruptly in the middle of the sentence. From the underlined point on, the thought is detached and we needed a transition there.
• You think parents would be encouraging their kids to participate in sports, but mine weren’t as bright. They discouraged any competitive sport, saying that it was a ‘waste of my time’ and only bred ‘proud, arrogant cheaters’. The injury excuse was one that was obviously a lie, yet my teacher didn’t say anything about it. Strangely enough, my doctor continued with the facade along with everyone else in charge of my life, so I had no say in the matter.
  • There’s a bunch of extra words in here that don’t improve the writing, and some foggy phrases that could be replaced with some more concise words or could be rearranged.
  • There’s also problems with the past and present tenses, such as “had no say in the matter” can be changed to “have no say in the matter” and “my doctor continued” to “continues” among several more.

So now to rewrite the paragraph:

Walking into the dimly lit damp room for the lecture, I was reminded of how much I abhorred this class. It was one thing to be isolated from most of the normal activities like running on the track because of my “knee condition”, but the lazy people in my class were not exactly friendly.

I get asked all the time why I don’t play sports. I look athletic, sure, but my brilliant parents discourage any kind of competitive sport, saying that it is a ‘waste of my time’ and only bred ‘arrogant cheaters’. The injury excuse was obviously a lie, yet my teacher didn’t comment. Strangely enough, my doctor continues with the facade along with everyone else in charge of my life, so I have no say in the matter.

Ahh. Much better.

-Rika

I know, I know, I haven’t been posting regularly.

That’s because I’m writing a novel in 100 days, and I’ve been focusing on my writing recently. (oh, you expected some standard excuse that all bloggers give? Psh, I think you forget whose blog you’re reading.)

But today I’m going to list the TOP FIVE websites that are a must for all screenwriters:

1. StumbleUpon. Seriously, this thing is a major inspiration generator. It’s a browser add on that gives you a button that you press and it magically teleports you to awesome websites- a perfect way to get inpiration. I’ve learned how to build invisible shelving and found a lot of inspiring pictures.
2. Character chart. My characters sometimes can be bland; so this character chart is perfect. Eleven printable pages of questions that are guaranteed to get you characters that feel real.
3. Royalty Free Music. You don’t think it’s a necessity for screenwriters? It is! It’s amazing how some simple trailer-style music can get you in the mood to write an action sequence or a car chase.
4. Yahoo! Answers. Where else can you hear about people’s problems and then use them in a story without them knowing? This is a story database in itself, and just flipping through random topics like ‘What’s your prized possession?’ you can really get some great stories to incorporate into your own writing.
5. The best search engine out there. Really, this search engine beats google- you just have to visit it yourself to see what I mean.

~Rika