Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 127. Developmentally Editing Your Book: Scene Level Edits (Part 3 of 3)

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127. Developmentally Editing Your Book: Scene Level Edits (Part 3 of 3) · Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori

• 0:05
  Welcome to the Show, Don't Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
• 0:13
  Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
• 0:20
  Join me as I share the step-by-step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away, as I host successful writers who share a behind-the-scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages, giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
• 0:38
  Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
• 0:42
  There are real and important skills that you need to learn.
• 0:45
  On this show, I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
• 0:49
  I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing Welcome back to the podcast where we are talking about developmentally editing your own book.
• 1:01
  This is part three in the series, so if you haven't caught parts one and two, go back and catch them.
• 1:06
  Today we're gonna talk about scene level and evaluating your book at the scene level.
• 1:12
  In part one, we talked about what to do before you even start developmentally editing your own book and how to gain perspective, how to do things yourself.
• 1:21
  Part two, we talked about your big picture of your book, and now we're talking scene level.
• 1:26
  So we wanna check that everything in your scenes belongs.
• 1:29
  There's a lot of information here, so make sure you're taking notes, because each scene in your book actually needs to do a lot of work, and each scene also needs to progress your story forward.
• 1:41
  Now, when we're mapping this out at the big picture level, we're taking a look at the whole thing and making sure that everything is driving forward and driving forward.
• 1:50
  And writers often come to me and say, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I want them to take a step back.
• 1:53
  Two steps forward, one step back.' Which is fine, but make sure that you're not doing this all the way along 'cause it can feel a little bit like a yo-yo if you're going forward, back, forward, back, forward, back.
• 2:03
  Okay?
• 2:04
  So each scene needs to progress your story in some way, and the first way that you think to set a scene, I can promise you, is not the only way.
• 2:13
  These particular exercises that we're gonna go through in this episode are designed to make you think, "Did I do it in the best, most efficient, most interesting way possible?" There's a lot of things that I share in this podcast and when I teach in person, which are cliches in the writing industry.
• 2:31
  And the way that cliches in the writing industry happen is not how you might think, that people are copying one another.
• 2:37
  I find a lot of those things that are sort of what newer writers come to is because it's the easiest way.
• 2:43
  It's the first thing that comes to us, like starting a scene with somebody waking up or ending a scene with somebody fading to black or falling asleep, right?
• 2:51
  These are the easiest ways that our brain comes up with.
• 2:54
  It feels very satisfying to us.
• 2:56
  Therefore, everybody in the world that is untrained as a writer is going to do this, right?
• 3:01
  It's the first thing that comes to mind.
• 3:03
  We don't wanna be that person.
• 3:05
  We wanna be more creative, okay?
• 3:07
  So making sure that everything that we do in our scenes is done in the most interesting way possible So the first thing that we're gonna look at at each of our scenes, and when I say a scene, don't get too hung up on whether it's a chapter or a scene with a scene break within a chapter.
• 3:24
  It's basically anything where you're in one location, a specific moment, or a specific point in time with a specific set of characters.
• 3:31
  If you switch locations, if you switch the time period, if you switch the characters, you may have started a new scene unless they're just joining in on the fun, okay?
• 3:39
  So the first thing that we're going to look at is your emotional impact of each and every scene.
• 3:45
  So you go through your entire book.
• 3:46
  You're gonna read it again.
• 3:47
  You're gonna read scene by scene by scene.
• 3:50
  You're gonna have to, uh, start with emotional impacts because this one you have to trust your gut a little bit.
• 3:55
  There's no measurement.
• 3:56
  So for those of you who follow me because I'm a former operations professional, and I like to quantify everything and give you specific rules, you're not gonna get them here.
• 4:03
  What you're gonna do is you're gonna actually trust your gut on this one.
• 4:06
  So as you're reading, I'd like you… We could put some numbers to it anyway.
• 4:11
  As you're reading, take a look at the emotional impact and score each scene as you read.
• 4:16
  Now, emotions could be positive emotions, could be negative emotions, could be lots of different things.
• 4:21
  Score each scene as you read from one to five, one being no emotional impact, five being, 'Oh my gosh, I gotta put the book down because I gotta go find the Kleenexes,' right?
• 4:30
  Then name it.
• 4:31
  What emotion did you feel as you read?
• 4:34
  And check yourself.
• 4:36
  Is it actually what you intended?
• 4:38
  Now people sometimes are like, "I can't tell.
• 4:40
  It's my own writing." This is where we need to go back to the first episode of this series and talk about perspective, how you gain perspective.
• 4:48
  If you're not feeling it as you read it back your own writing, the reader probably won't either.
• 4:53
  There are scenes, especially in the romance scenes or in the sort of sadder moments or the most tender moments, the relationship connection scenes when I'm writing, I tear up every time I read my own scenes.
• 5:03
  Now, you may not be as emotionally in tune to that, that you cry almost every day from TV or from reading.
• 5:11
  I can let myself go there.
• 5:12
  But if that's not you, whatever your scale is from one to five, I had some emotion, I had zero emotion.
• 5:18
  Now, not every scene can have the same punch, but look for patterns.
• 5:23
  Again, take out the three-page overview that you created of your book that we did in the second episode in this series, and take a look.
• 5:31
  How are you scoring?
• 5:33
  Your ones probably all need work, right?
• 5:35
  But you know, it's okay to have some threes, some fours, and a couple of fives.
• 5:39
  We don't wanna be keeping our readers at this emotional height every page sobbing.
• 5:44
  That's gonna be a horrific book.
• 5:46
  We need to give them some relief as well, and they can be positive emotions, too.
• 5:50
  Okay, once you've assessed the emotional impact and you've taken a look, we're gonna just leave all of the evaluation for later, just like we did in part two with the big picture.
• 6:00
  We can't address everything, right?
• 6:02
  Scene level, some of these things we can.
• 6:04
  They're pretty technical, a lot of these things that I'm gonna say, except for that one, which is the emotional impact, which is trust in your gut.
• 6:10
  But the second one is what does your character want?
• 6:13
  This is not a gut thing.
• 6:15
  Is it on the page or not?
• 6:16
  Are you answering as a writer, or is a reader gonna get it?
• 6:20
  What does your character want?
• 6:21
  This is the one where I get to be a broken record, and I talked about it also at the big picture, right?
• 6:25
  So we've got sort of their overarching goals for the book, but they also need to want something in a scene.
• 6:31
  We don't want scenes where they're just distracting themselves because the reader will lose the thread.
• 6:36
  If your character doesn't want something in a scene, number one, you've diffused a lot of tension.
• 6:41
  They're not trying to get anything.
• 6:43
  Number two, you've given them a huge agency problem because it means that they're just sitting around waiting for something to happen, and readers, even though they may not notice it, readers just will care less about the outcome if they are not taking charge.
• 6:55
  So if you don't understand this piece, I talked more about it in the second episode, but it's just that important to talk about it again.
• 7:03
  It gives your characters things to do when they want something, even if it's small things to do in a scene I wanna caveat this by I get scenes a lot from writers where they say, "Well, my character's confused," or, "My character's bored," or, "My character's uninterested," or, "My character doesn't care." And sometimes these scenes are, like, 10 pages long, and I'm like, you're ab- you actually did a fabulous job, this amazing writer, because I can tell that your character is bored for those 10 pages.
• 7:30
  Good job.
• 7:31
  However, the problem with that is, is that your reader actually becomes your character, so if your character is bored, your reader is bored.
• 7:39
  If your character is confused, your reader is confused.
• 7:42
  And we do not like that as readers.
• 7:44
  We do not like to have things up in the air.
• 7:46
  We do not like to not have a target, 'kay?
• 7:49
  It's a psychological thing.
• 7:50
  We don't like it in life.
• 7:51
  We don't like to be aimless.
• 7:53
  I think, you know, we get confused, actually, there's a lot of encouragement these days to do things that are less specific, to put our phones down, to just enjoy, to be present, and to stay there in the moment, and that is amazing in real life.
• 8:05
  However, you still kind of want something.
• 8:08
  You want your brain to relax.
• 8:09
  You want, you know … And so it gives you things to do, and it gives you a reason to wanna do it.
• 8:14
  So notice the difference there.
• 8:16
  Please do not give me 10 pages of boredom.
• 8:18
  Please do not give me 10 pages of confusion.
• 8:21
  You can establish that with a paragraph and then move on so that your reader doesn't get confused or bored or uninterested in your story.
• 8:30
  So what does your character want?
• 8:31
  If you can't answer this, you have a problem in each and every scene.
• 8:35
  Not what do other people want for them, and I gotta say, a- a- and when we talk about what does your character want, just be aware that my character wants to be a good person, or my character wants to do the right thing, or my char- my character is following their duty, that is never enough.
• 8:53
  Okay?
• 8:54
  That's one of those cliches I just talked about, that if you're inexperienced or you're just new to writing, you think that's enough, and that might be, I'd like to think that I'm altruistic in real life, and that sometimes I do things just because it's the right thing to do But at the end of the day, it doesn't make for a very interesting story, so please don't stop there.
• 9:13
  Dig one level deeper.
• 9:14
  But why?
• 9:16
  Maybe the right thing to do also makes them more comfortable, also means that they're going to be more prosperous.
• 9:23
  We are writing about the human condition, and everything is always personal.
• 9:27
  So dig a level deeper, try to figure it out, because otherwise they will have very little to do in your scenes and they'll be boring.
• 9:34
  Okay?
• 9:35
  So speaking of being in a scene in a particular moment in time, now, I wanna caveat this by saying that scene craft or being in scene is specific to genre fiction, or in genre fiction you pretty much always have to be in scene in today's modern fiction.
• 9:55
  Now, if you are a literary writer listening, you can also have what's called postcards or sort of snapshots or scenes that are untethered and ungrounded, but you need to mix these two things together, scenes that are ungrounded that just might be musings in somebody's head and don't actually take place in the specific time and moment.
• 10:14
  These are very uncommon in genre fiction.
• 10:16
  You will frustrate your readers.
• 10:17
  Okay?
• 10:18
  So we're talking specifically about grounding in a scene with those exception of those postcards or those musings that you can have in a literary style book, but in genre fiction, you want to always have your reader grounded in a scene and your characters grounded in a moment.
• 10:34
  So what does that mean?
• 10:36
  It means that in your reader's brain, they can actually put themselves in that place and they're watching things happen real time.
• 10:43
  So any time, and I've talked about this in the Show Don't Tell episodes as well, but any time when you're telling us something after the fact and saying,"Oh, I guess you had to be there," right?
• 10:52
  It's never as good as being there in the moment, so pay attention to this.
• 10:56
  This step in the scene level developmental edit, you're going to actually check at the top of every single scene, did you do this?
• 11:04
  And did you do it very quickly?
• 11:06
  Because there's this real brain phenomenon that happens, and it's called the doorway effect.
• 11:11
  And so if you've ever been in your home and you're going out and you're looking for your keys, and you're looking in the living room and you're looking in the kitchen, and then you run upstairs and you go through your doorway to your bedroom and you say, "Ugh, I forgot to make the bed and the blinds aren't drawn.
• 11:25
  What was I looking for again?" And you have to think for a moment before you can remember that it was your keys.
• 11:30
  This is a real brain phenomenon that has been reported in psychology, and it is basically your brain trying to get new information because we're in a new place, and to ground yourself.
• 11:40
  And so it looks around the room and says, "Now I'm in the bedroom." It's like this reset button that's hit.
• 11:45
  This reset button actually gets hit every time you cross over into a new scene or into a new chapter.
• 11:51
  And because you are the god of your story and you have the ability to bring your characters forward in time, backward in time, you could bring your readers to the moon, you could bring them into somebody else's head.
• 12:00
  Yes, we can do all of those things, and so it's important for you to give them this information so that they can start to construct something and they feel grounded or they know what's happening.
• 12:09
  This is true even if we just left a scene 30 seconds before.
• 12:14
  Make it very, very clear.
• 12:15
  Um, you might be able to make these things less overt in that case, but you still need them because they don't know that we just left that last scene.
• 12:23
  We're waiting for instructions, and if we don't have instructions, you know what your reader's gonna do?
• 12:28
  It's probably not what you think They're gonna start skimming, and they're gonna look to figure out where and when we are, whose head are we in, all of this information.
• 12:37
  Okay?
• 12:38
  So they're gonna skim, and they're gonna miss all this amazing stuff, so just give it to them.
• 12:42
  This is one place where you can almost, like, info dump a little tiny bit.
• 12:46
  You can give a little bit more information during the grounding of a scene, especially setting-wise.
• 12:50
  Okay?
• 12:51
  So in the p- fir- now that I've convinced you that you need this grounding in a scene, so check to make sure that you have these things, okay?
• 12:57
  It's four things.
• 12:58
  So at the top of every scene, so after a scene break or after a chapter break, make sure that we have in the first two paragraphs… So this is another reason why we don't love starting scenes and chapters with dialogue.
• 13:12
  We can, it's possible, but then make sure that you're rounding it out with these things as well because we don't have any context.
• 13:18
  We don't know who's talking.
• 13:19
  We don't know who's there.
• 13:20
  Okay?
• 13:20
  So in the first two paragraphs, answer these questions.
• 13:23
  Number one, whose head are we in?
• 13:25
  This is particularly important if you have more than one point-of-view character.
• 13:30
  It's probably something that you can take for granted a little bit more if you only have one point-of-view character.
• 13:35
  But if you have more than one point-of-view character, make this abundantly clear.
• 13:39
  It's very helpful if you've established unique voices for each of your characters that are telling the story.
• 13:45
  You can do this in so many different ways, and get creative about how you share with us, whether it's their speech pattern, what they do, somebody else is there, how they interact, especially if you're writing in first person.
• 13:58
  A lot of times if we have two point-of-view characters and we're writing in first person, we can actually put at the top of the scene, like, as a chapter heading, whose head we're in.
• 14:06
  We can alternate that, and that's helpful, but don't rely on solely that and say, "Well, it was in the heading," because readers, once they're really into it, they're not going to register that necessarily.
• 14:16
  It needs to be really clear.
• 14:17
  Okay.
• 14:17
  Where are we?
• 14:18
  The setting, right?
• 14:20
  A detail or two of the setting again.
• 14:22
  If you have given us this setting before, then give us more Make sure that when you're repeating something, we're learning something new, okay?
• 14:29
  Who is there?
• 14:30
  Not just, okay, who's had a reunion, who else is there?
• 14:33
  It can be very discombobulating if you've got two characters having a conversation and all of a sudden on page two of that chapter somebody else starts talking and you're like, 'What?
• 14:43
  Where did they come from?' It can be very jarring to a reader, so make it clear who's there.
• 14:48
  Now, don't go around the room, there's lots of creative ways to do this, and name every person, "And to his left was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I mean, you might need to map that out, but in terms of sharing it with us, just give us a hint and mention that all of his buddies were there, and then we'll have a sense that he's not by himself, okay?
• 15:05
  And then the last one, and this is one's really important, where are we in time and space relative to the scene that you just left?
• 15:13
  So where are we in time and space in chapter one might be a time period if it's important.
• 15:19
  Well, it's always important.
• 15:20
  Is it contemporary?
• 15:21
  Is it historical?
• 15:22
  Is it in the future?
• 15:22
  Where are we in time and space?
• 15:24
  But when we're inside the book and we skip either through a, a chapter break or a scene break, we need to orient ourselves.
• 15:34
  So how much time has passed, right?
• 15:37
  And again, we don't want to be like,"Three days passed," and then… I mean, that's so, that's so clunky, right?
• 15:43
  There's lots of ways to show this.
• 15:45
  We can show the passage of time in many, many different ways.
• 15:47
  I like to use lots and lots of examples.
• 15:51
  Maybe they have a, you know, it's during COVID and they had a stockpile of toilet paper and then it's dwindling.
• 15:56
  There's different ways to show the passage of time that aren't literally telling us the passage of time.
• 16:01
  So you can do that sometimes, be very clunky about it.
• 16:05
  You can do it a couple of times, but make sure that you're getting creative about it, and it needs to be in the first two paragraphs that we know.
• 16:11
  Okay, if you skip this, this grounding in your scenes, you won't hook your readers, so make it easy on them and don't let them skim.
• 16:20
  Don't miss the grounding.
• 16:21
  The next thing that you're gonna check when you're doing scene level is you are going to check your endings when you go through and do this, okay?
• 16:30
  So you're probably gonna go through… When I do this, I read the scene once and then I go through each of these for that scene.
• 16:35
  You could do it the other way.
• 16:36
  I think it'd be a lot more work to do it that way, but up to you.
• 16:39
  When you're learning, you might wanna do just this, or if you've done most of it and you just need to check the scene endings, you can do that all in one sitting.
• 16:47
  Okay, so check the scene endings.
• 16:49
  Now, the temptation is, and I see this a lot, and even from terrific writers, to have this zinger or this surprise at the end and this punchline, and we leave it and we're like,"Yeah, that felt great. What a great way to end it." And you know what?
• 17:03
  That's great at the end of a book But between scenes and between chapters, we actually just want them to flip the page, right?
• 17:10
  We don't want them to feel complete.
• 17:12
  We don't want them to be like, "Wow, that was amazing," and put the book down and never pick it up again because they were so satisfied, right?
• 17:19
  So resist the urge to have these one-liner zingers, even if you're good at it, okay?
• 17:24
  Because it doesn't serve you to get your reader to keep going Let's talk about scene endings for a moment, because there are only three ways to end a scene.
• 17:33
  Okay?
• 17:33
  Remember we talked about scene level goals, what does your character want in the scene?
• 17:37
  There are three ways that you can end this.
• 17:39
  Either the character succeeds and they get what they want.
• 17:43
  That's awesome, but we don't want very much of that.
• 17:45
  Can you imagine reading a book and the character always gets what they want?
• 17:48
  We want a lot of failure, in fact.
• 17:50
  And the other problem with that, if you remember back to the second episode in the series where we talked about overarching goals and the fact that you need to open a new goal before you close one, because if you close one before you open one, I don't know if this is making sense.
• 18:04
  You can go back and listen to it.
• 18:05
  But basically, if you- your reader will feel satisfied if you solve something, resolve something without opening up a new goal.
• 18:12
  So you always wanna make sure that they have something on the go.
• 18:15
  So we don't wanna be resolving things in every single scene or continually having to come up with new ones, and it can be really tiring.
• 18:22
  Okay, character succeeds is one way to end a scene.
• 18:26
  Character fails is another way to end a scene.
• 18:28
  Please put lots of these.
• 18:30
  Okay?
• 18:31
  So when you're looking at your three-page summary of your book that we prepared in the second episode, you wanna be just saying, "How did I end these scenes?
• 18:41
  Did they succeed?
• 18:42
  Did they fail?
• 18:44
  Which one?" Now, the th- there is a third way where they don't succeed or fail, but they get new information that sends them in a new direction or gives them new goals on their journey.
• 18:54
  This one is quite obvious when we're talking about mystery, in particular because they're sort of looking for clues, so getting a new clue might be a good way to do this, but it's also true in every single genre that you could write.
• 19:06
  Okay?
• 19:06
  So a character gets new information that sends them in a new direction or gives them new goals on their journey.
• 19:12
  Okay?
• 19:12
  But avoid the zingers.
• 19:14
  They feel too complete.
• 19:15
  Your reader's gonna put your book down and not get through, and they won't be able to tell you why 'cause the writing was awesome, but you're just missing that continuity between scenes.
• 19:24
  The other thing that I like to say, which I don't think you're gonna find anywhere else, but we are tracking your main character, okay?
• 19:32
  So every book is only one character's story.
• 19:35
  I don't care how many points of view you have, and people will argue this until they're blue in the face, but it's only one character's story for the most part.
• 19:44
  So which one is the most important journey where the character journey is very clear?
• 19:48
  And we map a book around that, and then everybody else, all the other secondary characters that have an arc, even if they're another point of view character, they can also have journeys, but just make sure that they are kind of pushing and pulling in the right places on the main character.
• 20:02
  If you try to map a book with several characters that don't intersect or don't relate to one another, you're gonna have a problem 'cause it's not gonna feel cohesive and it's gonna be Game of Thrones that is very difficult to end So scene endings.
• 20:17
  When you get there, whoever your main character is, end the scene in their point of view or with their actions.
• 20:24
  Let them get the last word.
• 20:27
  Let them have a forward-looking, uneasy note to get us into the next chapter.
• 20:33
  Let them declare that everything's gonna be fine, everything's gonna be perfect, and then the reader says,"No, it isn't," and they flip the page.
• 20:42
  Or they're concerned about something going forward.
• 20:45
  Let them be that sort of future-looking at the end.
• 20:49
  Again, we need to get creative about it.
• 20:51
  It can't be every single-- I've seen this before where writers get this advice, and then they, every single chapter ends with, "And she wasn't sure what was gonna happen next." Right?
• 20:59
  Like, or something like this, and it's exactly the same.
• 21:01
  So get creative with it.
• 21:03
  But when you're doing this, choose a scene to read, and then stop at the scene or chapter break.
• 21:08
  And when you're done your read, grab this checklist and note anything that needs addressing, okay?
• 21:14
  That's how you go about the scene level.
• 21:16
  So to recap, because we've talked about a lot of different things here- Those are the things that I wanted you to check in every single scene to developmentally edit your own book, okay?
• 21:26
  And then you're gonna get a list of these things, and you can start checking them off one by one.
• 21:30
  It's a little bit different than your big picture where I said only pick two or three things to address.
• 21:36
  You can't address them all.
• 21:38
  Here you can.
• 21:39
  You can make each of your scenes as strong as it can be, make sure that you have these components that we talked about.
• 21:45
  So what are they again?
• 21:46
  Number one was emotional impact.
• 21:49
  That was the one that was by your gut, score each scene from one to five.
• 21:53
  How emotional?
• 21:54
  Is it good?
• 21:55
  Do you have enough?
• 21:57
  Number two, what does your character want?
• 21:59
  What are your scene level goals for your character?
• 22:01
  If you do not have a scene level goal, and you probably have them standing around twiddling their thumbs in that scene, that is a huge problem.
• 22:10
  Give them things to do.
• 22:11
  Number three, check that your scene is grounded.
• 22:14
  We want the four things there at the, in the first two paragraphs of every single chapter or scene.
• 22:21
  We wanna know whose head are we in, where are they?
• 22:24
  We wanna know where are they in time and space relative to where we just left, okay?
• 22:29
  And we also wanna know who's there so that we're not confusing our readers.
• 22:34
  And number four, do you have an appropriate scene ending?
• 22:39
  Do you have an appropriate scene ending where we have a forward-looking note that is guiding us in?
• 22:44
  Is it ended with something in your main character's voice or something about your main character?
• 22:50
  How did you end the scene?
• 22:51
  Did they succeed?
• 22:52
  Did they fail?
• 22:53
  If they succeeded, did you open a new goal?
• 22:56
  Make sure you opened a new goal before you let them solve that one, okay?
• 23:00
  Address them all mechanically as you go through, and when you're done, you have this huge amount of data, and please don't get overwhelmed.
• 23:09
  The way that we get overwhelmed is when we look at this huge list and we think that we need to fix it all.
• 23:14
  Again, the big picture ones that we talked about in the second episode to identify known issues, to create a summary of your whole book, to test causation, what do your characters want overall in the book, your story arcs, check your character arcs, check your world-building arcs, check your romantic arcs, check your magic arcs, whatever you have in your story.
• 23:34
  That's what we talked about in number two.
• 23:36
  You're only gonna pick a few of those and then go through each on a pass and hone them, but when we get to the scene level, you can work on all of these.
• 23:45
  You can work on all of these and make sure that you're doing them one at a time So that you can tick them off your list and you can feel like you achieved something.
• 23:52
  Remember, everything needs to get done, even the mechanical tasks.
• 23:57
  So save these tasks.
• 23:59
  If you have this huge list and some of these things are heavy lifts, like rewriting a scene or looking at a character's motivation in a scene, and some of these are, like, making sure that your grounding is there, we're human, and every day is different.
• 24:12
  Every day our motivation is different, our energy is different.
• 24:15
  So when you sit down to work on your revisions, decide what kind of day is it.
• 24:22
  Am I gonna do a mechanical task where I can get a lot done, but, you know, I don't really have to engage my brain too hard?
• 24:28
  Am I gonna do that?
• 24:29
  'Cause it has to get done.
• 24:30
  It could be hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of work, right?
• 24:35
  Or, uh, am I feeling super creative, and can I ta- tackle one of those other things?
• 24:39
  And usually this balances out over the time, you know, the several weeks or several months that you work on a revision.
• 24:46
  What I want you to do when you look at this list and when you sit down to do a developmental edit, and what I've seen work for most writers when they're doing this, is to remember a few things.
• 24:56
  Number one, you started writing this book for a reason.
• 25:00
  Why did you start writing this book, right?
• 25:02
  We talked about this when we were preparing for this developmental edit.
• 25:05
  So when times get tough and you're like, "Oh, I don't know if I can do it," go back.
• 25:09
  Take a look.
• 25:10
  Is it still true?
• 25:12
  Do you still wanna write this?
• 25:13
  'Cause if you do, you gotta do the work.
• 25:16
  Number two, if you feel like sticking your draft in a drawer, revisit your takeaway, right?
• 25:22
  We talked about writing- revisiting your why.
• 25:24
  Also, your takeaway.
• 25:25
  What do you want readers to get out of it?
• 25:27
  These things are both important.
• 25:28
  They may or may not be the same thing.
• 25:31
  And at some point you felt called to write this book.
• 25:34
  Your readers are out there waiting for your story.
• 25:37
  It all has to get done, so start ticking it off your list to make your book the strongest it could possibly be, and then share it with the world.
• 25:46
  I'd love to hear all about how this revision and how developmentally editing your own book went.
• 25:52
  Let us know in the comments or drop us a line over here at the Show, Don't Tell Writing podcast.
• 26:03
  Thanks for tuning in to the Show, Don't Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori.
• 26:08
  It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or the book that you're planning to write.
• 26:14
  Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us.
• 26:18
  You can subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever else you're listening to show how much you enjoy the show.
• 26:27
  That's how other listeners will find us.
• 26:30
  Also, visit Suzyvadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list, where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community.
• 26:44
  Want my eyes on your writing?
• 26:46
  Submit a page of your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes.
• 26:51
  I'd love to chat with you about your writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals.
• 27:01
  I'm here to cheer you on.
• 27:03
  Remember, that book you're writing is gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
• 27:13
  See you again right here next week