Sol Stein Month

It's Sol Stein Month in the No Shame Novelist Project. You can find out exactly what that means here.

I'm about to begin revising my novel draft, so I'm going to focus on what Sol Stein has to say about revising, though he gives plenty of advice on other aspects of writing in his book, Stein on Writing, and through the products of his company WritePro. The revision plan I summarize below can be found in his book.

Stein calls his approach the triage method of revision, because it attends first to the errors that most often cause editors to reject a manuscript. I'll summarize the steps here, but I refer you to Stein on Writing for a very detailed plan for revising fiction and nonfiction.

1. Think about your main characters first. Do you ever think about them when you're not writing about them? If not, they may need some work.

2. Think about your villain. Does the character have more than one side? Is there anything interesting or like able about him or her (or it)?

3. Take a look at your minor characters. Make sure they are characterized adequately.

4. Check the conflict between the protagonist and the villain for credibility.

5. Find the weakest scene in your book. Cut it. Then find the scene that used to be the second weakest but is now the weakest scene. Think about cutting it. Continue as long as necessary.

6. How are the main actions in the story motivated? Strongly? Weakly?

And that's the bare bones of Stein's triage method. When I begin to revise in two weeks, I'll use this method. In the meantime, I'll work on another project using the mix of L'Engle's and Lamott's suggestions that I've been focusing on: following my vision, sitting at the keyboard and letting images and phrases flow through my mind before beginning to type, and keeping an honest, everyday journal.