No matter how many days or months or years it took you to get to the current draft of your story, revision is almost always in the cards. No matter how much some authors insist they never revise, my guess is that they do. They may revise as they write, revise the previous day’s words before each writing session, revise each section before moving on, or waiting until the end. It is beneficial to the story and to the writer to revise. Particularly if you are writing some style or genre or manner that is new-to-you. Approached with an open mind, revision can teach you a lot about your strengths, your weaknesses and your craft.
In Part One of this series, I talked about preparing to revise. In Part Two, you learned to boil your story down to its parts. Today’s post is all about analyzing all those parts. Once again, I need to remind you these aren’t rules set in iron. They are guidelines and questions intended to make you question your storytelling choices and discover areas where your story can be stronger. Write your answers to each question you choose to ask yourself. Putting it on paper or screen will help you remember and clarify your thoughts.
Analyzing Your Characters
Now it’s time to look at your list of characters and the roles they play in your story. Alphabetize your list. Do you see any patterns in the names? Are there any duplicates?
How many?
Every story must portray at least two forces.
- A protagonist, and
- An antagonistic force
- Another person whose goal is the same or obstructs hers
- A part of nature she must overcome
- A part of herself she must overcome
- A supernatural person, place, or thing she must overcome
Beyond that, there can be allies, love interests, mentors, jokesters, messengers, spear carriers, and background characters. Which characters you need depends upon your story, the genre of your story, and your readers’ expectations.
Some readers love an epic story with tons of named characters. Too many named characters in the wrong type of story can dilute your story and confuse your reader. So when you are editing, one of things you evaluate is how many roles are there in your story and how many characters fit in each of those roles. If you have more than one character fulfilling the same role, it’s time to consider getting rid of a character or merging the two characters into one.
Can you meld any characters with minimal storytelling jobs into one character?
If you decide your characters need to have similar names or similar roles, make sure that each is her own unique person. The way they dress, talk, and act differ from the name-twin.
A Name isn’t Just a Name
In real life, we know many people share certain names. But in a story, names that are the same, or sound alike, or start with the same letter or phonetic sound often confuse readers. I highly recommend changing one of the character’s names to something different.
How many unpronounceable names do you have in your book?
While an unpronounceable collection of letters can make a cool-looking name on the page, if your readers cannot say the name in their head that name may frustrate them. One or two characters with such a name might work in your futuristic story about another planet. But think about how your protagonist speaks and thinks. Would she be able to pronounce that name? Would she give this character an easier-to-pronounce nickname? Help your reader by making names as individual, readable, and pronounceable as possible.
Can you label the character instead of naming them? Labels like, “the janitor,” “the little boy,” or “the librarian” is something we do in real life. If the character’s role is for one scene in the entire book, consider giving her a label rather than a name.
Are the Characters Complex Enough?
You unnamed characters don’t need to be complex. But the more the character appears in the story, the more dialogue spoken, the more complex that character’s goals, needs, and wants.
Pair your character with their opposites. Are their goals, needs, and wants opposites or complementary or the same? How badly do they want it? Are there opportunities for tension and conflict within their goals, needs, and wants?
Do the actions your characters take match the goals they have? If they’ve taken actions that are counter to their goals, think about their motivation. Did their goals change? Sometimes they act counter to their goals in favor of their wants or needs. How can you make them appear more consistent or clarify the want or need for your reader?
Look beyond The Story Role
What is each character’s family role, daily life, or job in their story world?
Are their physical appearances, speech patterns, habits, clothing, diet choices, quirks, actions different?
Are there too many of the same? Don’t worry. All writers favor a “type” or even a particular word that will repeat with alarming frequency in their stories.
Can you make your characters more interesting by tweaking one or more of those?
What About Dialogue?
Dialogue is specific to your story, your characters, and has too many variables to discuss in this post. If you’ve read a book or seen a dramatic presentation (play, movie, etc) with a style of dialogue you like, study that source. Analyze the story in depth. Take the dialogue apart to see why it works for this character and not that one.
Read transcripts of plays or movies (they rely heavily on dialogue). Study books about dialogue. And most importantly, listen to the people surrounding you. Listen for cadence, word choices, patterns, inflection, tone, and all the qualities of voice.
Analyzing Settings
We writers seem to fall prey to some fairly common habits regarding settings. Some of us have every scene in a new and different setting. Some of us have just one setting that never changes. Some of us include travel from one location to another as a setting.
It’s time to look at your story through the lens of the scenes in which the story takes place.
You’ll study the list to determine if you have too many settings, too few, or locations that aren’t working well. There is no right or wrong, but there are several things to keep in mind.
Does Your Setting “Disappear?”
If an unremarkable setting fades into the background, that writer is missing out on a key way to engage readers. The setting needs to put the ground beneath the character’s and reader’s feet in the first few sentences of the scene. Without it, the character appears to be floating above an empty stage or still in the previous setting.
Besides putting your character in a place, settings can strengthen the mood or atmosphere of a scene, can add to the tension or conflict in a scene, or even be a counterpoint to the action or atmosphere of a scene. The more “work” you can get your setting to do, the more immersed your reader will feel.
Would One Location Work?
The fewer settings in your story, the less detail you and your reader will have to track. Can you combine two or more settings and make the scenes which happen there stronger? if two or more settings are so similar, you may also need to remove a setting or add unique features to a setting so you don’t confuse your reader.
Is the Travel Setting Necessary?
There are stories where lots of action and tension happens during a travel scene. There are also stories where the whole point of the travel is to get from location A to location B. Sometimes the story is about the exotic locale and that might be just what your readers enjoy.
Genre readers have certain expectations. Be aware of what your reader considers exotic.
Make certain your travel setting has a story purpose beyond travel. It can set up a later scene, or expectations that some exotic plant or animal shows up later or be symbolic of some internal struggle your character is experiencing. If your travel scene does not have a purpose beyond getting from one spot to another, consider using a jump cut instead.
Does the Setting Have Too Many Details?
Some details are important to the story. In mysteries, the author includes MacGuffins and red herrings and clues. But if there are too many details or the focus is on the wrong details, the reader gets confused or frustrated. The same is true for every story. The mission of and importance of the details varies by genre and story.
Those of us blessed with sight often take our sight for granted. We assume we see everything. But we rarely do.
Our eyes receive the images of our environment and send those to our brain. But our brains are busy keeping our hearts beating, our lungs working, keeping us upright, watching for danger, and performing whatever task occupies us at the moment. If it also had to process every single thing it sees, it could not assess danger quickly enough to move us out of the way or fight off the danger. So our brain doesn’t even try to notice everything in our environment. It sorts out what’s important to notice and what is unimportant. We focus on the important things and the unimportant stuff becomes background noise if we notice it at all.
Our brain decides what’s important based on your experiences and lessons learned. For someone born in the desert, certain patterns of color mean dangerous reptile. For someone in the city, that same pattern could mean expensive leather.
Using details in the way your character sees things strengthens your reader’s understanding of who that character is. Too many details or details that aren’t important to your character muddies the water for the reader.
Analyzing Theme
How many themes do you have? More than three are probably too many (unless you’re writing a multi-volume epic).
Are two themes the same, worded differently? Are they opposites? Complimentary?
What theme-related images, sounds, words, or symbols (motifs) appear and reappear in your manuscript? Do stronger choices occur to you now? Write it down.
How does the action in your story support (prove, disprove, or challenge) the theme?
Does the tone and mood of your story fit the theme(s) in each scene?
Which elements of your theme(s) could be richer, more poignant, or more resonant with your story?
Analyzing Plot and Pace
Inciting Incident, Plot point one, Pinch point, Plot point two, pinch point, plot point three, crisis decision, denouement are one way to describe the major points of your story. They aren’t the only way. You may have seen plot demonstrated as a long line that rises to a point then drops off. Some illustrate plot with a jagged line. And still others use a circle. Use your terminology, your descriptions. Evaluate how effectively you’ve built the plot.
No matter how you describe plot, the reader needs to feel as if the characters are taking actions toward something. Sometimes their actions give them a win, sometimes a loss. Each builds, forcing your protagonist and antagonist into fewer and fewer options until a final showdown. If you can’t tell if your story has forward momentum, ask a trusted reader to read your story and give you their opinion.
What’s the pace like? Your word counts from the start of one plot point to the next should be similar. That doesn’t mean your pace is good, but it helps. The pace you should strive for depends upon your story genre. Literary and romance can meander more, while thrillers and horror stories need to keep the momentum (at least the tension) going. Your story should have a rhythm of ups and downs, wins and losses, danger and relative peace, questions raised and answers discovered.
One way to check your pace is to look at the beginnings and endings of each scene. Is there an element of suspense or tension in the beginning? Does it end with something gained or loss and a need to find or do the next thing?
Does Your Story Need More Analysis?
It might. You can look more deeply into any of the above. You draw a line map of the rising and falling action of your story and check each page to be certain each of the five senses are used and list what the reader learns on each page and follow WITS guest blogger, Margie Lawson’s Edits System, (or any other editing system).
Until you’ve mastered the breakdown and analysis of your own stories, it’s likely you’ll need to do one or more editing passes after you’ve finished this one.
When I was learning how to write a story, I did what I called layers of the onion. I’d make one pass all about the characters. Another pass all about the plot. Still other passes each specific to add emotions, setting details, foreshadowing, and all the rest of the details that make a story memorable.
In time, your process won’t be as intense or comprehensive as this one. You’ll make passes to smooth out any rough spots, make certain your pacing works, and that all your word choices support the story you want to tell.
For now, you have all the information you need to begin rewriting your story.
You may not have all the answers on how to fix it, but you’re armed with the right knowledge and you can create a stronger story.
Ready to Re-write
The next step is to re-work your manuscript. Plotters may choose to revise their outline first. Pantsers will work the way they do best.
Either way, with a clearer idea of what each part of your story does well and what isn’t working the way you’d like. You can make the narrative, the dialogue, and even your word choices work better. Is it fast? No. Will it be perfect when you’ve finished? No. None of us are perfect. But I believe it will be a better, stronger story and you’ll be a more skilled writer when you craft your next story.
If you only had time for an in-depth analysis of one part of your story, which would it be and why?
About Lynette
Lynette M. Burrows is an author, blogger, writing coach, and Yorkie wrangler. She survived moving seventeen times between kindergarten and her high school graduation. Her stories weave her experiences into speculative fiction stories that balance character growth with thrilling action and social themes.
Her Fellowship Dystopia series is an alternate history dystopian tale of a young woman of privilege who faces losing control of her life. Her desperation to avoid her fate leads to an escape and learning her world is far darker and more dangerous than she knew. And she faces a choice: return to suffocate under the rules or fight for her country and her life. Book One,My Soul to Keep, and Book Two, If I Should Die, are available at your favorite online book seller. Book Three, And When I Wake, will be published in 2025.
When Lynette’s not writing she avoids housework and plays with her two yorkies. They live in Dorothy’s home state of Kansas. You can follow Lynette on her website or her Facebook page. But you’ll always be up-to-date if you sign up for her newsletter.
Image Credits
Top image by Lynette M. Burrows
Second image by Brian Merrill from Pixabay
Third image purchased from DepositPhotos.com
