In my last post, I discussed how I feel about fourth drafts but only briefly described how I approach them. Today, I’ll go a bit more into detail.

With the second and third drafts, I usually have a revision plan that consists of to-dos, fixes, and notes. The fourth draft shouldn’t have any except for some themes or tones that I want to track. That means I jump directly into reading and editing, as explained in the previous post. I’m lightly editing on the fly from the first word to the last.

I might take notes of things to look for in future chapters, or I might go back to modify a previous chapter. This is the end, so there’s no holding back. There’s no waiting for the next draft. There’s no procrastination allowed. Not that I procrastinate, but I trust my process. To keep things moving in earlier stages, I will leave some edits for a more appropriate time, but with the 4th draft, there’s no reason to wait.

I follow the Secrets of Story advice and pair up problems…

Step Five: Pair Off Your Problems

It’s important to get a lot of notes piled up before you start addressing any of them individually. The danger is that you’ll > deal with notes one by one, adding dozens of “fixes” to your story that don’t integrate with each other or the story as a whole.

I have a series on my blog called “The Meddler” where I suggest fixes for problematic movies and books. In each case, I suggest ways to fix two huge problems with one simple change.

In the political thriller The Ghost Writer, we never get to see the supposed charm of Pierce Brosnan’s Tony Blair–like character, and Ewan McGregor’s hero is a passive protagonist who doesn’t really care about the mystery. If we saw Brosnan charmingly win over McGregor to his cause, then the revelation of Brosnan’s lies would feel like a personal betrayal and give McGregor a stronger motivation to investigate Brosnan’s dark secret.

Likewise, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo didn’t work for me because of two big problems:

  • First, the movie is founded on a huge motivation hole: Hugo has convinced himself that the automaton his father brought home will have a message for him, but this makes no sense. His father tells him up front that he just found it somewhere.
  • Second, Hugo’s missing father and uncle are both two-dimensional characters who serve overly similar roles in the narrative.

But this is a great example of how one change can solve multiple problems. If the saintly father and the dastardly uncle were combined into one complex character, then many problems would start to solve themselves:

  • The backstory would be much simpler, because only one father figure would have to disappear instead of two.
  • The drunken-but-loving dad could find the automaton, bring it home, and then lie to Hugo, idly boasting he built it himself. This way, after his father disappears and Hugo finds out the automaton was designed to write a message, his belief that it will give him a secret message from his dad would make perfect sense.
  • The story would be more touching: Hugo would be especially unwilling to admit the automaton actually belonged to the old watchmaker because it would require Hugo to finally admit that his late father was a liar. That would make Hugo’s actions in the movie hard to want to do, not just hard to do.

Don’t just dive in and start fixing your problems one by one. First, make a list of every problem, and then brainstorm a list of dozens of possible solutions to each problem. Truly brainstorm: If you’re trying to avoid the dumb solutions, you’ll block up your mind. When you write down your worst ideas, you’ll realize they’re not so dumb, you’ll spot ways to improve them, or you’ll open up a blocked neural pathway and discover a better solution hidden behind the dumb one.

Now you have dozens of problems and dozens of possible solutions for each one. Scan through them all to find solutions that will eliminate multiple problems.

  • What if your heroine’s crush is her boss’s boyfriend? That would explain why she has to hide the relationship and keep lying to the guy.
  • What if the person trying to kill your heroes is changed from an angry postal worker to a corrupt cop? That would explain why they can’t go to the police and how the killer is able to identify and track them down (using their fingerprints, etc.).

Now you’ve got a list of fixes doing double duty, but nevertheless, you’re going to be making a lot of changes. How do you keep track of them all?

Version 4.0 is the final snapshot before grammar algorithms invade my manuscript. All along, I’ve been using autocorrect, but I refuse to use auto grammar checks—not because I have anything against it, but because they slow me down.

I use Grammarly, which can run right inside Scrivener or any Mac text window (even chat), but I block it from accessing the app as to preserve my sanity. Instead, I copy a chapter at a time into the Grammarly website, adjust my settings accordingly (usually creative, informal, entertaining, or something like that), and painstakingly go through everything it flags.

I’m usually 85% or higher, which I think is pretty good. Some chapters are better than others, however. The checker has evolved since I first started using it around 2016. AI is everywhere now and is much more opinionated about what sounds good. Sometimes, it can clear up a passage, while other times, it has no idea what I’m trying to communicate. I rarely tell it to rewrite a paragraph (maybe once every 4 or 5 chapters), but sometimes what it comes up with is so good that I’d be a fool to ignore its suggestion.

In a future post, I can explain how I use Grammarly and why I chose it over Pro Writing Aid. But anyway, the grammar-checked manuscript becomes version 4.1, and it’s now ready to be shared. However, I’m not done yet. There’s one more pass that I’ll take, hopefully with some human assistance.

For the next step, I usually load the manuscript into a text-to-speech app. I have one on my phone that I’ve been using for a while, Dream Reader. It’s far from perfect, but I have experience using it, and the voices aren’t bad. Although I might try having ChatGPT read this time to hear how it does. I’ve read good things about it.

I’ll read along with the app, listening for whatever catches my ear. Often, I’ll find repetitive words or phrases that need to be addressed or incorrect word usage that somehow slipped past every edit, even Grammarly. I’ll also find a few contradictions that escaped detection. I chalk those discoveries up to the difference between reading and listening to a story. They must utilize different parts of the brain because I’ll catch things in sections I’ve read a dozen times.

Sometimes, I have to make a more substantial change, but I approach anything beyond grammar surgically. A big edit could create ugly wrinkles in my otherwise polished and shiny manuscript. I’ll take any input from my human readers I can get, but I approach their comments cautiously. Although I hate to admit it, there may be some issues I’ll have to accept either because the return on investment isn’t there or, to borrow a cliché, the cure is worse than the disease.

And with all that complete, the final version number is, you guessed it, 4.3. If any edits are made after that, I usually won’t bother with snapshots.

I’m still on 4.0 of the Curse of the Campbells (working title) and up to chapter 21. Now, I have to get started on those illustrations!