All language subtitles for Masterclass - David Baldacci Teaches Mystery and Thriller Writing - 12.Editing and Revising

editing process is something I really

love and enjoy. Um, I do it in a twofold

sort of step. Um, I like to edit all the

way through the manuscript from the

first chapter all the way through. As I

continually go back to it, I'm writing,

I go back to previous chapters,

particularly the first few chapters. I

revise, I revise, I revise. So, the time

I finished the manuscript, I probably

edited this thing maybe a dozen times.

Then comes the big the big boy and

that's when I print everything out. I

take it to my editing desk. I plop 500

pages down. I pull up my pens, red and

blue pens, and I just bloody the page

because this is where you turn the a

manuscript into an actual novel. I know

that a lot of stuff I put into the first

draft is not going to stay in. I know

I'm going to move things around. Scenes

are going to be cut. Other scenes are

going to be added. I'm going to develop

characters a little bit more. Action

scenes may be parsed down or maybe

embellished a little bit. So, looking at

my drafts, you'll see a lot of stuff

just crossed out. And I call it like,

"Oh, this is a preachy moment. This is I

got on my soap box. I just wanted to say

it. I had to write it. I knew it wasn't

going to end the book." And you'll see,

you know, when I show you some pages,

you'll see this big box with an X

through it. That's preachy time, you

know, or soapbox time. Get rid of that.

Or I'll just look at passages and I'll

I'll realize that, you know, I don't

need to have this intermittent passage

in order to get to where I want to go in

this chapter. So, I just cut it out or

reduce it in size. You will see in some

of the of the pages that I've added a

lot of material and those were choices

that I will make and that you will make

as well as you go through that you might

have missed something going forward or

you had an idea about the character that

you wanted to embellish or enlarge and

the way you do that you just have to add

new material. Um but by and large you're

not going to have an enormous amount of

additions to the manuscript. Uh

certainly at the first draft stage and

certainly not at the at the copy edit

stage. Uh it's going to be more

tightening, more cutting out. This is

where it all comes together. This is my

first time and first moment where I can

sit down and I see the pages and I go

through it in my mind from A to all the

way to the Z the entire story. I I like

to do it uninterrupted so I have

everything in my mind, all the million

pieces juggling in the air so I can see

them and I know what to do with them.

And this is my moment. This is my sweet

spot. This is where I work hard to get

the manuscript to this point where I can

put it down on that desk and just tear

it apart.

I think when you're editing a novel,

everything is fair game. And I've done

novels where a lot of it was focused on

the editing process was focus focusing

on the plot. And I had very little to do

as far as deepening the characters. I

had the characters pretty much where I

wanted them to be and I described them

the way I wanted to describe them. Then

it comes to building blocks. Are they in

the right place or not? I have a plot

point that's out of place and it sort of

blows up the rest of the action going

forward. That happens a lot and I just

have to move things around here or

there. Or I may get to the point where I

figure out, you know, I've got A, B, C,

D, and then I go to F and I forgot E. I

need to put E in to have sort of a

clarifying bridge to get to the next

spot in the action of in the novel. So,

I'll go ahead and invent that and put

that in. Sometimes I'll write an ending

knowing I call it a pen a pen ending. I

just put a pen in it and I know this is

not going to be the actual ending, but I

want to get the manuscript up to my

editor or my agent, some others to read.

And I let them know, look, this is not

the ending that's going to be the

ending. I just want you to look at the

rest of the manuscript. I'm still trying

to figuring out where I want it to end,

what the resolution is going to be. So,

that editing might come later. Um, for

the most part, you know, the the

characters can be changed a little bit,

but mostly the editing is the action,

the narrative, the plot, the twist. Make

sure everything is where it's supposed

to be. And then it just comes down to

the language. If I can say much more

powerfully in five words what I wrote in

10 words or 20 words in the novel, I'm

going to do that. So editing often times

is just cutting stuff out and replacing

sentences with far fewer words because

the fewer the words you use, it means

you've chosen them a lot more carefully.

And it tends to make the statements that

you're writing about a lot more

powerful. Don't feel bad when you go

back in and you're like, "Oh my god, I

got to cut all this. I must have really

screwed up on that first go round." No,

you didn't. You did exactly what you're

supposed to be doing. And this is where

you get another chance and another

chance and another chance down the road

to get it absolutely right.

After I finish the first draft, I will

go back chapter by chapter and write

down uh for each chapter, what did I

accomplish in this chapter and how did

it dovetail into the next chapter and

the one after that? What are the length

of each of the chapters? If I got some

chapters, they're three pages, four

pages, and I have one that's like 14

pages. I'm like, maybe something's a

little out of whack there. What happened

in that chapter? And I might go back,

cut it a lot or separate it into two

chapters or three chapters depending on

what I wanted to accomplish in that to

sort of maintain that consistency of

pacing. Another thing you sort of have

to look at it too, it's not just chapter

by chapter or scene by scene, but one

scene, one chapter may be in there

solely to set up the next two chapters

or the next three chapters. So you can't

only just think about that one chapter

uh in isolation. You have to think

about, okay, how am I going to

transition from this chapter to the next

two chapters? Because everything I built

into this one, that's the foreshadowing,

the payoff's going to happen in these

next two chapters. And all of a sudden,

you have this schematic that's going

down all the way through all your

different chapters. And you kind of

line, you just follow it along. Read one

line all the way down. And then it's

much easier to see instead of reading a

chapter that might have 3,000 words in

it, you got a oneliner, and then you get

to the sixth chapter and go, "What is

that doing there? How do I ed that

should not even be there? It should be

much later. So, I'll need to fix that. I

think writers can try it out, see if it

works for them to drilling it down to

like one sentence description per

chapter and then putting it in out there

and seeing if things flow the way you

want them to flow. It may come out that

you did it right the first time. And if

you did, my hats off to you. You know,

God bless you. Uh but nine times out of

10, there's going to be some, you know,

going back and moving things around,

cutting things out, adding things, and

that's all part of the process. Don't

feel bad if you have to do it. You're

right on. You're spot on with what you

should be doing.

During the editing stage, it's critical

that you have to walk away from the

material at some point. Here's what I

typically do. I'll send the f first

draft up. And the first draft is going

up to people, the editors.

So long as they have it, I don't look at

the draft again. I go off and work on

something else. I sort of cleanse my

mind, cleanse my pallet. I forget about

the story and all that. And when it

comes back down, then I come back and

sit down at it. I've got a clean look at

it again because I've been away from the

material. And then all of a sudden, my

eyes are fresh and I'm looking at the

story again in a new light. I do the

same thing with the uh page proofs. When

those page proofs come back down, in

between that time, I have not gone back

and tinkered around with the story at

all because I think that that is just

going to screw me in the end because

again, I'm too close to the material.

You need to have some distance away from

it so that your eyes are fresh, your

your mind is fresh about it. you can

attack it again and find things that if

you kept tinkering around with it,

you're just going to blow right through

it. You're not going to see it and it's

going to be an issue. So, I think it's

really important for all of you during

the editing process while somebody else

has the pages, walk away and doing

something else. Cleanse your mind,

cleanse your pallet, and don't look at

it again until you get that stuff back.

Then you can sit down with fresh eyes.

The next document we're going to be

looking at is the first draft of the

anent showing all the markups and all

that that I did.

What's interesting about this novel is

that there are a lot of deletions and

like on page seven deletions you see

that I would sort of call, you know,

these are my preachy points, my soapbox

points or just some places where I

didn't need to say this at this point in

time or I could have said it in far

fewer words. And so this is really this

will show you really tightening up a

manuscript how some things were just

superfluous. I didn't need them. And

this is a way to to narrow the focus.

And when you cut words from one section,

that allows you frees you up space to

write some things that are more

important. And that was the case in this

novel because there was a long section

here. It's an insert a where I inserted

a lot of stuff. You know, probably four

written handwritten pages of changes.

And I did that because this is Roby Will

Roby in his apartment. And I felt like I

needed to show more of his personal

world. um so that the readers would

understand this guy at a at a deeper

level in a more complicated way showing

him in his apartment. He lives in an

apartment in Washington DC but it has no

personal effects. There's no personal

imprint because this really isn't a

place where he lives. He doesn't live

anywhere. He travels the world killing

people on behalf of the US government.

He doesn't want to have any personal

effects because people show up at his

place and they're trying to track him

down. He doesn't want any personal

momentos that would help them in that.

That's how he has to live his life is

kind of invisible force. So these pages

I inserted because I wanted the people

to understand that this is the kind of

life that this guy leads. It's different

from you and me. So when sometimes when

he reacts from the book in a certain

way, I don't want you to think that he's

doing it just cuz he's a jerk and all

that. I want you to know that he's doing

it because the life he has to lead is

far different from the ones that you and

I have to lead.

There is a real danger of o overediting

a manuscript. And again, this is where

you have to wear the writer's cap and

the psychologist cap at the same time.

You can't take one off and put the other

one on. You have to wear them

simultaneously.

So, as I'm editing and I'm going through

particular passage or chapter or big

movement in the story, part of me is

thinking looking at it with a writer's

POV. Part of me is looking at it from

the reader's POV. And I got to say nine

times out of 10 if I just stuck to the

writer side, I'm thinking to myself, "Oh

my god, you're telegraphing this. This

is too simple. They're just going to

figure this out." And but if you look at

it from the reader's point of view,

you're like, you know what? This might

be a little too complicated. I need to

pull this back a little bit. Or you

might just be just right.

You have a tendency as a writer to want

to make something absolutely perfect.

But in doing that, you're almost

guaranteed to make it imperfect and even

worse than it actually was before. the

longer you write and this is a lot of

thing a lot of times writers will come

up to me and say how do you know when to

let it go you know I've been working on

this book for nine years and I just feel

like I'm never going to be able to let

it go because it's not perfect and I

look at them and say you have to let it

go because the world is waiting for the

next book that you want to write so let

it go and the longer you have it um the

chances are you're going to make it not

better but you're going to make it worse

so when the words are where you want

them to be and the stories is where you

want it to be. Take a step back, listen

to other people who have given you

comments about it. Go back, sit down,

read it through. And if it's a story

that you wanted to tell and warts and

all and you know, then let it go. And

then you move on to the next book. And

that's how you build a career.