Fix List: A (Play-Along) Challenge

While writing, I try to keep my forward momentum going by not bothering overmuch with details that can be checked later. For example, if a character sits down in a chair in a room that was described earlier, and I vaguely remember describing something about the furniture in that room, I leave myself a comment in the text to check on that room's decor.

The next day, before my prose train gets rolling, I go through my comments and resolve all the issues I left for myself. I also reread and revise the newest text with fresh eyes. It's amazing to me what silly things I catch myself writing.

This June, a typical writing session started with 1.5-2 hours of revision, followed by 2-5 hours of new writing. I kept track of the number of words written and plotted them on a chart. This is a Nanowrimo-birthed habit. I was never able to meet the 1666 words a day goal of Nanowrimo, but I loved seeing my word count graph grow.

As I was writing (and revising), I often found more complex problems that needed time and attention. Instead of fixing them, I added them to a doc called "FIX." By the end of writing the draft, I had about a page, single-spaced, of messy bits to clean up.

While I generally enjoy revising, this type of work is so tedious that I couldn't sustain more than two hours a day. It took me a whole week to get through the list. In addition to unraveling a double introduction (a character who shows up and is recognized/remembered in two separate chapters instead of just the first time), here are some of the choices I had to make:

Feel free to play along; answers are at the bottom of the blog.

1. What do I call the main river in Aelland? Is it the River Aco or Aco River?
2. The word for a religious person's flowy garment can be spelled either "robe" or "robes." But within one text, it needs to be consistently one or the other. Which to choose?
3. Should the language of Irabazlea, a foreign country, be Irabazleaic or Irabazlean?
4. Do I capitalize references to the weekly court session?
5. I had variously described the main characters' eye color as "light," "pale," "bluish-green," "sea-green," and "light blue." That can't all be true. Pick.
6. Create a visual reference/description of the guard candidates, who haven't been given the official red cloaks to signify full standing.
7. Should I leave a single reference to Castellan Merek's heraldry (a falcon) or expand on it?
8. Should a visiting delegation bring its own guards? If so, do they need names, or would that be extraneous?
9. My POV requires any minor characters with POV chapters to be in proximity to or to see the main characters. Do I fix the one chapter that breaks this self-imposed rule or just leave it as is?
10. A key plot point is that one of the characters knows the foreign language of Samrian. I mentioned it already, but I could have her demonstrate by counting in the language (as her mother does in a prequel). Yes?

Most of these seem like no-brainers in retrospect. But making the actual adjustments generally required a lot of hunting through the draft and subtle revision. Like I said, tedious work. I'm glad it's done (for now). I'm sure I'll think of many more things to refine.



My answers:

1. Aco River
2. Robes
3. Irabazlean
4. Yes (Piat Court)
5. Sea-green or bluish-green
6. Simple black, wool cloaks
7. Add more references, preferably three
8. Yes, two guards with names
9. Fix it.
10. Yes.