Mine is in bright, almost fluorescent chartreuse, pink, purple and blue. and looks like this:
Confession: I used to think that using pretty stationery is just a distraction, a gimmick. Give me sweat and blood anytime! Me, I'm a real worker, in the trench, no fun, no sun, and definitely no pretty colors.Then I got over my snootiness.
Anyway, I am back to revise my MG novel, again. This time, I have identified 5 main threads that need to be tweaked / overhauled. I've gone through the manuscript to mark each thread with a different color so I can work on them one at a time.
Do you have any specific way you revise? And how pretty are they?
10 comments:
What a great image of your MS! I love the colorful flags.
I've tried several ways to track revisions--by tracking scenes in a list or with sticky notes on a poster board, and by chapter spread out on a table or on the floor (which is inconvenient when you need to eat or vacuum!).
Hope the revision is going well!
It does take so much space, doesn't it? I tried to do it all paperless, but somehow nothing works quite well for me.
Thanks. It's slow going, but it's going.
Pretty in pink! And blue and purple and...
I think mine are kind of ugly...pencil colored because I'm afraid to make any changes in pen (even though I'd have to type them in anyway...???)
Pretty revisions seem somewhat inviting....
Shelley
I did the same thing last week. Printed it out and used diff color tags to mark each POV. It worked well. But lots of red ink on my pages. ;)
The colors are helpful when I am trying to work at one thing at a time. Only halfway through blue. At this rate....sigh.
My revisions are not pretty at all. And my process is always changing. But I do work with a big plot chart on the wall, and I DO color code like you! It helps to have a visual image of when you drop a character for 3 chapters, or forget a subplot for... say, the rest of the book. ; ) It also helps me to retype the whole thing when I'm doing a new draft. It reminds me that nothing is sacred from the old, and I can feel really free to experiment with new things. If it helps at all, I am S...L....O....W..... I decided that I just have to enjoy the process, because it is likely that I'll spend most of my writing life doing just this kind of stuff. So, I'm embracing it!
Hi Molly! The colors are really good at spotting the kinds of things you mentioned, aren't they? Retyping the whole ms: that actually sounds like it has quite a few benefits besides what you said. It would catch the transitional awkwardness that cut and paste often brings.
Enjoy the process: a good reminder indeed!
Dude: you are SERIOUSLY organized. I have never done a revision like this -- ever. And I'd wager if I actually went about it in a less than haphazard fashion, it would go faster.
WOW. I look forward to seeing how this goes!
Dude: you may get your wish!
And fyi, it's going SLOWLY. I am dialing down the friction-in-friendship angle plus make Z more llikeable (BLues thread): you had that same reaction to Z, I remember.
Then there is add more to E and Chris (yellow), more mystery hints (chartreuse), re-balance dialogue-heavy passages (purple)....
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