Revision and Self Editing for Publication by James Scott Bell

I'm sitting at my desk, blue pen in my hand, and I'm drawing a branch of a tree. This is not an ordinary tree, and I'm not drawing a landscape. I wouldn't dare to attempt anything like that with my drawing ability of a child. I'm creating a mind-map. No, not the one scientists make to describe how neurons connect inside your brain to make you a smartass human. I'm making notes studying J. S. Bell's book: Revision and Self Editing for Publication. When ready it will be nice and colorful. I will make a picture and pin it here.
I hear a knock on the door, and I shout "Come in". Jack enters, whistling.
"Hi Uncle, can I borrow your car?"
"Where's yours?"
"Still in the garage, they are repairing the dent that stupid woman made the other day."
The 'stupid woman' refers to an old lady who didn't see the stop sign and drove directly into the side of Jack's car - at least Jack said it happened this way.
"Where are you going?"
"I promised Jenny to take her to her friend's party. She doesn't want to drive drunk."
"She's drunk?" I arch my eyebrow.
"Not yet. But will be, most probably, when I'm picking her up later."
I sigh, fish the car key from my pocket, and hand it to him. "Be careful with old ladies" I say.
He puts the key into his pocket, then steps to my desk, and studies my mind-map.
"What are you doing?"
"Mind-mapping."
"I can see that, but about what?"
I tell him.
"You take this seriously, don't you? This writing thing."
"I do."
"Does this book help?"
"Sure helps a lot. I just finished the first draft of my novel, and..."
"Oh, my! You wrote a novel? What is it about? Can I read it?"
"It's a thriller, but not ready yet. I have to edit and revise it."
"Amazing."
"You can be my beta reader."
"What?"
"Who reads the book before submitting to Publishers, and gives valuable advice how the story can be improved."
"I can do that. When are you going to finish it?"
"I'll let you know. So. I just finished the first draft, and I need to improve it. I bought this book to learn how to revise and edit."
He studies the blue and red and green lines on the paper, small letters written next to and around them. It is really like a tree: there is an oval shape in the middle, like a cut-through trunk, wide branches coming out of it, then narrow ones coming out of those. Every wide branch has different color, and their small ones are colored the same. Each one represents different subjects I studied from the book.
"Characters" he reads out loud, "Plot and Structure, Scenes. Where is the part it talks about editing?"
"It's all about editing. If you want to write a compelling novel, you need to know what makes a novel compelling. The book is mostly about that. How to create believable characters, how to raise the stakes infusing conflict into the story, what to put in the beginning, middle and end, and thousand other things you need to incorporate into your book. The last part is about the editing process itself."
Jack frowns. "It sounds complicated" he says.
"It is complicated first, and it never gets very easy. They say everyone has a book inside. But not everyone can put it on paper properly."
"I'm sure you can, Uncle. You're too stubborn to fail."
I take it as a compliment.
"I must go now, thanks for your car. I can hardly wait to read your novel. See ya."
I turn back to the mind-map. Man, I glad I have bought Revision and Self Editing for Publication, without it my novel sucked.

Ok, here it is, a few hours later:

Don't Leave Me by James Scott Bell

"The snowman shoots a snowball with a cannon to the butt of the duck."

Jack looks up at me, narrowing his eyes. He is sitting at the kitchen table peeling potatoes to help Jenny out. His hand stops in the middle of the motion, half of the potato peeled, a piece of crust stuck to his knife.

"What?" he asks.

Jenny giggles, and continues slicing the meat. She is standing at the counter, preparing the dinner. I'm stirring the soup with a wooden spoon elegantly, this much I can contribute to the meal.

I repeat what I said, then I add "It's a riddle. So, what do you say?"

"The snowman. With a cannon. Uncle, are you alright?" says Jack shaking his head, his attention returns to the potato.

"OK, listen. You are kidnapped, they put you in a room, the security door has a keypad to open. You don't know the code, but secretly watch the bad gal enter it when she leaves the room. But you aren't good in remembering numbers, so you have a system. Every number is represented by a symbol, something easy to remember of. So when the guy left, you remember the snowman and the cannon and the duck. And the snowball. What is the code to your freedom, then?"

Jack puts his knife down and asks:

"Where does this stuff come from?"

"From a book. 'Don't leave me' by James Scott Bell."

"Is it a 'crack the code' type?"

"No, not at all. It's a thriller. It's about a former Navy chaplain who gets into a lot of trouble because of his past. He fights with his own demons, but on top of that gangsters want to catch him. He has valuable information buried deeply in his nightmare's and he has to find the reason why the bad guys want him. He has a younger autistic brother he needs to take care of. This brother is kidnapped and he can learn numbers in this interesting way, using pictures. Pictures belong to every number."

"Ah, it makes more sense now. What is the riddle again?"

I repeat it. "It may be phrased somewhat differently in the book, but you get the point, I think."

"OK" says Jack. "The snowman is quite obvious, it is the number eight. The snowball is the zero. The cannon could be... I think it's the six, the lower circle can be the wheel and the upper short part is the barrel. But which one is the duck? Maybe five? Or the nine, like a duck with its head submerged into the water?"

"You are close. You got the first three right. The duck is the number two."

"Yeah, that fits too."

Jenny is finished with the meat, she wipes her hand in her apron.

"Tell me about the book, uncle" she says.

"It's a good one. Fast paced, just as I like it. There are a lot of questions asked in the beginning, which made me turn the page - that is click the 'next page' button on my Kindle. I always appreciate hooks and cliffhangers, and there are plenty of them. Also twist and turns. I guessed some of them, but the author surprised me many times."

"What about the characters?" asks Jenny.

I know she is not really into thrillers and suspense, she likes romance and young adult books more, and she always enjoys complex characters.

"Chuck, the protagonist has a few layers, some of them pealed off during the story. I liked how Bell presented Stan, the brother. In his scenes it was interesting to see the events unfolding through his specific view of the world. And the cop woman was original too."

"I think I give it a shot" says Jack. He puts the last potato into the bowl, stands up and  walks to the sink to wash his hands. "I have reached my food preparation limit."

Jenny rolls her eyes and gestures towards the living room.

"Go, go, don't be under my feet here. I call you when dinner is ready."

"What? I helped, see?" says Jack pointing to the peeled potatoes.

"OK, I give you that. You can go now."

Jack leaves the room, but after a minute his head appears in the door.

"Can I use your kindle, uncle?"

"Sure" I say, then I turn to Jenny. "Is this soup ready yet? I'm stirring it for so long time, my arm hurts."

"You guys are unbelievable. Go, I don't want to see your sad face."

She takes the spoon from me and pushes me towards the door. I open my mouth to object, but think better of it. I'm sure she can finish the cooking less time if I'm out of the kitchen. So I shut up, and go to write a review for Don't Leave Me.

Writing Fiction for All You're Worth

Full title: Writing Fiction for All You're Worth: Strategies and Techniques for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level

Author: James Scott Bell - he is also blogging at Kill Zone.

Description: WRITING FICTION FOR ALL YOUR WORTH contains the best of James Scott Bell's articles and blog posts on writing, easily searchable under these headings: The Writing World, The Writing Life, and The Writing Craft. You'll learn about the 6 critical success factors for bestselling fiction, how to write un-put-downable action scenes, and how to capture the interest of an agent. The keys to a dynamic opening page are revealed, and just as important, what NOT to do in the opening. There's plenty of inside information on what agents and editors say they're looking for and detailed instructions on how to write a stress free query. You'll learn what to put on your LAST page, when to use italics, how to write with courage. And a whole lot more.

My opinion:

First I found a little uncomfortable that the book is a series of earlier blog posts. (They may have been edited, may not, I didn't check it out.) But later I forgot about it because of the great content.

Usually I find a writing book worth the money if I learn something valuable from it. Well, I learned a lot of good stuff from Mr Bell. A few examples:

• I started to plan my writing time, and to stick to a weekly quota. I do it for a few weeks only, but in this way I managed to finish two short story drafts.


• I discovered that the first page of my first novel (still in the making) is not that bad.


• I will use the Bridge story structure in my second novel (once the first one will be finished).

I could continue the list, but I let you to discover the book. I really enjoyed the advices about the craft, and I liked the way James Scott Bell encouraged me to use them, build them into my writing practice, and benefit from them. Being a writer is a life of continuous learning, and the book pokes you to make efforts to grow and develop. Actually I made notes for myself in my notebook, so I have the essence of it always with me. (You know the drill: you should carry a notebook all the time with you to jot down new ideas.)

Here and there I found Mr Bell ranting about baseball, that I did not understand. (Sorry, my bad, I'm not really into it.) The author used these to lead up to the point about writing, so at the end of the day these real life examples were useful (if you play / follow baseball, I mean).

Format / Typo issues: none, of course.

My rating: five stars. The book merits it. A must read.