Wreck Your Manuscript

You’ve got to read, you’ve got to watch movies, make videos, take pictures, be creative because you never know where clarity will strike and all of the sudden you get an idea that will improve your novel. Like tonight, out of nowhere, a movie I would least expect to find inspiration, it hit me: Wreck It Ralph. Every loose end was tied together in that film with charming subtlety. And it got me thinking about my work. Do my loose ends form a strait and clear finish line?

And just as before it’s time to jump into a rewrite. Cut the fat. Reduce this story into a flow that will fly. Don’t care about how long the book is. Don’t care about favorite scenes, or flattering autobiographical parallels. Because it’s all crap if the book doesn’t sell. It’s an unpublished manuscript just sitting on the shelf, or on some microchip, only read by relatives and friends. So, reduce and define the point of the story.

What is the point? Don’t know? Start chopping. Wreck It Ralph: Everyone has a special role in the world [or simply] Everyone is important. Can you summarize your novel in one sentence?

Let’s try mine: Flywings: A girl flies… um, Who cares? That doesn’t relate to most people at all. What is the subtext, what really matters about this story? Flywings: Everyone is important… hmm sounds familiar. But it is somewhat true. Stacey comes to a new home, the new girl finds friends and even befriends a bully. But what about magic? Magic lives on in Wreck It. The status quo never changes. But I introduce a major theme that goes away, doesn’t have a place…. So, try again.

Something major needs to change and maybe Flywings needs to get wrecked. But no fear, Felix will fix it. And Felix in this case is countless hours of revision.