SCBWI Revision Masterclass: Sara Grant is Born Again

by Teri Terry

On Saturday I attended a SCBWI Masterclass: Sara Grant's Revision Game. Sara is a writer and senior commissioning editor at Working Partners. Her first YA novel Dark Parties will be published in the US (Little, Brown), UK (Orion) and Germany (Droemer) in 2011. At Working Partners she has helped plot, write and revise more than fifty books for children of all ages, and she is a founder and editor of the amazing Undiscovered Voices.

So there I was: all set for a nice relaxing lunch, a pub, a little learning and conversation, right? I was feeling a bit fragile after a legendary garden party with the neighbours the previous evening, but it isn't like I've never revised a novel before - though my answer to problems has generally been to write the next novel better, rather than go over and over and over the same ground. And I'd even done my homework, so figured I should coast through the day quite okay.

Wrong! This was boldly revising where I have never revised before.

Sara set us straight right from the beginning:

'I'm a born again revisionist, and I'm here to convert: so watch out!' - Sara Grant.

I stuck with one of my Slushpile resolutions: I took a camera, and actually used it. But although I tried to photograph Sara many times, most came out like one of those cartoons where the superhero zooms so fast all you see are an outline and a vapour trail.

A Born Again Revisionist: Sara in Motion

Hard at work!

Revising can be colourful

My top five take-away points for the day:

• revision is all about knowing the difference between what you thought you've put on the page, and what is actually on the page;
• don't do micro-editing to avoid macro-editing! Fix the big stuff - plot, POV, tense, characters - before you worry about the picky details;
• I love word cloud: you can paste your whole novel in, and see your most used words; you can display them in lots of colours and patterns and fonts! Pretty, but it also lets you see if the things you think are important are there, and if the things that aren't, are (I am embarrassed to admit how prominent the word 'just' is in all of my novels. Not that I've been compulsively checking them. All day. I just can't help myself....);
• read Robert McKee's Story! It has been sitting on my shelf, beckoning, for quite some time, but I have resolved to dust it off very soon;
• finally, for me, the thing that resonated the most was the homework Sara set. I'll go into this in some detail, below.

When Sara sent the email with our homework around in advance of the masterclass, I must confess: I GROANED when I saw what we were asked to do. I protested; I wailed; I procrastinated. Then, I did it.

I'll paraphrase what we were to do to my own understanding, with a little help from Robert McKee. We were asked to look at our novel, and come up with the following. The heart of our story: why we were writing it, why it is important to us, why it is our story. Then, the story's premise: the 'what if', the idea that inspired the story. Next, the controlling idea: a concept from McKee's Story: 'the story's ultimate meaning expressed through the action and aesthetic emotion of the last act's climax.' Finally, the pitches: a one line pitch, a paragraph pitch, and movie style pitch.

For me this was a seriously valuable exercise. Even though it was painful, I felt I had a much clearer vision of my story, where it was going, and why it should reach that destination.

Thanks, Sara!

Sara slows to normal human speed at the pub afterwards,

her superhero tasks done for the day

We all survived! Me and Mo

Tall Story wins first Crystal Kite Member's Choice Award!

... for EUROPE!

It's the inaugural outing of this award, in which members vote for titles from out of their domestic or continental (not America) region.

SCBWI says it's the only peer-given awards in publishing for young readers ...which makes it even dearer to me because I've been a devotee of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators for ten years now.

All I can say is —

Thank you, thank you, thank you, my fellow SCBWI members. This means a lot to me.

You have the enviable treat of checking out the luscious winners from other continental regions and US domestic regions on the SCBWI website.

And here are the brilliant finalists for my region, Europe:

Castle of Shadows Ellen Renner

Gilbert the Hero by Jane Clarke

Petit Escargot written and illustrated by Bridget Strevens-Marzo

Prisoner of the Inquisition by Theresa Breslin

The Boneshaker  Illustrated by Andrea Offermann

The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh

Musings on Muses

By Addy Farmer
Guest Blogger

Who does it for YOU?

Muse wise, I mean. Maybe you already have one lolling about somewhere? Maybe you scoff at the very idea of a Muse or perhaps you are already a daughter of Zeus and can do your own musing thank you very much.

The necessity for one of these divine creatures may well depend on the sort of writer you are. There are those who splurge out words until they faint through word excess and then there are those who creak out one sentence at a time. To paraphrase Pam Johnson, the former are 'churners' and the latter are, 'tooth pullers'.

I lean towards the tooth pulling variety.

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead Gene Fowler

 Just relax, this won't hurt a bit

So, I try to imagine a being whose only desire is to inspire my writing.

Gone would be the walking, the vacuuming, toilet cleaning, useless note taking, hair tearing, blood letting – all those things which take up my thinking time when I should be churning out my story. I'm thinking, a Muse could be jolly efficient, like a literary short cut. Cut out the angst - just feed me the story, sister.

And I'm not the only one who thinks a Muse could be a good idea. Quite a few famous writers wanted them. Like Shakespeare:

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention

Alright, calm down Shakespeare, It's not like the Muse didn't visit you once or twice, unless the rumours are true and it wasn't you … but no, moving swiftly on!

Jonathan Swift definitely had one:

Then, rising with Aurora's light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, enlarge, diminish, interline

Brilliant. Jonathan clearly had a direct line although I couldn't be doing with Aurora's light because that particular Goddess is just a tad too early for my brain. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be keen on a Muse of fire which sounds a little bit … hot.

Damn you for waking me so early!

But look! Here is the Literary Muse. What poise, what elegance, what's she saying to that bloke? Whispering in his ear, no doubt feeding him juicy bits of inspiration all the time. That's got to be useful. I hope he can remember it all, that he doesn't get distracted by all that poise and elegance.

Psst, have you heard the one about …?

I'm not sure I want a daughter of Zeus lookalike though. I reckon radiant physical beauty in a Muse would cause me problems. However, in the interests of science I would be willing to give the following people a Muse try out:

The bloke from Being Human

Gregory Peck

Chris Pine

Even now I suspect that the loveliness of these lovelies would prove too much for my tiny head. I would come over all unnecessary and zero writing would be done. In time, I'd be forced to reconsider the shape of my Muse.

What to do? Well, maybe get away from the whole Muse in human form and turn to the animal world. I mean, I like the look of hairy guinea pigs with their eighties hair dos. Long feathered chickens have the same effect, certain breeds of sheep and to a lesser degree, Highland cattle. Amusing, for sure, and no doubt many hilarious stories would follow but this Muse lacks a certain gravitas or actually any gravitas at all.

What's not to love?

Okay, so maybe something totally non animal will do the job. Clouds, wandering lonely, ephemeral; chap in a bowler hat one moment, performing flea circus the next. Who cannot watch the sky without seeing story in its shapes? Not me!

Take a summer's day, a velvet green hill, lie back on the picnic blanket and let the fluffy Muse do her work. Lovely. Except for when it's not summer and there are ants and the fluffy Muse starts to rain … No, I need a Muse I can rely on.

Clearly, this picnic is seriously out of control.
Photo from Flickr by Joanne and Matt

Different tack then. Perhaps it's best to let the the Muse find you. I suggest the following:

• Play hard to get. 'Muse, me? Oh no, I didn't want one of those,' laugh airily and walk away. She'll come running.
• A blood sacrifice may entice. Use your own blood.
• Tempt her with chocolate, wine, chicken and chips – whatever you know she fancies. Obviously eat them yourself, it's all part of the plan.

And if none of this works? Just believe you have a muse who's waiting to reveal herself to you, in other words – have faith and look in the mirror. Blimey, she was there all along, arguing and sacrificing and eating the good stuff.

Looking good!

Turns out I will have to be content with amusing myself. Oh look, a cloud shaped like David Beckham! I can see him – can you?

Can you see?

Photo from Flickr by Keo 101

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Addy will be running story making sessions at the Lincoln Book Festival. Together with children's illustrator, Carol Daniel, she will attempt to inspire children with fun ideas for writing and drawing.