With
three successfully published novels to her credit, mystery author, Kristina
Stanley and her team have developed Feedback, an app to help writers navigate
their way through the rewriting process. It’s a privilege to be able to introduce
her new project on this blog! So, here’s Kristina, who asks,
Do You Need Help Rewriting Your
First Draft?
Whether you’re a plotter or a panster, you’ve completed a first
draft. Congratulations! Now what?
If you’re anything like me, you’re asking yourself:
- Where do I start my manuscript rewrite?
- How do I keep track of all the writing tips I’ve
read and apply them to my story?
- What should I change to make my story
better?
- Am I ready to share my manuscript with others?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an app that would help you through the
rewriting process?
But First: What is Rewriting?
A comprehensive rewrite is the first step in the self-editing
process. I’m not talking about copyediting or proofreading. You can do that
after you’ve completed your rewrite.
Rewriting your first draft means analyzing your story from a high-level perspective and fixing any weak areas.
You want to make sure that the story structure makes sense, the scenes are
tense, there are no plot holes, and you haven’t left any subplots unfinished.
During the rewrite, you also take a hard look at your characters.
How often do they appear? What are their goals? What gets in the way of their
goals? Characters will drive the tension in your story, and tension is
what keeps a reader reading.
Finally, the rewrite should examine
your settings. Do you make the most of your settings? How often do you
use the same setting, and is it too often? Do your settings help with the tone
of your scenes? Settings are key to keeping your reader engaged, so don't
ignore them.
How can we help you?
We’re building Feedback, an app for writers that provides a
guided approach to tackling comprehensive rewrites.
With Feedback, you can focus on plot, character, and setting. You
can evaluate on a scene-by-scene basis or on overall novel structure. Feedback
will show you the most important structural elements to work on first.
Feedback will guide you through the rewriting process by
asking you questions specific to your manuscript, enabling you to evaluate your
own story.
Once you import your manuscript, Feedback automatically
captures information such as word count, number of scenes per
chapter, character names, and chapter and scene breaks, using this information
to create the first set of reports. Any updates to your manuscript will
still need to be completed in the writing app you used to create
your first draft.
Feedback helps you visualize your manuscript. Forget about yellow stickies or white boards. Feedback will draw
character arcs, provide reports on scene evaluation, and show your rewriting
progress.
Feedback is a learning tool. If you’re
having trouble with a certain element of fiction, just click on the rewrite tip
associated with that element and find out how to improve your writing. There’s
no need to search through dozens of writing books to find the piece of
advice you need.
On the technical side, Feedback will be a secure,
web-based app. This means you will be able to access Feedback from
any device you use.
Find out more:
Our goal is to launch Feedback in the spring of 2017. In order to
create an app that is truly useful to writers, we'd like your input
on building Feedback. By signing
up to our newsletter, we’ll send you updates on the development
progress and ask you the occasional question to help define the product. As a
bonus, we'll send you rewriting tips available only to our subscribers.
Are you as excited about Feedback as we are? Show your support by
helping us spread the word and share this post.
You can find us at www.FeedbackForFiction.com
Your support means a lot to us, so thank you!
