Every spring on my writer’s advice website DearEditor.com, I host prolific authors for a week of revision tips, insights, and stories from the trenches. I call it Revision Week, and it’s truly a labor of love. Last week was the third annual installment. You can read those interviews (as well as past years’) here. There are so many great insights, and such well articulated advice. And the anecdotes they share about overcoming story challenges are just riveting. Below are direct links to this year’s interviews. I you’ll read and enjoy them all!
Marla Frazee, two-time Caldecott Honor-winning picture book author/illustrator: “I don’t think of revising as revising. It’s more a question of, Are we getting somewhere?”
Jean Ferris, award-winning author of nineteen young adult novels: “I tend to write what amounts to an expanded outline for the first draft, and each draft gets longer as I understand more and more what the book and its characters are about.”
Joni Rodgers, best-selling novelist and ghostwriter: “[Ghostwriting] is the ultimate test of ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood.’ I listen, ask questions, and revamp until we find what feels right.”
Warren Fahy, best-selling author of science-based thrillers: “Wherever [my advance readers] stop reading a manuscript, I fix it so that nobody wants to stop there again. I pay attention to what they don’t say as much as to what they do say.”
Denise Grover Swank,best-selling author of YA, NA, and novels for adults. “It’s not unusual for me to write a first draft and then cut one-third to half the book out and start over again.”
Seven Silly Eaters is a favorite around our house! We love Marla Frazee!