Revising Up!
Second in a two-part series about power positions in story and how to increase the heat
Vacation time! I’ll be pausing my posts for the month of August, to take some much needed time for my own writing and my family and just lazing through the last of summer here in New England. If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll automatically get an extra month added. Posts resume the first Friday in September!
What’s new in my writing room: If you haven’t read my latest novel, Last Bets, check it out this summer—called “the perfect beach read,” it’s about two women artists on a Caribbean island known for its gambling tournaments, and how they each get into their own brand of trouble. Last Bets was selected for Kirkus Reviews' Top 100 Best Indie Books of the Year!
Last week’s post discussed the idea of power positions in story. (If you missed it, here’s the link.)
We looked at . . .
Who is the character with the most agency, in the entire story, in a specific scene?
Does that change or stay static?
Considering power positions allows the writer to do something called “revising up.” Not always possible in early drafts but definitely necessary in later ones.
In essence, revising up is about adding elements that increase the heat of the scene or story.
How to revise up
Let's say you write a first-draft scene where a character (or real person--if you're writing memoir) sits drinking coffee in her grandmother's kitchen. The talk might have undercurrents, subtext, but nothing is overt. No fights, no arguments, no stomping out of the room. Nothing yet to raise the stakes.
Nobody’s in a power position—they are just trying to keep the peace.
When revising up, you might:
1. Introduce a third person who presents a challenge (three often is a stronger number in scenes than two, and this third person could be the power player in the scene, thereby changing its direction).
2. Raise the narrator to a level of more agency—for instance, they decide to go ahead and meet a challenge that they have been avoiding.
Camera shifts
Sometimes revising up is just as simple as changing the camera’s focus, what the reader sees.
Focus the camera on a challenging part of the setting, placing the power in that location. Something is broken and suddenly noticed, for example. Something is missing. Someone has left something out on the counter, which tells a whole story in itself.
It can be small
I remember a student who was working with revising up, using a scene for her memoir. The scene took place the day after her father died unexpectedly.
The household was in terrible grief. She and her aunt were having breakfast in the kitchen. There was essentially nothing happening, but all that grief was a heavy atmosphere. She needed something to ratchet up the tension because the draft was sluggish.
Interestingly, the writer herself felt the scene was already full of tension. She was speaking of the deep misery inside each of them, via long silences and sighs, wasn’t she? But to me, and her writing group, it came across low key and almost ho-hum.
I asked her to look at her smallest details, what she’d included both about the location and the two people in it.
Ask herself if there was a power element in these details. Something that could become a challenge. Something that she'd been ignoring or downplaying because she knew the scenario so well.
She found two. Her aunt's sweater was buttoned wrong and her aunt was always a snappy dresser. The writer had not included the narrator's reaction to this. Once highlighted, it showed the deep confusion in the aunt's heart about her brother's sudden death.
Also, a broken glass in the sink stayed there all morning--no one cleaned it up.
When she expanded these two power elements (both were tense to her, challenging the norm), the scene's tension exploded. She’d successfully revised up.
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
This week’s exercise is unexpectedly potent if you’re revising a story or book manuscript and want to increase the heat. Try it this week and share your thoughts!
1. Make a list of all the main players in your current story.
2. Rank them in order of power--power means they cause change in the story, in a big or small way.
3. Make another list of locations--rank them according to their ability to enact change.
4. Pick a scene or chapter that is not tense enough. Ask yourself if you've followed the power rules above. What can you add, change, or move to increase the power elements and raise the tension?
Shout Out!
I love to give a shout out to writing friends and former students who are publishing their books and encourage my newsletter community to pre-order or order a copy to show your support of fellow writers. Be sure to let me know if you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months! Just email me at mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! (I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)
James Francisco Bonilla, An Eye for an I: Growing Up with Blindness, Bigotry, and Family Mental Illness (University of Minnesota Press), November
I’m a lifelong artist, and I love to inspire and support other creative folk, which is why I write this weekly newsletter. My goal with these posts is to help you strengthen your writing practice and creative life so it becomes more satisfying to you.
I’m also the author of 15 books in 3 genres. My third novel, Last Bets (Riverbed Press), was published in April, after becoming an Amazon bestseller during pre-orders. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, was published in October 2023 and also became an Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release from pre-orders. For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.
I think these two parts can help me with a chapter I'm revising. Thank you and enjoy your vacation.