May
15
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Self-Edit by John David Anderson
7972.
That’s how many changes I made to my latest novel, Keep It Like a Secret. Microsoft Word has this nifty feature allowing you to compare versions of the same document, the writing equivalent of a before and after pic. It highlighted everything I’d altered in a nice red font so I could see the difference.
It was a massacre. Like the elevator scene in The Shining, my whole screen was awash in scarlet. Major characters broken and rebuilt, minor ones offed entirely. Whole pages slashed and burnt. Brand new ending; whole new climax; scenes recast, rewritten, rearranged. So many darlings murdered, their beautiful bodies lined up on the cutting room floor. The bones of the book remained intact (and the soul as well), but the rest—skin, muscle, and sinew–all that connective tissue had to be reworked. This is the way.
It’s a habit I’ve gotten into for my last few novels, comparing the new-and-improved version to the original model. The results are always the same: the changes numbering in the thousands, entire chapters wiped out and replaced, hardly a single full paragraph spared the sword. It’s a process that some writers enjoy, but I am not one of them. For me, revision is often brutal, bloody work. Little wonder I’ve taken to stress-eating chocolate-covered almonds while doing it.
The kicker, of course, is that, no matter how painful it is, it’s worth it. Every time.
The novel in question, Keep It Like a Secret, tells the story of Claire and Morgan, aka Cat and Mouse, an older sister and younger brother whose relationship has undergone a massive shift over the last two years. Once best friends who played by all the rules of the “Sibling Code” they have crafted over the years, they have struggled to maintain their closeness, and Morgan can feel his sister starting to slip away. The novel describes one glorious, rambunctious, dramatic roller-coaster of a day that the two spend together, each on a different quest: For Morgan it’s to reconnect with his best friend and return things to how they used to be. For Claire it’s to prepare her little brother who she’s always protected for the difficult future to come. Said journey gets messy and emotional and even a little bit absurd, but in the process Morgan learns a thing or two about change. Its inevitability, of course, and the challenges that come with it, but also its necessity. Change equals growth—at least if you do it right.
But man, it hurts sometimes.
It’s something I have to constantly remind myself of as I’m chewing through pages and almonds: Change is a good thing. It’s all part of the process. Nuts are healthy snacking and chocolate is good for you. The problem is that most of us are naturally resistant to change. We are hardwired against it. Change is threatening. Morgan knows this. One day your sister is your boon companion, sitting next to you on the trampoline sharing every secret, the next day she is some unrecognizable creature shouting and slamming doors. What do you do with that?
You could resist.
Or you could revise. Change with the change. Evolve. Adapt. Maybe–hopefully–even improve (that is the point of adaptation, after all). It takes Morgan three hundred pages to reach that conclusion. It has taken me decades to do the same.
Human beings are works in progress, each of us a series of drafts, marked by a multitude of additions and deletions, minor edits and massive reworkings. Our lives are in a constant process of revision. Perhaps the bones stay the same (and, again, the soul as well), but the rest is slated for renovation.
So we do our best, we edit as we go, and hopefully at the end of the day/month/year/lifetime, we compare where we are to where we started. We scroll through the endless red waves of adjustments and alterations and come to the conclusion that we are better for it. Sure, we surround ourselves with people who can teach us and inspire us—the way Claire often does for her brother–but in the end it’s still up to us, as authors and editors of our own lives, to create something we can be proud of.
After 7,972 changes, I’m proud of this book. I’m content to slap The End on it and send it out into the world. I, on the other hand, still have lots of room for improvement, even a thousand drafts in. But that’s alright. It’s all part of the process.
Pass the almonds.
John David Anderson is the author of more than a dozen beloved and bestselling books for kids, including the New York Times Notable Book Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, Posted, One Last Shot, Stowaway, Riley’s Ghost, and many more. A dedicated root beer connoisseur and chocolate fiend, he lives with his ever-patient wife and two ornery cats, MJ and Parker, in Indianapolis, IN. You can visit him online at johndavidanderson.org.
About Keep It Like a Secret by John David Anderson
From the first moment Morgan can remember, Claire has always been there. Big sister and little brother. Cat and Mouse. They’ve always understood each other, saved each other, seen each other. And they stuck to their own personal code, unwritten but understood, that siblings were inseparable, that they had each other’s backs, no matter what.
At least, they used to.
Somewhere along the line, things between them shifted. Claire started fighting more with Mom, storming out of the house, spending more and more time away, and Morgan felt his sister and best friend slipping away. Now he spends nearly every night sitting awake in his room, waiting for the sound of her key in the lock.
It’s a sound he hasn’t heard in nearly a week, ever since her and Mom’s worst fight ever. So when Claire finally calls and tells Morgan she wants to spend the day together, just the two of them, he knows this might be his only chance—not just to convince her to come home, but to remind her how good things used to be, and could be again.
But Claire has her own plan for the day. One that will mean that, no matter what happens, things between them are going to change forever.
Check out these other great posts on the Keep It Like a Secret Book Tour!
| 15-May | Nerdy Book Club | @nerdybookclub |
| 16-May | Teachers Who Read | @teachers_read |
| 17-May | Lit Coach Lou | @litcoachlou |
| 20-May | Maria’s Mélange | @mariaselke |
| 21-May | A Library Mama | @alibrarymama |
| 22-May | Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers | @grgenius |
| 26-May | Bluestocking Thinking | @bluesockgirl |
Nerdy Book Club 
Editing is painful but produces growth and a better book. Congratulations on your perseverance and keeping track. I’m not sure I have the guts to do that!