From Rough Draft to Ready: Editor Joel Brigham on Revisions That Sell

In this information-packed episode, editor Joel Brigham returns to dive deep into the art of revision, breaking down the essential steps writers must take to polish their manuscripts. From identifying critical story beats to understanding character agency and narrative pacing, Joel offers a masterclass in transforming a draft into a submission-ready novel.

Guest Bio:
Joel Brigham is a professional editor, former NBA journalist, and passionate advocate for emerging authors. With over a decade of editorial experience and a background in teaching, Joel brings deep insight into storytelling structure, character development, and the realities of the publishing industry.

Key Discussion Points:

• Revision in Phases: Joel shares his six-phase editing approach, starting with foundational story beats like the inciting incident, midpoint turn, and “all hope is lost” moment.
• Character Development: Tips on ensuring all characters—not just the protagonist—have motivation, depth, and personal arcs.
• Tension & Stakes: Why every chapter must carry tension and what makes stakes compelling enough to hook readers and agents.
• Checklist for Self-Editing: Joel outlines critical revision questions including character agency, dialogue realism, narrative voice consistency, appropriate word count, readability scores, and genre expectations.
• Avoiding Common Pitfalls: Advice on preventing rushed endings, fixing saggy middles, and using tools like the “but/therefore” method for coherent structure.
• Voice Development: Joel explains why voice can’t be forced and shares strategies to cultivate it through imitation, feedback, and cross-genre writing.
• Final Polish Tips: Encouragement to revise in focused passes, gather outside feedback, and avoid the impatience that leads to premature querying.

Conclusion:
Joel Brigham offers writers not only a clear, step-by-step path through revision, but also the inspiration to stick with it. With practical advice and a refreshing blend of honesty and encouragement, this episode is essential listening for anyone preparing to submit their manuscript.

Mentioned Links:

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• 23:42 (Cont.) From Rough Draft to Ready: Editor Joel Brigham on Revisions That Sell

Transcript

BETH MCMULLEN

Hi friends, Beth here. Before we dive in, a quick heads up. Due to a recording glitch, we lost the first few minutes of this interview with editor Joel Brigham. That means you won't hear our usual intro or the beginning of Joel's answer to our first question. The good news? The rest of the conversation is here and it's full of practical, insightful advice. In this episode, we're digging into revisions, how to approach your first round of editing, common pitfalls to avoid, and how to know when your book is really done. Thanks for your patience. And now we'll jump right in with Joel answering our first question. How do you recommend writers approach their first round of editing?

JOEL BRIGHAM

I do them in phases. So I can kind of tell which phase a writer is at based on their early draft. You know, very often, like phase one for me is plotting and story beats, making sure everything is kind of in the right general place. And I can tell if a writer is sort of a plotter. They may already have those beats in the right place, and we can kind of go on to the next thing. But if you are a pantser, and I believe, ladies, we discussed last time that both of you kind of pants your way through drafts, it means really taking stock of what do I have here and what am I? I call them like tentpole story beats. I know I may have discussed this last time. There's a lot of ideas about what story beats kind of go where. But for me, the tentpole story beats are. Kind of the pillars on which everything sort of sits. And I want to make sure those are sort of more or less, you know, in the right place. So when I'm assessing a first draft of something that I've written or that somebody else has written, I'm looking for the inciting incident. I'm looking for kind of the midpoint turn. And I'm looking for the all hope is lost kind of lowest of the low moments. And I might kind of see those aren't. really what breaks up act one act two and act three those really aren't the the all hope is lost is the shift between act two and act three but the other ones kind of come in the middle of those acts so i might also look at kind of like what's my act one what's my act two and what's my act three as well as those tentpole scenes but i'm looking at those so what i find is very common with pancers is they've got those beats they've got their inciting incident they've got their all hope is lost And very often, and we'll talk about saggy middles here in a little bit, not always, but very often they've got a midpoint or a turn or a raising of the stakes. But those tend to be kind of in the wrong places. When you're pantsing, you're not really thinking about pacing. You're just getting all the words onto the page, which, by the way, is the right approach. But when you're going to revise, it's time to step back and look at where do these go. So for me, the inciting incident, which is the thing that. the the main character cannot come back from like they can agree to this challenge that's been presented to them or they can decline this challenge but whether they agree or decline their lives cannot go back to the way they were before this thing happened we start there and where that inciting incident goes really kind of depends on the age level and the genre so i i don't need to go through like every possible thing but for you know a lot of uh you know, YA and adult books, that inciting incident is usually sort of like in the 8 % to 12 % range of your book. Maybe a little sooner, I could see it like in 7 % to 10%. They certainly have been moving up over the last few years as to where editors like to see those. But if you're writing a middle grade book, typically they like that inciting incident to happen like by the end of chapter one, which is not what I love. I don't like that. I tend to even like steer them against that. I want to have middle grade authors, but I'm seeing more of that lately. And then if you're writing a romance, whether it's the inciting incident or not can be arguable, but that meet cute typically needs to happen by the end of chapter one or at the very beginning of chapter two. So I'm looking for kind of where that sits. That midpoint turn, they call it the midpoint turn for a reason, is that in the middle? And I look for that because I can tell if this manuscript is going to be front heavy or back heavy. Because ultimately, once you figure out what that midpoint is and you establish that's the midpoint, you're going to see, oh, I've got 55 ,000 words before this story beat and I've got 25 ,000 words after this story beat. I'm going to have to either cut from the first half or add to the second half or both to make this kind of fall in the right place. It does not need to hit at 50 % on the button. This is not science. This is art. But at the same time, if that midpoint thing is happening at... the 72 % mark or something, we might have lost our readers by then. It's not meeting the expectation and cadence and pacing of a story. If it happens too early, you know, at 36 % or something, then everything that follows is going to maybe feel like our build toward the climax and the climax itself is too drawn out and slow. So that midpoint is there for a reason. And then that all hope is lost. Often I find that missing. We don't want to hurt our characters, and so it's just not there. The problem gets harder, but the character never hits that rock bottom, which is really a necessity in these stories, kind of around the 75 % to 80 % mark, is all the things that can go wrong have to go wrong, so we can head into that last 20 -ish percent of the book, hoping that they figure it out. My first, my first pass is looking at where are my tent poles? Where am I? Are my basic story beads kind of in the right place? Because then I can kind of game plan. Okay. What do I need to make cuts? You know, what, what areas need cuts and what areas are going to need expansion so that I can, I can fit into this basic formula. And we have to fit in that formula sort of, again, again, close to, because there is such thing as pacing. There is such thing as reader expectations. And even if they don't know, the readers don't know why a story feels right or wrong, we as authors kind of have to know why a story feels right or wrong. And pacing is a big part of it. If we're expecting a certain thing to happen at a certain time in a romance and it doesn't happen, we're unsettled as readers and not in a good way. So getting those beats in the right place is sort of like phase one for me. And then, you know, I have a phase two through six. Don't need to talk about those if you ladies don't want to, but I certainly can.

BETH MCMULLEN

That's funny that you were just saying that you have these expectations as a reader, even if you're not quite able to articulate them. I just had this experience with a book that I'm reading by an author that I've always really enjoyed. And this new book, it's not hitting the beats. It starts in a weird place and it's disconcerting. I don't like it. And it took me a moment to figure out why I didn't like it. And that's exactly the reason. It wasn't delivering the expectation that I have for her books, but also that genre. So that's interesting.

JOEL BRIGHAM

just had

JOEL BRIGHAM

I have a theory on that. I have a theory on that too. It's my belief that once a author starts to become more successful and their books are going to sell, regardless of the quality of the books, that their editors are a little less pushy. authors are a little less pliable and open to making those changes. So they tend to kind of write what they write and say, take it or leave it. And the books sort of suffer as a result. That is so true.

BETH MCMULLEN

is so true. Could not have said it better myself. That is so true. And I think that's what's happening with this author, which is such, it's so disappointing because I really have loved her work up till this point. So moving on to the next question, thinking about a checklist or a set of questions writers can use to help evaluate their work as they're getting into that initial round of editing for the first time. What are your thoughts on that?

JOEL BRIGHAM

Yeah, I sort of just made a list of questions. These don't necessarily have to go in any certain order. I just was kind of thinking in terms of, you know, when I have a book of my own in front of me, because we talked about, you know. Is it necessary to hire a developmental editor or not? We discussed that last time. And my message was like, you don't have to do what you can kind of by yourself for free before you pay somebody. So I was thinking kind of, what are these questions that I could have an author, you know, ask themselves to maybe challenge themselves in ways to do these things for free without having to pay somebody to have a look. So my number one thing is, you know, have you hit the major story beats and are they all in the right place? That's, that's. question one right we've already discussed that my second one is you know does every character have a clear motivation and their own arc it is pretty common for the main character to be okay here in early drafts i actually find that the antagonist is sort of lacking depth in early drafts like they're there to be like the sort of you know stereotypical mustache twirling you know scooby -doo villain and it can they don't really have like well -developed arcs for themselves i see that i see sort of secondary characters that are very flat and are just there for you know color and for background noise and they don't have motivations or hopes and wants of their own so that's a question too is like is your main character the only one that really got the full look here or did your other characters really get that full look as well and Once you kind of got that figured out, and this to me is one of the biggest questions that a writer can ask themselves in an early draft, because I've come to realize that this really is what makes the difference between a good book and a book that isn't there yet. And it is character agency. Is the character driving the plot or is the plot just sort of happening to and around the character? I see this a lot. I've written books like this early. I mean, I had to work my way out of this issue myself, where I felt like if I had a main character where all these bad things kept happening to him, that it would create sympathy. And then we can see him kind of work his way out of it. But that isn't how this is supposed to go. How this is supposed to go is a character behaves in a way that has consequences. And the reader goes, uh -oh, there's going to be consequences to that. And we read on to see what happens. And then, sure enough, there's more choices and more consequences. So, you know, is the character... really driving the action? Or is our character passive and just kind of observing or storytelling the things that are happening around them? It's a really common thing I see in early drafts. It's a common thing I see in finished drafts that it's almost like if you don't take care of that early in the process, everything else you do is going to be moot because the story is not going to be engaging. Agents aren't picking up books where the characters don't drive the action. They just don't work. They're too slow. They're too passive. We want to see characters act and be heroic and save themselves and others. If we don't have that, that's a problem. That's a big one. Early on, you've got to ask yourself that question. Is the character driving the action?

JOEL BRIGHAM

Ask yourself, if not page by page, at least chapter by chapter, is there tension in every chapter? You know, is there tension? I see a lot of early drafts where there is none. They are conversations. They're kind of cutesy. They're exploratory. Maybe they're kind of meant to see what's going on, you know, to show us how some of the magic in the world is built here. But there's no tension. If we don't have tension in every chapter, even on a small level, then that chapter needs to be fixed or that chapter needs to get chucked. And tension can be something really, really small. You know, in a lot of fantasy books, there's like a chapter where they've run out of food and water, you know? And so that chapter is all about, are they going to find food and water before so -and -so starves or dies of thirst? Like, that's cool. That's one whole chapter. Is that the main goal of beating the bad guy? No. But that tension of like, will they get water or not matters, you know, or a lower level monster in a fantasy book, you know, trying to get through this forest. to get to where the bad guy is but a little snake serpent villain stops them and they have to defeat little tension right a chapter could be about the main character and their best friend getting into an argument over something they don't agree on and the whole thing is about them seeing who's going to win the argument to decide what they do in this next chapter that fighting between friends is tension so there's lots of ways there's romantic tension there's all kinds of ways to like you know make us want to turn pages to see kind of how this plays out if you don't have that in every chapter yeah you got to revise it or you might have to make the hard decision that this chapter maybe just isn't serving enough purpose it has to go are there stakes and not like the medium well kind of stake like like stakes like you know what happens if the character succeeds that's awesome and what happens if the character fails that is catastrophic that has to be spelled out super early on in fact when readers are reading the like amazon product description or the back of the book in the barnes and noble they're looking for stakes that are just like oh my god i have to see if they succeed or fail i mean you're drawn into that's what agents are looking for in query letters is is those stakes that's what draws us in if it is not clear what they gain and what they lose through this journey they're on that's a problem that we should fix early early early on in our revisions Have you read the dialogue out loud? This is very awkward. And I'm not even saying like, don't have like AI read it to you. I'm saying you read it out loud and see what it sounds like. You know, a lot of dialogue feels in early drafts, not a lot, enough where it's, I'm making a note of it. Sounds unnatural. People don't talk that way. And often if you read your dialogue out loud, you'll go, oh yeah, that does not sound natural. And then you can kind of fix it based on how it sounds like, you know, in your ear balls. So I recommend doing that as well. Does your book start and end with a bang? That's a question too. Is your opening scene a killer? Is your last scene a mic drop? You know, look at those, make sure those are the most engaging parts of your story. The last ones are, these last few questions are a little more detail oriented. So I could give some resources for this if you'd like. But the first one is when you're done, what is the word count? And is it appropriate for your age level and genre? That's a big one. If you're writing a contemporary romance and it's 140 ,000 words, it's too long. You're going to have to cut 60 ,000 words probably. And that's going to be your first order of business is, okay, before I do anything, I have to cut 60 ,000 words. Or if you're writing a, you know, adult epic fantasy that is 70 ,000 words long, it's too short. It's too short. The expectation is that would be at least 100 ,000, probably closer to 120. So you have to kind of know what those genre and age level expectations for word counts are, because it is an automatic rejection very often for agents when they pull up a query letter that says, I have written a adult epic fantasy complete at 70 ,000 words. It's nope. They don't even get to your synopsis. It's an automatic rejection because it shows that you didn't do your homework. to know enough that the word count is off, or you're going to be hard enough to work with where your hubris is such that, oh, I know what the expectations are, but my work is so good that I will break those expectations. I'm not sure why this person is British, but I'm so sorry to the entire United Kingdom. But they think that they're the exception, and they aren't. We're not the exception. No debut author is the exception. We have to earn that. So word count. is something to check. Something else you can check are your readability scores, especially if you're writing for children. So middle grade and YA. And I have to, I should have looked this up, but there are two scores for books. There are two sort of scores that people go by to look at. whether or not a book is appropriate for an age level i'm a teacher so i work with these one is the lexile score which is sort of the number you get back is like the grade level that this would be appropriate for and the other score is called the flesh kincaid readability test which is a it's not the number doesn't relate to grade level or age at all but there's charts and stuff online that show you kind of what age that that flesh kincaid scores is meant to kind of direct you toward And the reason why these are important is that I do see authors who ostensibly are writing for 11 -year -olds, but the text is written by a 40 -year -old. Clearly, right? The vocabulary is too high. The sentences are too complex. Those kinds of things. And when these scores... Microsoft Word will check these. There's an advanced feature. It'll check these for you at the end. These scores really are determined on the number of syllables per word and the number of words per sentence. So if you're finding that you're aiming for a sixth grade reading level and it's spitting out 11th grade reading level, the best way to do that is to go through and look at how can I, for lack of a better word, kind of dumb this down or simplify this. Shorter sentences, smaller words, right? So, yeah, you do want to kind of be age -level appropriate. I will tell you there are some schools that live and die by the Lexile to the extent that they will not let kids read books outside of their Lexile level, which is really stupid. But I'm not saying whether or not it's stupid. I'm saying whether or not it exists. And it exists. And if you're writing for kids, the goal is to get them into schools. That's like, that's... You know, 11 year olds don't have income, right? So the goal is to get them into schools. So those scores do matter a little bit. I know I'm rambling on about kid lit, but if you write that, it is important to kind of know, have I overshot my audience? Last one. I have one last good one and one kind of last like pep talky one. My last like really good one is like, have you proofread? Have you done a really good proofreading? And if you. Don't feel like you are a capable proofreader or you're very concerned that your grammar and spelling and all that just isn't at a level where you feel like you can get it where it needs to be. Find somebody you trust to get it there. Guys, these have to be pristine. When you are querying a book, you are effectively applying for a job as a professional writer, right? A professional writer needs to write professionally. And the expectation would be that. Even if the story has its gaps and the pacing's off and whatever, the expectation with that, at the very least, the one thing you can 100 % control are the periods in the right place. Is everything capitalized? Is the grammar and the syntax more or less the way that it's supposed to be? Those things really are important. It does need to be pristine. You wouldn't turn in a... resume and a cover letter for a job you really wanted with 18 typos on it. That's a horrible first impression. And that isn't even for a job that's professional writing. And this is right. So that's that. And then my last question, again, this is kind of the philosophical, like, you know, pep talky one is, do you feel proud of what you've written? And I know that in early drafts, I do not feel that way, but there is a point in revision where I kind of sit back and I get kind of goosebumps even thinking about it. Where I'm like, oh my God, this is a thing. Like, this is a book. And I start to feel really excited and proud about the world seeing it. Early in the process, I would rather die than have somebody see it, right? But later on in the process, I can't wait. So that moment where you feel proud, like that's how you know you're close. You feel it. It just kind of turns, right? And that's kind of my last, I guess, question for, you know, your writer's checklist with a draft.

LISA SCHMID

Oh my God. Those are all such good tips and it's a great checklist. It's funny because I have a book that's basically going to be on sub, I think next week. And, but as you were talking about tension, it's like, I could feel the tension in my body building as you were going through your checklist. Cause I was just like, Oh my God, is that there? Is that there? Is that there? And. It's funny. I hadn't read the book in a couple months. I, you know, my, it got sent to my agent and just, you know, I hadn't thought about it. It's like, it was just waiting for it to be in the queue for it to be my turn to go out. And so I hadn't read it. And so the other day I just was like, you know what? I'm going to read this again and see if there's anything I need to change. And it, like I said, it had been two, two months and I changed one word and I thought like, that's it. Like I didn't, there was nothing else I changed. And that is actually the first time that's ever happened to me. Cause I went through it. I couldn't find, you know, I had my, I have a new critique partner. That's an editor. She had gone through it for me. And I was just like, oh my God, I changed one word.

BETH MCMULLEN

me. And I

LISA SCHMID

And I just sat there for like five minutes, like dumbfounded and just thought, okay, I think I'm okay. So yeah, it's, and I was kind of proud of it. I'm like, oh, you're through it. But still, you know, you still have those questions like, did I hit all the right beats? One thing I want to ask, and I always worry about this too, because sometimes I feel like it can wander off. Is there anything that you can suggest where writers can strengthen? their narrative voice during revisions like what are you know because sometimes i feel like you kind of it can wander off a little bit and how can you like make sure you're reining that back in and that your voice is staying on track voice is the hardest thing to teach i'm not sure it's even teachable to be honest with you my philosophy of voice and i'm not sure if we're talking about voice as a writer or voice for characters voice for a writer

JOEL BRIGHAM

you like

JOEL BRIGHAM

is the hardest thing to teach i'm not sure it's even teachable to be honest with you my philosophy of voice and i'm not sure if we're talking about voice as a writer or voice for characters voice for a writer

JOEL BRIGHAM

So my philosophy of voice is the only way to develop one is to write and read a ton. And I think the best way to start is to sort of like mimic authors' voices that you admire. That's certainly how I started. My favorite. writer as a kid was dave berry who was like a humor columnist you know out of miami and just wrote nonsense and the first writing i ever really did was sort of dave berry style you know and as i got to be you know older and wrote some more you know i remember the first ya book i wrote was very much i wanted to be like john green so i'm like kind of mimicking john green and it says oh you know that's a great place to start because you can kind of feel how that writing coming out of your fingers is different from when you wrote your argumentative essay in 10th grade, how different that feels voice -wise. You know, you start there and as you mimic enough authors and as you write enough, you know, you kind of forget that you're mimicking those authors and your own voice kind of starts to shine through. You get more comfortable with yourself and what you're trying to say and how you want to say it. And that kind of happens naturally, but that takes, oh my gosh. so much time like you do you have to read a ton and get a sense of like oh i don't like the way this my author's voice is no thank you and you realize like part of what i loved about john green and about guys like you know jeff zettner and a lot of these like ya books where they were so emotional and so serious but they could crack a little joke here and then to kind of relieve that tension and go like i wanted that for myself and so i found ways that i could do that myself in my own kind of way but i had to start by copying the way john green did it which is perfectly fine right like that's that's completely fine but i always give this example of you know at the at the peak of like harry potter's popularity you know, six books had come out and the final book was sort of like on the cusp of releasing and everybody was like, oh my God, is Harry going to live? Is Harry going to die? Like, you know, whatever, all this is going on. And then I remember there was a leak of, of the final book before it was released and I got ahold of it and I'm, I'm staring at the cover and I'm like, do I want to read this or not? Do I want to read that? I mean, I was like to turn aside and like, I have no impulse control. So I read it and I read the first page and I'm like, this is not it. This is, this is wrong. Like, It was a full book. It was fan fiction that somebody had written. The formatting, it all looked just like it would. But I knew on the first page that J .K. Rowling had not written that book. It wasn't right. And that's kind of what we're shooting for is when you read a J .K. Rowling book, when you read a John Green book, when you read a Dave Barry column, you know right away who it is, whether or not you see the author's name. That's like the goal, right? Those guys didn't get there the first try. They screwed things up. Dave Barry writing a newspaper column, I'm sure, got feedback, positive and negative, from all kinds of people.

JOEL BRIGHAM

My number one tip here for voice is that it is not a quick fix. It is not something you can just do in revision, which is why I think when a lot of agents say they're looking for projects with voice, What they mean is they're looking for projects written by people with a strong sense of identity and have worked on that voice enough to be kind of ready. It's just one of those things that just takes time. It is not a quick fix. I think that it helps to write in different mediums. Writing a newsletter or a blog and writing some nonfiction stuff and writing. your fiction as well, and not just long form, but try short fiction too. Write some poetry, you know, write, I mean, anything, journal entries, right? All of this stuff is a way to develop voice and writing in different mediums kind of helps you pull this and this and this and this until you sort of got it. It just takes time. It is not a quick fix. My advice, that kind of three little pieces of advice for tip, for voice that I think might be actionable. Again, this is so hard. I can't like, You know, teach them. But my advice is one, be authentic. Just be authentic. Whoever you are, whatever makes you unique and special, man, just dump that onto the page. I'm, I'm a very, okay.

JOEL BRIGHAM

I hate, I'm getting gross thinking about talking about myself in a positive light. So I apologize. I don't compliment myself well at all, but I'm a witty person. You know, I like to laugh and crack jokes. And that's everything I write and do is structured around the occasional witty joke. It just is. Some people are very deep and somber or macabre or, you know, whatever that, whatever your vibe is, whatever makes you special and unique, man, dump it on the page. Do not hold back. Let whatever comes out, come out. And as you go back and read it, you're going to realize, Ooh, I love this, but Ooh, this is a little much. And you can kind of figure out which parts work or. My other piece of advice is to seek feedback. Once you've tried something with voice, maybe something new, give it to your beta readers and see how they receive it. They might say, I really loved this part, but this part felt a little too sappy for me. It was a little too emotional. It was a little too depressing. But this part, oh my God, it was so good. Through that feedback, that's how you figure that out. I got my feedback. I'm not sure if you ladies know this, but I was an NBA journalist for 12 years. the internet where i covered the chicago bulls and the indiana pacers public facing articles and a comment section of meathead sports fans who are consistently angry with me about everything i ever said that was my first introduction to like feedback public feedback but you do you know you internalize it a little bit and it can't help but show up on the page and kind of what you're doing that that does that does help so be authentic seek feedback And then my last one is like, read it out loud. Again, read it out loud. What does it sound like? What's the cadence? What's the rhythm of the speech? This is kind of where, you know, if you're not into poetry, like reading or listening to some poetry can go a long way in like the way something is written. The best poets all have that kind of unique voice that really makes them pop off the page. So read your book out loud, even just to yourself and see. How does it flow? Does it feel good? Like you can feel when it's choppy or isn't quite hitting. Or oftentimes we see this like in emails and texts all the time. We say it in our head and then we write it in the text or email and hit send. And the other person takes it completely the wrong way because there's no tone in writing, right? And so when you say it out loud, you're like, oops, I see what might happen there. I'm going to fix that. So there's nothing lost in translation. So I think those help a lot. And, you know, I know we're not talking about writing in different character voices, but really like if you. make it a point where like, Hey, this character is going to be really pushy and impulsive. And this character is going to be really shy and standoffish. You know, sometimes writing, being knowledgeable and cognizant of writing characters in such different ways helps you explore kind of those different aspects of your own writing voice too. So the simple answer is that practice is what gets you there. You've got to write. to find out who you are as a writer. And that's just something that, I mean, Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10 ,000 hours to master something. You know, voice just doesn't happen. It's something that we grow. And so don't be frustrated if your first book, it's not fully developed or people are telling you the voice isn't quite landing with me yet. It doesn't mean that you suck. It just means that you're still learning and it's still a process and you can still get there. You just got to keep reading and keep writing.

BETH MCMULLEN

Yeah, I had a... conversation with a book coaching client, maybe yesterday. And the first thing I said to her, I was like, your voice is dialed in. You've got the voice. So what we're talking about that needs fixing is more mechanical. It's plot points. It's some pacing issues. But the hardest part, I totally agree with you. The hardest part to teach or instruct or lead people toward is voice. I had another person that I worked with where you could see over the course this of course was an epic thriller it was quite long and over the course of it you could see him figure out the voice so the beginning voice wasn't there the middle you start to get it by the end he had it and i was like the thing that you need to do now is take that voice go back to the beginning and start over and then I mean, but it was so interesting. You could really just see the evolution on the page. It's such an interesting thing. And it is, I totally agree with you. It's a hard thing to understand if you don't have it,

LISA SCHMID

back to the

BETH MCMULLEN

if you don't have it, but that imitation and that deep reading of people that you think you might want to sound like is a great way to speed the process. Our next question. Oh, God.

JOEL BRIGHAM

I've always said the best way to start writing for those who don't know how to write is to write fan fiction, you know? It's the best way to start because all that stuff's already established. So, yeah.

BETH MCMULLEN

Absolutely. And it's all practice of the craft, right? You don't get to the NBA on the second day that you're playing basketball. Like you've got to work the craft. So just start where you need to start and build from there.

JOEL BRIGHAM

You don't get to the NBA

BETH MCMULLEN

where you need to start and build from there. Our next question is about story structure and how to figure out if your story structure isn't working. Are there key signs you can look for? Is there evidence that you can look for? What do you look for to be like a red flag that the structure needs some help?

JOEL BRIGHAM

So, I mean, I've already talked a little bit about what I'm looking for in terms of structure. I'm looking for those tentpole scenes, you know, inciting incident, midpoint turn, and then all hope is lost. I'm looking for a general three act or four act structure. And if it's not in one of those things, it's probably really literary. And the person is aware that they've avoided that four act structure and is. skilled and smart enough to do a good job without it right that i understand too but for someone who's just kind of trying to get published for the first time i think the basic structure of of are those tent pole scenes where they should be is my act one act two act three kind of you know where it should be is it those fleshed out that's the first thing that i look for but more importantly i think the biggest sort of red flag for structure when it's not working I'm going to talk about South Park, which I'm not a huge South Park fan, but the way that Matt Stone and Trey Parker storytell in their episodes, I think is a really smart and simple way to kind of put this. So when South Park writes an episode, and for those of you guys that don't know, South Park, they write the episode the week that it airs. So they write early in the week, and then they do the computer animation later in the week, and then it airs, whatever, the next Monday. So it's all live and very, very fast. They structure their episode so that their story beats. Between every story beat, you could put the word but or the word therefore. Between every story beat. And what tells me that a story's structure is broken is that instead of thinking but or therefore, between scenes, I'm thinking and then, and then, and then, and then. So if it's just a series of events, this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. i'm being very flippant i shouldn't be talking about like you know when i when i see that those and thens it tells me that usually consequences are missing it relieves some of that tension because there's no carryover from one scene to the next what the but and the therefore does is you know so and so wants to do this but blank is in their way so they do this therefore this ends up happening and they have to choose but they can't do that yet because uh therefore they have to whereas you know and then and then and then that's just not as engaging a story format so truly it sounds very simple but i'm i'm just looking for the temple story beats in more or less the right place that basic structure so we can meet reader expectations for pacing and then i'm looking for the but and the therefore versus the and then which is effectively our character agency conversation like that's why agency and stakes are are so important like the character has to be driving their own story with a clear target if you've got that everything else in revision is fixable everything else is fixable character with agency stakes and a clear target right otherwise yeah it's the temple scenes and it's the it's the and then versus the but therefore

LISA SCHMID

I've heard that several times and that totally makes sense. And again, going through my head and going, did I do that? Did I do that? And it's, those are all good questions to ask yourself as you're going through revision is asking that question at the end of each,

JOEL BRIGHAM

going through

LISA SCHMID

at the end of each chapter, because there may be a good. ending to it, but does it lead to a new question or does it, like you said, does it, it's not just like flowing into the next, to the next chapter. So one of the things I've noticed, and I do it myself and I know when I'm reading somebody's book and I can see they're doing it, we all get sick of the book and we just want to finish it. And I see often that there's so many people that rush the ending. I'm guilty. My hand's raised and wagging and waving in the air because I do it. Any suggestions on, you know, how to avoid that, how to fix it? Because we, I think as writers, we all do it because we just want to be done with the book.

JOEL BRIGHAM

Yeah. I mean, I see it in the ending sometimes, and then I'll sort of see sometimes like a malaise in the middle too. I have a cat who's going to do a little cameo here for you guys. She's beautiful, but very ornery. usually the the beginning is usually in pretty good shape like we're excited about it like we have this new idea and our opening incident and we've thought all this through and so we write it and it's really good the endings hit or miss i mean sometimes like the ending is the part the author's been like dying to write forever and they finally get to write it and sometimes you're right the author's just cooked and they want to be done so you know i'll tackle this two ways right i'll i'll speak to those who struggle in the middle of the book and then i'll speak to those who struggle at the end of the book and we'll kind of go sort of both ways for the the middle portion when we're bored there with the the saggy metal is what it's known as in the industry and in in my shirt size the saggy metal is fixable really pretty easily that that midpoint turn i've talked about is a raising of the stakes it is a changing of the story it is a reconfiguring of everything that is going to matter and hey sweetheart and that is we're not gonna look at a cat butt for a half an hour here are we that is i'm so sorry that is something that we're putting in there on purpose so example of a midpoint turn is if up until this point the character's been having a series of small wins the midpoint turn is going to knock them way back down to start or if the character has been having a ton of little small losses This is like a big giant clue or a big giant step in the right direction to finally build some momentum. It's also an opportunity maybe to, you know, if we thought the villain or the antagonist was one thing this whole time and now we find out that, no, that thing you've been chasing is only like an underling and the real villain is something way scarier and way harder to defeat. You thought that was hard. Well, guess what? You know, that's a great way to kind of play with the metal. Those are ways to kind of do that. But my... my uh hey i'm getting bored in the middle of my book what can i do list is one introduce a new obstacle just throw something impossible at him two i love this one separate characters who need each other so you know if you've got this kind of like you know inseparable duo and they work so well together and things are going you know one of them gets kidnapped or one of them dies or something and now the character has to kind of work by themselves kind of like halfway through the book right now now what they've lost so -and -so now what backstory reveals are good in the middle so i last podcast i said i don't want to see backstory in the first few chapters i want you to save it this is why i want you to save it we've seen a destructive behavior you know trauma responses for you know 35 40 000 words and we've asked ourselves why is this guy acting this way oh guess what midpoint we get to reveal why they're acting this way and the character is completely reframed in our mind and we get to write that fun flashback chapter we've been wanting to talk about for like so long you get to actually use it in a part of the book where it's appropriate the middle is a great place to look at maybe some subplots or some minor characters and give them little mini chapters to kind of get what they want a little bit Midpoints can be fixed by introducing a ticking clock. We'll discuss that for the end bits as well. You put a timer on something, it gets way more exciting. Change of power dynamic. So whoever we thought was in charge now isn't in charge anymore and somebody else is. And one of my favorites is, you know, finding two characters that haven't had to interact much yet and making them interact. The Office would do this when they were getting slow. They would just take two characters from The Office that hadn't had much time on the screen together, and they'd give them a whole episode of just whatever. Ryan and Dwight, who never really hung out, just the two of them. Let's go see what they do. I love that one, too. Those are all ways to save the middle of the book. Lisa, you asked about the end of the book. How do we keep ourselves from rushing through it and making it really crummy or just paced poorly? I think the best way to do that, first and foremost, is to make sure that your all hope is lost is all hope is losty enough. Like if you've dug a big enough hole, you physically cannot tie up loose ends fast enough, right? So if, you know, their big plan to stop the bad guy has failed and their mentor just died and their best friend is pissed at him and won't talk to him and their magical. dagger got lost in the canyon and i mean and you know they just found out this baby and like six bad things happen at once you didn't you know you're giving yourself okay i gotta wrap all these up now so i gotta find ways to like settle all these it sort of forces you to uh to pace yourself toward the end that all hope is lost is so so important but also if you look at that act three as sort of its own little story arc that really should be one of the more enjoyable bits to write. Like if everything has gone to hell, we have to have like a redemption chapter where we kind of get the team back together, where there's this grand gesture or some apology or some understanding or some compromise. That's a cool chapter to write, you know? And now the gang's back together again. And now they have to figure out, okay. What we tried didn't work. So now what? And then we see them work together with all this growth they've made as characters, all this knowledge and power and strength that they've acquired over the first 80 % of the book. Now they're equipped to make a plan that works on their own, by themselves, without a mentor. And now we get to go execute it. And we get to write the exciting, you know, climax scenes where they... confront the the antagonist and whatever else and then you get to write that super sweet like final chapter that ties up all the loose ends you know like in the movie where the screen goes black and it's like john lived to be 74 and started a llama farm and like you know we get to write that chapter at the end you know so i always kind of think of it as the ending like you you're gonna have four chapters like they get the team back together they formulate a plot they go get the bad guy and then the they're tying up loose ends so If you tell yourself, I have to write at least those four chapters, I'm guessing your ending is going to be decently enough paced. And if it's not, then you look at revision and you realize like, oh my God, I, you know, I've got my inciting incident here, but my act two is only 10 ,000 words long. You know, you just need to expand it a little bit. You know, you got to make that build a climax a little more slowly that you fix it in revision. Right. So I actually don't mind rushing through the last bit, Lisa, like. Getting to the end on a draft is super liberating and super necessary sometimes for momentum. And if you're feeling slow and like unmotivated and I just want to be done, then just be done. Like, just be done. Finish it. Even if it's bad and be done. Like no one's seen it yet. You can go back and fix it later. Give yourself that momentum. Give yourself type the words the end, which is like the biggest dopamine release that any writer ever gets is the end. Right. Give yourself that. sleep for a couple nights and then come back to it with fresh eyes. And I'm guessing you'll feel more motivated to kind of fill in those areas that needed some help.

BETH MCMULLEN

That's so funny. I just started revisions on a draft and I had a lot of stuff going on. So I gave myself permission, I guess at some point to just, you know, right later, I'd have chapter 12 right later. So, and so I got, so I got to the end and I was like, wow. this is great. I wrote the end. I got the little dopamine rush, felt really excited, went back to start revising. And I was like, are you kidding me? Literally 25 % of this book is not actually drafted yet.

LISA SCHMID

chapter 12

BETH MCMULLEN

% of this book is not actually drafted yet. So it was a little bit of a shock, but I do agree with you. It's sometimes you just have to be like, I got to get as much down as I can get down, take a breath. And then I come back and I can start adding that stuff and making it whole.

JOEL BRIGHAM

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and And if what you needed was that momentum, you know, you got the momentum. And when you type the end, it's sort of like a private contract to yourself that like, if it's not really done, you kind of feel obligated to yourself to finish, you know? And so instead of never having written the end and I can wait till later, I'll figure it out, you know, no, go like write the stuff you want to write, write the other stuff later. It's going to be okay. You know, the world's not going to fall off the axis.

BETH MCMULLEN

going to fall off the axis. Yes. And there's that feeling of. You know, it's something complete, even if it's not complete. And it's easier to work with something that has a beginning, middle and end, even if parts of it are a little vague than it is to work with something that's still unfinished. It's like a psychological thing, I think. The industry these days, it's pretty, pretty hard to get an agent. Agents are overwhelmed, right? They have a lot of may across their desks and they're very busy and they.

LISA SCHMID

of may

BETH MCMULLEN

don't really have time for drafts that aren't polished. So do you have any final tips for writers taking that revised draft and turning it into a polished manuscript that they can then send off inquiries to agents without immediately just getting bumped out of the running because it's not clean enough?

JOEL BRIGHAM

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, like, this is a good kind of question to, like, end on because it's sort of... allows me to kind of recap some of the things I've already talked about because these do apply. Like, focus on one thing at a time. You don't put the pressure on yourself to do it all at once because if you do, you're going to miss things. The best way to make sure that your draft is polished is to polish one element of the story at a time. Like, really give it your full attention and do that one thing well. If it is a plotting pacing revision... then ignore every typo, ignore every character issue, every tiny little plot bunny. Just get the thing structured in the right basic form. Just focus on that. Let the other stuff go. I didn't get into all my phases, but the reason why proofreading is the absolute last thing is because there's no reason to waste your time proofreading stuff if you end up deleting that entire chapter. That's wasted time. So you proofread last, you know? So one thing at a time, you know, one thing at a time, be the best focus on character that you can. Then be the best focus on world building that you can. Then have the best focus on mood and tone and voice that you can. And just focus on one thing at a time. That's really big. Two, it really is important to get other eyeballs on it. Like somebody else has to read it at some point. And I know. Beta readers are hard to come by for some people. I know that a lot of authors are kind of introverted. And so it's hard to go out there and find these people. That is an entirely different conversation. But, you know, find your beta readers, find your critique partners. Please don't feel obligated to pay somebody like me, but you can pay somebody like me. You need eyeballs on that because you need feedback. We can't just write in a silo because we are writing for an audience. eventually people are going to read this. It can't just be for us. It can be for us when we start, but eventually it's going to be for the world. So we need eyeballs on it. And I think, you know, in polishing your manuscript, and again, this is a whole different conversation, but like knowing how to take feedback, I think is really important. So many writers that come to me, they come in because they've gotten, you know, they've had 10 beta readers and five of them want this. And five want the opposite, and they have no idea what to do with this feedback, right? You know, my advice there is if you're hearing the same thing over and over and over and over again, it's probably worth listening to. Another piece of advice, beta readers are very good at identifying problems. They are horrible at recommending solutions to those problems. So, you know, note that they recognize something didn't feel right in this scene. I do think that matters. But if they're saying, so you should like let him sprout wings and set the whole town on fire here. Bad. Don't listen. Bad. Don't do that. That's one of it. You know, and it's okay to weigh some people's feedback more heavily than others. Like writing YA, a lot of my betas are teenagers. Ten teenagers could say one thing. And my adult professional editing friend. could say something else. And unfortunately, I love you teenagers, but my friend's opinion weighs more heavily because she's an expert. It's okay. And ultimately, this is your book. You can decide what feedback you want to take and don't want to take. You can be as stubborn as you want about any little part of your book. But getting that feedback is such an important part of the process to getting a book polished. You can't just overlook that. We can't be too shy or too arrogant to think that our book doesn't deserve or shouldn't have to deal with with you know feedback from people it's really important another advice is like in between these kind of like sessions and phases i do recommend taking a few days off like in between each revision i know people who like they finish the one and they start the next one like right away and i really think you need pace and perspective in between you know these these revisions the the metaphor i give is like When you're a teenager and you and your boyfriend or girlfriend break up, that night you are destroyed. You are wrecked. You are never going to be happy again. And if you were to make decisions on your life based on how you felt that night, they would look very different from decisions you might make two or three days later when you've had time to come down and your friends have talked some sense into you and you've seen all the support that you have and you've had time to kind of think through. The decisions you make are very different when you have a little space. from the emotion as opposed to when you're going from one strong emotion to the next i really do recommend giving yourself a little rest and a little perspective between these phases because if you just go go go go go you're again you're too close to this thing emotionally to kind of see it objectively and then you know you're not on deadline ladies and gentlemen like maybe a few of you guys are but i'm guessing most people listening are not on deadline and if you are an unpublished deadline who's about to be published you're about to be not on deadline for the last time of your life and i want you to enjoy and bask in that sensation because it means you can take all the time in the world to write the book that you want to write again i'm the analogy king but like think of how many amazing bands their debut album is great and their sophomore album is because that debut album was their life's work they played garages and bars and writing those songs it's their whole heart and soul in the album too the the record label said i want the second album done in 10 months you know deadlines can impact what you're trying to get done you do not have to do it fast you do have to do it right do not impose artificial deadlines guys books have been around for hundreds of years books aren't going anywhere like if your book has to wait three more months you know what i mean despite the fact if your dream agent is only open for queries for two weeks starting on monday don't worry like they're gonna open again books aren't agents aren't going away it's publishing is always going to be there get your book right because you only you really only get that one shot the whole like you get one one shot at a first impression you know if you sub or query before it's ready you've blown that opportunity we don't want to do that be right not fast and the last thing i'll say just to kind of close on this is like every draft is progress every draft is a little bit closer to being where you want to be and every draft is this this like breath of fresh relief that you get you know i looked up some stats just to kind of like give you guys a sense of where you are 15 % of U .S. adults say that they have started writing a novel. 3 % of those people finish. So if you finish writing a book, you're already above a huge swath of the population in terms of being closer to publication. How many of those people who have finished a draft of a novel, how many of them are revising four, five, six, seven times? How many of them are listening to... Craft podcasts like Writers with Wrinkles and getting all, you know, who, I mean, how many are really putting in the work that you're putting in to get to publication? I have heard it said that publishing is an act of attrition, which just means if you do it long enough, you're almost going to trip and fall into some success at some point. And that's not because we're doing the same thing over and over and over again and force feeding ourselves to the publishing industry. It's that we've put time in, we've learned, we've grown, we've made friends. We've gotten to understand what this means. We have a good sense of the industry. We failed. We've learned from that failure. And if you do that over and over and over again, and you stick with, you have that grit and that persistence, it's really hard not to find some success eventually. So if you've written a book, congratulations, you are elite. And if you are still working on that and getting to a point where it's going to be a polished final draft, my goodness, you're so close. And I hope that you... get what you deserve for all the hard work and love that you put into your books.

BETH MCMULLEN

I think that being so close, it was what makes people so impatient. They've been working, working, working. And I feel like so many writers lose that one shot that they get with a particular agent or an editor, maybe.

JOEL BRIGHAM

working, working.

BETH MCMULLEN

that one shot that they get with a particular agent or an editor, maybe. because they are impatient. And you just need to slow your roll a little bit and hang on and work through that last final polish because that is what you want to put in front of people. I say that all the time. Just take a deep breath. I know you want to be done. I know you've been sitting with this project for years. If it's something that you're not lighting on a deadline, just hang in there.

JOEL BRIGHAM

You know, a lot of writers, frankly, don't mean to generalize, but a lot of writers have some form of like ADHD, you know, and they just do. And so when we feel, I have it like cripplingly bad. So like when we feel that, that hyper -focus starts to wane toward the end of things, and we're wondering, God, am I going to have like the ADHD hyper -focus to even like suffer through revision? Some of that impatience is truly just like, I don't know that I'm going to have. you know, I'm going to be on to collecting, you know, stamps next week or something, you know, they move on to the next hyper focus. You know, I've done it myself for some reason, the stories have stuck, but for most things I've done that. So I feel that from my ADHD years too, it's just like, I don't have anything left. This is what I have that I hurry up and do before I lose focus. There's that kind of panic, but you're right. I see it all the time where writers, they want to go now when, if they would just put two or three more months into it, it would be ready. And they rip in sometimes and they don't sometimes, you know?

BETH MCMULLEN

I know. Well, all you can do is try to remind people over and over again. It's ultimately their choice, right? But yeah, it is. I totally get both sides of it. So again, Joel, thank you so, so much for coming on and doing this second session with us. We are so grateful for your time and your wisdom. So thank you.

JOEL BRIGHAM

Thank you for having me. I love talking a whole lot. So this is always very fun for me.

BETH MCMULLEN

And listeners, remember, you can find out more about Joel by visiting our podcast notes and the blog at writerswithwrinkles .net. I'm also putting together a few cheat sheets based on the content of these episodes because they have so, so much good stuff in them. I want writers to be able to have that right next to them when they're working. The way to get those is to sign up for the Writers with Wrinkles newsletter, which you can do on the homepage of writerswithwrinkles .net. And Lisa and I are back next time with an Ask Beth and Lisa episode. Please see the notes for how to send us a question or use any of our social channels to submit a question. So until then, happy listeners, happy reading, writing, and listening.