The Craft of Revision with Author Hope Lim

Welcome to the GROG Blog, Hope Lim! It’s always a pleasure to showcase the work of picture book authors and to learn more about the craft of writing for children. 

Let’s begin with Hope’s debut book: 

I AM A BIRD

Written by Hope Lim

Illustrated by Hyewon Yum

Candlewick, February 2, 2021

 

To help our GROG Blog followers learn more about you, Hope, please share five facts.

 

1. The ideas for my stories are drawn from real-life experiences.

2. I’m originally from South Korea.

3. I have many notebooks filled with my favorite poems and my own drawings from my childhood. 

4. I like to have espresso with sparkling water. 

5. I run almost every day and use it as time to reflect. 

Share the inspiration behind your debut book I AM A BIRD.

 

The idea for I AM A BIRD started after an encounter with a stranger in Golden Gate Park. I thought she was strange at first, but I immediately recognized my perception was unfair and started to reflect on our innate fears and biases toward each other. When I came home, my husband told me about how my daughter made joyful birdcalls on their way to school on the back of his bike. I was struck by the contrast between my daughter and my simultaneous experiences. At that moment, I knew I had to write a story about exploring the fear of the unknown and combined it my daughter’s soaring spirit. That’s how I AM A BIRD was born - a story of celebrating kindred spirits discovered unexpectedly all told from a child’s perspective. 

List three words to encapsulate the spirit of I AM BIRD.

1. kindred spirit

2. friendship

3. empathy 

 

To become effective and proficient writers, students in my classes follow five-steps to write a polished/published piece of writing. Students learn skills and strategies and gain confidence through practice and revision. This third step of revision needs dedicated time to write and rewrite, redo, reconfigure, and reconsider.

Writers of children’s literature understand the importance of revision, too. Writing manuscripts requires numerous revisions and edits and countless hours prior to publication. 

Hope understands the importance of revision. She shares meaningful tips for the craft of revision and the process she uses to work from a draft to revision as she polishes her manuscripts preparing them for publication.

 

Everyone has a different revision process and technique. For me, the revision stage begins when I share my story with critique partners. They all offer different suggestions and I read them and try to see their suggestions from their perspective. 

 

The revision process needs time, patience and a lot of re-imagination. As a writer, self-editing skills can be very helpful. Self-editing begins when I have a complete draft, no matter how rough it is. I keep rewriting until the draft loses its roughness and generates ideas for a new structure, character, or ending. After going through multiple re-writes, I stop when I feel it’s close enough to share with my critique partners. I wait at least a few days to make sure it’s ready before I solicit opinions from my CPs. I find the feedback on a polished manuscript helpful. 

With early drafts, I often receive conflicting ideas on undeveloped areas, whereas polished ones tend to get similar feedback on an outstanding issue. When I receive the comments, I let them sit for a few days before applying them. I may share the revised version with them again or share it with my agent. My approach to revisions with my agent or an editor is similar. I try to look at my story from their perspectives based on their comments and start to revise only when I understand the direction they suggest.

Thank you, Hope, for sharing your thoughts and perspective about the craft of revision and how you make your stories better through time and rewriting.

 

These two spreads share the just right words, including onomatopoeia, that Hope created after numerous revisions. The bright and colorful illustrations by Hyewon Yon compliment the story line.

Just a few more wonderings . . . Tell us about five objects that sit on your writing desk. Perhaps some are functional and others provide inspiration.

1. A journal 

2. Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

3. Piles of picture books and New Yorker Magazines

4. AirPods

5. A glass of water and a cup of coffee

Please share a favorite literary quote.

 

“What is essential is invisible to the eye.” — The Little Prince

What stories are you currently hard at work writing and creating? What books should we look for in the near future?

 

I am currently working on several stories, some new and some old. I’m trying to find a new way to transform my old stories while slowly putting time into new ones. MY TREE by Neal Porter Books will be out in May 2021, and MOMMY’S HOMETOWN by Candlewick will be out in fall 2022. 

Congratulations, Hope, on your debut book, I AM A BIRD, and two more books to follow! Thank you for sharing your success and a craft of revision tip on the GROG Blog today. Wishing you all the best as you continue to read, write, revise, edit, polish, and repeat.

Hope Lim is a children’s book author from South Korea and currently lives in San Francisco. Her debut book, I AM A BIRD, is to be released by Candlewick on February 2, 2021. Her debut will be followed by MY TREE, Neal Porter Books/Holiday House in May 2021 and MOMMY’S HOMETOWN, Candlewick, in Fall 2022. You can find Hope on Instagram @hopelim_sf, Twitter @hope_lim or hopelim.com.

Writing Like a Gardener: Staggered Planting for a Continual Manuscript Harvest

by Sue Heavenrich

When I'm planning my garden, I think about how much room there is, what I want to grow, and how much time I have to devote to tending the plants. This involves drawing a rough garden map and a time table noting which vegetables go where, and when to plant the seeds.

I do the same thing with my writing. During January I collect ideas I might want to plant by participating in StoryStorm or other idea-gathering activities. Then it's time to get organized.

As with garden planning, I map out my writing season. How many story ideas can I realistically work on over the next year? Then I create both a digital folder and a paper file folder for each idea I want to explore. That file is where I toss in notes from preliminary research. For example, I check World Catalog to see whether there are books already published on my topic, and how many there are.

Before planting a crop, gardeners check their first frost date. In writing lingo, that's a "hard deadline", a definite harvest-by date. Writers have magazine deadlines, call-for-submission deadlines, or plans for extended leave from the desk. Once you know the deadline for a project, you can count backwards and determine that idea's "planting date".

Gardeners don't plant an entire season's-worth of salad greens all at once. We plant seeds for lettuce and beet greens and spinach every two or three weeks, so some seeds are germinating while others are growing and the oldest are being harvested.

Why not use this same strategy with our manuscripts? Begin with one idea, outline or map the story, and dive into research. Then write. As one gets to the point where it's ready to share with critique partners, plant the seeds for the next writing project. At any one time my writing garden (disguised as a semi-organized desk) has manuscripts at different growth stages: fleshing out the idea; actively researching; writing (flowering); feedback and comments; revising (ripening); and submitting.

Another thing I have learned from gardening: at the end of the season it's time to let the soil recover. That means covering beds with compost and a layer of leaves and letting it rest and restore. How can we do this with our writing? We could head out for regular "artist dates" to refill our creative cups (here are some ideas). Or maybe take a writing vacation - which works for a few days until my fingers itch to start scribbling in my notebook again.

If you're taking a mid-summer "get organized" break, check out this post from earlier this year. Here's another post from a couple years ago that presents more ideas on organizing writing goals.

Revision: Time to Make Your Writing Better ~Suzy Leopold

The American Heritage dic . tion. ary defines revision [ri-vizh-uh n] as:

1. The act or work of revising. 
2. To prepare a newly edited version of a text.

3. To reconsider and change or modify.

4. A revised or new version, as of a book or other written material. 

Simply stated, the word revision means to see again. 

You’ve written your story and are excited to share it with a critique partner, or better yet send it off for submission to an agent or publisher. You feel your story is wonderful and unique and word perfect. Completing your story is a great feeling. You have worked hard and it is a time to celebrate. 

Stop. 

Your manuscript is not ready yet. There is no manuscript or work that is perfectly written and polished the very first time. A manuscript is not ready for submission until revisions are made. 

As a writer, revision is a critical part of the writing process. Many writers seem to dread this step and sometimes skip it. Revision is like practicing the piano or participating in baseball practice. It is a necessary step that must not be over looked. It is a part of the writing process that begins with a draft, followed by many revisions, to a manuscript that is polished and ready for submission.

Time to see a new vision for your manuscript. Time to see your story in a new light. Time to make the necessary changes for improvement. Time to reimagine what you story can be.

Revision is not the same as editing. Good writers separate composing from transcription.

Revision	Editing
Redo/resequence/rewrite	Grammar
Prune/cut a section	Paragraphing
Focus on a particular part	Capital Letters
Adjust and change	Spelling
Add a section	Punctuation

1. Distance yourself 

The completion of your manuscript is hard work. You wrote and wrote and typed and typed, expressing your ideas and thoughts that became a story. 

Excellent! Reward yourself. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies & Milk

Now step back after reading your manuscript aloud one last time before setting your story aside for the time being. Let your manuscript rest. Let it simmer. Fresh eyes will allow you to see the manuscript more objectively.

You may feel the need to revise right away. Do not do so. Do not revise yet. Walk away from your story. Better yet, go for a walk.

Take a few days away from the manuscript and allow the story to mull around in your brain for awhile. As thoughts cross your mind, jot down the ideas that you may want to consider for revision.

2. Look at your manuscript with a critical eye by reading aloud

After distancing yourself from your manuscript, it is time to look back at your manuscript with fresh eyes. This can be difficult. Pretend that you are reading someone else’s work. Read your story as if you are critiquing a manuscript for a writerly friend. 

• Concentrate on different areas of revision.
  

For the first read-through look closely at the content of the story.

Does it sound right?

• Rearrange sentences so they are logical and effective.

Do you have a mental image of what is being described?

Are the sentences well developed and well elaborated?

Did you include sensory details? 

Think about what it looks like? What does it sound like? 
What does it feel like? What does it taste like? What does it smell like? 

• Think about your character.

Has your main character developed and solved his/her problem?

• Think about the pacing.

The story should be natural and not choppy.

Is your writing fresh and original?

Does the story flow with a story arc?

Do you need every scene?

Does the beginning hook the reader and set the stage?

• The ending should be satisfying and unpredictable.

3. Time for a second read aloud

• Read one sentence at a time.
• Read your own work backwards. 

Does each sentence make sense?

• Consider the word count and delete any unnecessary words. 
• Circle all of the verbs. 

Are the verbs strong?

Choose strong verbs

• Use clearer, stronger details.
• Cut anything that is not making your story shine.

Remove unnecessary information or extra details. 

Weed through unnecessary words:

and, but, just, now, really, so, that, then, very, well.

• Are you showing and not telling?

4. Time for a third read aloud 

Yes, a third read-aloud. If you are tired of reading your story aloud, how do you think the audience may feel? Children’s books are meant to be read aloud. A picture book needs to have re-readability.

• Look carefully at the dialogue. 
• Listen to the rhythm.  
• Highlight all of the dialogue.

Does the dialogue between the characters move the story forward?

Is the character coming to life in the story?

The dialogue should not exceed thirty percent of the word count.

Think about dialogue

As you work to make your writing better, keep in mind that revisions should be exciting. The many revisions can turn ordinary writing into extraordinary writing. True authors go through many revisions before actually publishing.

Go. 

Time to change your manuscript. Your manuscript needs revisions so it can be the best it can be. Revising is reimagining. Time to revise your manuscript.

Asiatic Lilies from my Prarie Garden