Editing for Tone, Mood, and Consistency

I’m currently in the throes of an edit, and unlike my earlier edits on this MS, this one focuses on consistency. Having come from an art background, I think of completing a manuscript the same way I used to think of completing a painting or a construction, when my paintings were assemblages. Start with an idea, sketch it, spend some time finding the objects or subjects, do the underpainting, do the painting, step back and forth as if you’re dancing a tango with the canvas or block of wood, make sure all the elements work together, and, finally, pour a thick varnish, or epoxy, or polyurethane over the whole shebang. I like my art shiny.

The Sketch: The Synopsis or Paragraph Idea

Writing a synopsis almost killed me about two years ago. Frankly, and I’m always frank with you, dear reader, I nearly gave up being a writer when I realized that a synopsis needed to be part of my writing life for each novel. However, after my dark year of the synopsis, I figured out how to write one, and came to see their usefulness. Of course, you don’t have a choice when an agent or editor requests one. You have to do it.

But a synopsis also has a use in those early stages of a novel when you can write one just for yourself, and maybe for your very trusted beta readers. This is when you can write one that is as long as you need it to be, whether it’s one page or twenty. The idea is to simply write out the story as if you were telling it to a friend over a drink. The beginning, middle, and end, and, because you’re telling it to your friend over a glass of your favorite something, you’re going to make it entertaining. You’re going to entertain yourself while telling it.

Lo and behold, an entertaining skeleton of a story is born.

For more guidance on writing a synopsis, check out these pages:

https://janefriedman.com/how-to-write-a-novel-synopsis/
https://janefriedman.com/how-to-use-a-long-form-synopsis-to-plan-your-novel/
https://jerichowriters.com/how-to-write-a-novel-synopsis-with-an-example/

The Underpainting: First Draft

Some people love the first draft. There is a freedom in creating fresh words, new worlds. Anything goes. You can follow an outline or you can veer away or both. You can get as purple as you want with your prose, or as boring. You can write poetry.

Anything. Goes.

My first drafts tend to be a bit tortured and short. If I manage to stretch it to 55K words at the end, I pat myself on the back and have a drink to celebrate. I often have to stop and research or rewrite my synopsis or reoutline. I am so desperate to get that word count, that if part of my chapter consists of musings about my character and directives to my future re-writing self, I count those words as part of the final word count.

The Painting: Fill it Out Draft

Once the first rough draft is complete, I immediately go back to the beginning and read the whole thing on my kindle or iPad. I try to read it very fast, in two or three days, and I make notes as I go along. The iPad and kindle are ideal for this! You can make notes directly in the file and email it to yourself or just use the same device as a guide once you’re ready to start the rewrite.

At this point, I know where I need to seed my foreshadowing, my hints, my red herrings, and I put those notes into my file as I do my speed read.

The rewrite goes faster. This is where I begin to fill out the details, give my characters thoughts and backstories, try to get deeper and more specific with their emotions and reactions. I like this part of writing much more than the initial draft. I know where my story is going, the hard work has been done, and now I’m throwing paint around and making it sing. (excuse the mixed metaphors).

All Together Now: Tone, Mood, Consistency

This is where I am now. I thought I was done! I sent my baby out to my trusted beta reader, and… all of a sudden, my reader is confused. My reader can’t understand my character’s motivation. My characters have gone off a cliff without explanation… I grabbed my manuscript, gave myself a talking-to for being too impatient, and began the Tone Rewrite.

What is that, you might ask? If you’re anything like me, you had taken bits of your story, moved it around, added this, added that, stuck a paragraph from one chapter into another because it made more sense in another location. But the side effect of this is that now you might have a chapter that is all over the place in terms of mood–it’s sad and dreamy; no, it’s dark and scary; no, it’s tense and angry; no, it’s kind of sweet. You get the picture.

What I’m doing now is going through and looking at every chapter and asking myself:

• What is the mood of this chapter?
• What is the feeling I want to engender in the reader?
• What is the logical mood for my characters to have here?
• I add in colors and sound: What is the color tone of this chapter (is it cool, gray, and snowy; yellow and hot; dark-blue and rainy). Are my characters speaking loudly or softly? Are their words short and sharp or long and languid? Speaking of: are MY words the correct length and feel? If I’m writing a chase scene, am I throwing around long words and detailed descriptions? (get those things outta there).

Once I ask myself these questions, it’s surprising how easy it is to see both where the tone is getting mixed up and how to fix it.

Varnish: Make Those Sentences Sparkle

I’m not there yet with this draft, but I’m looking forward to it. I go through the final draft with an eye toward excising cliche phrasing, passive sentences, repeats, etc. My draft loses several thousand words at this point, but it’s like getting a good haircut. Necessary to look good!

I’m a big fan of https://prowritingaid.com, but lately even Word has good grammatical suggestions.

If you’re curious about my, art, you can see some of it on my other site.

Emilya Naymark

Emilya Naymark is the author of the novels Hide in Place and Behind the Lie.
Her short stories appear in the Bouchercon 2023 Anthology, A Stranger Comes to Town: edited by Michael Koryta, Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, and 1+30: THE BEST OF MYSTORY.

When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of psychological thrillers, suspense, and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

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