Editing Examples from SAA1

After the first draft of Past Remembrance was complete at the end of October 2022, we took a brief break to give our brains some distance from the story.

After a break of six weeks, we read through the draft individually and discussed strengths and weaknesses over several Zoom sessions, chapter by chapter.

It was clear the first draft was missing some emotion and depth. This was fine, since getting the plot down and the characters from point A to point B had been the primary aim. How do you add emotion and depth? With people. We did a rewrite, chapter by chapter, and switched out some of the narrative for dialogue and showed people's reactions, inner thoughts, their doubts, fears, and a bit of snarky humour.

In the example below, the original draft from October 2022 ended abruptly. However, we introduced one of the side characters and added a little more personality to the scene.

FIRST DRAFT

  ‘Thanks, well, I need to…’ she pointed back outside, ‘and you need to find your bags.’

  ‘I do,’ Adam’s forehead furrowed, and he turned back to the pile. Safia took the opportunity to double-time it back to the deck before Adam got weird again.

FINAL DRAFT

  ‘Well, I need to…’ she looked at the exit sign above the door across the cabin, ‘and you need to find your bags.’

  ‘I do.’ Adam’s forehead furrowed as he turned back to the luggage pile. Safia watched him for a few seconds, and when it seemed he would say nothing more, she turned away, heading back to the deck.

  ‘That was weird.’ A voice stopped her before she reached the exit. Safia looked up into a round face with mischievous eyes. ‘Amina,’ the voice said.

  ‘You’re the Australian.’ Safia rested a hand on the wall to help steady herself.

  ‘Was it the accent, or the misspelled t-shirt?’

  Safia glanced down and saw VEGE-MIGHT plastered in white and black outlined letters on a red background across Amina’s chest.

  ‘You’re a vegetarian?’

  Amina snorted a laugh. ‘Nah, it’s a spread. Good on toast.’

  Still none the wiser, Safia shook her head absently. ‘What did you mean, weird?’

  ‘Just now, I heard you with Adam. I know he’s not the most social of creatures, and he’s older, but that was like he almost wasn’t there.’

During the first few chapters of the first draft, we were still getting to know the characters. We weren’t completely inside their heads. It showed in the writing. It was choppy; the dialogue did not flow, and it felt like we were forcing things that should have developed organically. It didn't feel natural. Therefore, the first few chapters got an extensive overhaul.

It was also obvious more detail was required in certain places to really bring scenes to life. This was particularly the case with the time-slip section of the book. We wanted Safia to know what daily life was like so she could learn how the diverse ancient community on Sir Bani Yas worked. The following snippet from Chapter 13 did not exist when we finished the first draft. 

  They were about halfway to the trader when a rhythmic thumping reached them. There was a beat to it, but it didn’t sound like drums.

  What’s that? Safia thought, stirring to awareness in the back of Savita’s mind. Some kind of warning?

  A rhythmic sing-song chanting started up, and Savji scuttled on ahead to figure out where the noise was coming from. Savita held out an arm to stop him in case there was danger, but he was too quick for her.

  ‘Dried fish,’ Mariam said as they rounded a small dune littered with scraggy brush. ‘See, we dry the fish and grind it.’

  Savita looked ahead to where Mariam pointed. A carpet of sardine-sized fish spread out over the sand far from the water’s edge, their little silver bodies darkening in the sun. The wind wafted and Savita put a hand to her mouth.

  Oh, that’s intense, Safia added the thought to Savita’s reaction.

  Mariam laughed. ‘But you work on the sea!’

  ‘Not with fish,’ Savita said between her fingers.

  Savji pranced on the edge of the fish carpet, unbothered by the smell. He pointed to a series of huts where a group of four or five men stood outside gathered around narrow, waist-high wooden mortars. Each of them held a long pole they used to pummel a supply of dried fish from a heap.

  Mariam waved to one man and gestured for Savita and Savji to hurry over.

  ‘Do they do this to all the fish?’ Savita asked, miming what the men were doing.

  ‘Some is to eat as they are, some for the date palms, but this,’ she paused while she took a small clay storage pot from the man she’d waved at, ‘is for cooking and adding to food.’

  She passed the pot to Savita and motioned for her to remove the lid. Savji stuck his nose into the pot, pulled back sharply, and turned away to sneeze. The men paused their pounding and burst into laughter at Savji’s antics, leaning on the poles still in the wooden mortars.

Have a look at the following example, maybe read it out loud:

 To his credit, her father did not say, I told you so, but smirked at her and steered Safia away from the trench with a hand on her upper back.

  ‘Why don’t you go to the food tent?’ Dr Ali said. ‘I think your mother is in there making chai. You can grab something to eat and update her on your progress,’ he finished. 

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be happy the only thing I’ve found is that root,’ Safia responded.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on her, Saf; we’ve put a lot into this excavation, and she wants it to succeed, that’s all. She worries,’ her father said.

  ‘About me?’ Safia asked.

  Her father thought for a moment before speaking. ‘About everything.’

  ‘Sure,’ Safia said, forcing a spring into her step, ‘chai would be perfect.’ 

Now, try this one:

  To his credit, her father did not say, I told you so, but smirked at her and steered Safia away from the trench with a hand on her upper back.

  ‘Why don’t you go to the food tent? I think your mother is in there making chai. You can grab something to eat and update her on your progress.’ 

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be happy the only thing I’ve found is that root.’ 

  ‘Don’t be too hard on her, Saf; we’ve put a lot into this excavation, and she wants it to succeed, that’s all. She worries.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘About everything.’

 She’d never actually thought about the pressure on her parents and their responsibility for an entire excavation, even though she knew what they did for a living. 

  ‘Sure.’ Safia forced a spring into her step. ‘Chai would be perfect.’ 

Can you hear the difference? Did the first example feel like it was stuttering and sputtering along? Did the bits telling you who was speaking distract you from what the characters were actually saying? Did it sound like an actual conversation? More importantly, could  you still figure out who was speaking in the second example without all the dialogue tags?

Who is speaking? 'Said'

Most of the time, a writer only needs to show who is speaking if it becomes unclear. The writer doesn’t always need to use ‘said’ or something like it either. They can use an ‘action tag’ – a bit of text describing what someone is doing that also lets the reader know who is speaking. Can you spot the two action tags in the following bit of dialogue?

  ‘Hey,’ her mother reached out for her hand, ‘based on what we’ve found, the people here lived a good life.’

  ‘I hope so. It’s so isolated.’

  ‘Looks can deceive, habibti. This area would have been nothing like it is today; lots of fishermen and probably pearl divers. It would have been a hive of activity.’

  ‘And the monks would have been a big part of that?’  

  ‘While it lasted, yes.’

  ‘But why abandon it?’

  Her mother smirked. ‘I don’t think they woke up one morning and left, habibti.’

Telling: With a unified shout, they hauled smoothly on the rope, and Safia felt a tug of air as the slab rose above the level of the trench. They eased it over the side and let it settle on the sand, partly propped against a gnarled root.


Showing: With a unified shout, they hauled smoothly on the rope, and Safia felt a whoosh of hot air against her face as the slab rose.

‘This way, this way,’ her father’s voice urged. ‘There, by that root, set it down.’

Remember, just because someone suggests something, you don’t always have to do it. For instance, someone might say, ‘I think it would be cool if Safia wore an Indiana Jones hat!’ We would not change that because Michele didn’t create Safia to be a female Emirati Indy… and it would be a cliché. However, if someone said, ‘I don’t understand why Safia puts her trowel in her back pocket,’ we might decide to add a line to explain it.

Overall, from finishing the first draft in late October 2022, it took to mid 2023 to complete editing the main text. Over the next few months we finalised the additional sections of the book, such as the glossary and further reading sources. We also began to look into hiring a cover designer - and found the awesome Holly Dunn` -, ISBNs, and formatting for print and ebook. We set a deadline for relase of April 2024 to coincide with the AbuDhabi Bookfair.

We know that sounds like a long time between finishing writing and release. Full-time writers wouldn’t take as long. However, dealing with different time-zones, day jobs, and other life commitments meant we could only devote some evenings and weekends to Safia.