Last week’s post, I mentioned going to a weekend workshop with the fabulous Margie Lawson. We focused on adding Character Emotions, and part of that included her EDITs program. I promised to share what the pages looked like, so here you go:
I won’t go into detail about each aspect of the colors. Frankly, I couldn’t explain it nearly as well and it would be a disservice to try. To really learn this program, you have to take Margie’s class or download a packet. It’s not just what she teaches you, but the way she teaches it and the examples she uses to drive her message home.
But what I can tell you is that once I’ve highlighted according to what she taught us, I can look at a page now and know what it’s missing. Sometimes (rarely) it’s not missing anything. But the amazing thing about this is that fixing these pages is getting easier.
When I sat down this week to start highlighting the latter chapters in my historical (Yes, I decided it was worth it. I want the story to be the best it can be.), my husband watched in horror. He said just watching what I was doing made him shudder.
And then I explained it to him.
Suddenly, I could see him studying the pages in a different way, too. I picked up one page that was highlighted in a puddle of one color. (This is bad, by the way.) The first time I picked it up, I thought — but she’s locked in a room by herself. How can I change that? I tried to defend it. So when I told my hubby what this page represented, he asked how I could fix it.
And I was surprised at how easy it was to figure out how to do just that. What elements I needed to bring on the page, how easy it would be, actually, to fix that awful puddle-y page. Fixing that page now will take me about a half hour. Before taking Margie’s class, I could have stared at the page and rewritten it five times without truly understanding what I needed to change to make it stronger, more compelling. I have Margie to thank for that.
Now if any of you have every taken her class, you’ll likely recognize that there’s a color missing on most of these pages. Anyone guess what that is?
The color is orange — and you’ll have to tune in next Monday to discover what stopped me from putting it on my pages. 🙂
Margie’s workshop are wonderful and intense. What a great teacher and, boy, does she know her stuff
Yes, Margie Lawson’s workshops are great. I’ve heard of the color coding before but haven’t seen it or taken the class. I usually write and edit on the computer so not sure how I’d do with hard copy. Guess I color code with Word. Has anyone else done it?
I’ve taken this particular class and found it invaluable!
Lavada, she really, really recommends printing it out and doing the color coding that way. It’s very different than looking at a computer.
And for me, reading through a printed out version of the book is invaluable feedback. I read it differently than I do on the computer, and it’s a great test for flow, pace, etc. Something I don’t always pick up on if reading it on the computer.
I’m curious — does anyone else always do the print edit?
I’ve taken a weekend course from Margie and I also have her packets. I’ve learned SO much from her. I don’t like to print oodles of stuff, so I try to wait until I’m pretty far along in the process to do this. Sounds crazy, right? I did try to do it on the computer at one point, but highlighting and underlining in a word doc is time and labor intensive. Plus, I never could figure out how to add those oh-so-important orange dots, dashes, and lines. 🙂 I quickly ended that “EDITS on the computer” experiment. 🙂
LOL Laurie! I don’t think I’d have the patience for doing it on the computer. 🙂
Someone in one of the asked if they had to do this to ALL of their chapters, and Margie’s response was to start with the chapters that weren’t quite working or problem chapters.
She also talked about a NY Times author who has taken it a few times and HATES the highlighters. LOL She said this author grabbed a handful of chapters and did the work — to get the concepts of it inside her head. I don’t see myself doing this for all 500 pages of my current manuscript — but I’m in the step of trying to “get it fixed in my head.” Over time, it will become automatic in the editing – and then I’ll reserve the highlighting for those really problem areas.
And yes, orange is making me cranky these days. LOL
I’m intrigued. I’ve heard of Margie class but have not yet taken it. Would you say downloading the packets is a good start or go right into the class?
Jeannie – this workshop is next for me. I took the “Empowering Character Emotions” class and it was amazing. Still – all those colors look daunting!
Hi Debora,
Downloading the packets is definitely a good start. I’ve taken this class twice and it took the second go-round for me to really “get” it. It’s a lot…and it can seem really daunting. As Robin says, looking at the colors is tough… but it’s really, really worth it.
The highlighting really makes you think about what’s on the page, and even for the chapters I haven’t highlighted yet, I’m thinking differently about it as I run through drafts to edit. I say get the packets if the class isn’t available…
Hey Robin, I love that class! The examples alone are so worth it. 🙂 And yes, the colors are daunting, but totally worth it. Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy to color code a page.
I’ve taken all of Margie’s classes. Any time anyone asks me how to become a better writer, I say MargieLawson.com. 🙂 This class in particular I took four or five years ago and is the single biggest reason I’m published and a better writer to boot. After years of using the color system, I now think in colors when I’m first drafting. And after years of using this system, I still come up short in green – my weakness – setting details. I still print the pages and do like Jeannie does. But I have several other writers I know that use Word capabilities and highlight on the screen. I guess it’s what works for you. I added purple to highlight character movement. That helps me see when I’ve had them standing in one place to long or nobody moving and breathing. The only problem I had was I never got her way of doing orange. I could not assess my tension that way. I finally adapted her version and use orange to highlight my power, action verbs. You know the ones: -ed oriented, action words that avoid the cliched, overused ones, i.e., punched instead of hit. It quickly points out was, is, have beens, common words and those kill tension. I love this technique and no matter how you learn it – website packet or class – GO FOR IT! It will make you a better writer.
Oh, Patti, I love the idea of purple for character movement. That’s great to be able to scan through their movements and see if they make sense that way. I’ll have to try that, too. First, to conquer the darn orange, though! LOL
Hello, Jeannie! Long time no see. 🙂 I’ve taken Margie’s course and it was extremely helpful. Funny, but I just mentioned you on a blog today! I was on Romance Writers Behaving Badly https://tinyurl.com/romwbb talking about creating Marketing for Romance Writers and said how influential you were in putting together our newsletter. Next thing I see is your name on Facebook mentioning Margie’s color coding. Had to stop by and say hello.
I don’t print mine, but use the online portion. I just change the text color rather than highlight. It’s easier once I’m finished to highlight the entire thing and set the text color back to automatic. But before I do that, I save the original with the colors. Odd, but I have the same issue with orange. Never did like that color anyway. LOL 🙂 I do like the idea of using purple for character movement. That would be a good way to make sure you don’t have them sitting on a couch on p 3 and in an elevator on p 9 without some kind of transition. Awesome tip.
Just saw your picture of colorful pages on the front page of Margie’s new website!