The Art of Revision
By
Sherryl Clark
Writers seem to fall into two categories: those who hate the first draft and
love the slow, detailed pleasure of revision, and those who love the rush and
excitement of the first draft and hate revision.
Many of us balk at revision. I've heard writers vow that
their work comes out so well the first time, they never need more than one
draft. None of those writers are published, by the way!
If you're serious about getting your work noticed by
editors, the revision stage is where your work will truly reach its full
potential. The problem is-- how can you approach rewriting so that it becomes
constructive, enhancing, and problem-solving? It's part of your craft, so it
needs a coherent strategy.
1. You have to read critically-- that means read other published work. Books and
stories in your genre or form, books outside your genre, any book that might
give you a great or bad example of writing. Any book that does a good job of
something you struggle with (at the moment, I'm working on deepening character--
how to do this with a character who has a very hard outer shell). Read to see
how accomplished writers work with words, with character, with plot, with theme.
Stop reading just to put yourself to sleep at night and start reading as a
writer. Learn from it. If you can't see what makes a great novel great, you'd
better study it some more.
2. Find out how you can put distance between you and your writing. That might
mean putting your story or novel away for a week, a month, a year, until you can
look at it with a critical eye, and not fall in love with your own words again.
It might mean reading it out loud to yourself, or onto a tape. It might mean
psyching yourself into another mental realm and pretending that the novel wasn't
written by you. Whatever works for you, whatever leads to you being able to cut
ruthlessly or see where there are gaps and shallowness.
3. Learn to separate the stages of revision. Understand that there is structural
revision (the big picture stuff) and revision on a paragraph by paragraph basis.
And then there is line editing, on a word by word basis. That's where most
people trim and tighten. Understand the difference between re-visioning and
revision. Re-visioning means re-imagining your novel, seeing it in a new light,
seeing other possibilities for it. That's where distance helps. It's also where
mental space helps-- it's almost a re-dreaming of your story, and that's not
going to happen in half an hour, crammed into the end of the day.
4. Acknowledge to yourself, no matter how hard it might be, that fiddling around
the edges and changing a few things here and there is not rewriting. True
rewriting is retyping the whole thing from scratch, writing it as a new piece of
work. You may refer to the original-- some people don't even do that.
5. Only give it to a trusted reader or critique partner/group when you are sure
you have done everything you possibly can, or are capable of at this point, to
make it the best you can. Don't ask people to critique something that you know
you can still work on, or something that is OK for plot but you haven't done the
line editing. Why should they spend their time on your punctuation and grammar?
Think about what you want or need from the critique. If you want to know if the
voice works, say so. Ditto for plot, character, pacing. Make the best use of
your critique person's time and energy.
6. Take your critiques seriously. Don't say, "Oh, they weren't good readers,
they just didn't get what I was trying to do." If that's the case, that's your
fault, not theirs. Take heed of all comments, consider them seriously. Some may
be of no use to you. Most should at least raise the question of "Did I do that
well enough? Why has that comment been made?" Don't take any critique
personally. It's not about you, it's about the story.
7. If you have revised and revised and revised, learn to see when enough is
enough. Do you want to revise again because you're too scared to send it out? Or
do you really think another revision will help? If you are up to Draft 15, ask
yourself what you are doing. Have you really done 15 drafts, or 15 "picking at
the edges"? If the story isn't working after 15 drafts, you need to work out why
not. You may have to abandon the story. It has still taught you an immense
amount along the way. If you have to, let it go. Don't hang everything on one
manuscript. Write more. That's what writers do.
8. If you revised a bit, sent it out, and have 20 rejections, you have to make a
decision. It's probably not publishable in its present state, but maybe only 100
rejections will convince you -- how honest are you being about it? Is it
fabulous? Is it a manuscript that sings? Or is it competent? Does it need
another big revision? Suck it up. Do it. Or start something new. Note: If it's a
story that just won't leave you alone, you probably need to keep working on it.
Otherwise it'll give you nightmares, interrupt your daydreams, and intrude on
your other writing.
9. How do you know when your revision is finished? Obviously, when it is
accepted for publication (but then your editor will want more revisions!). Often
you will get to the stage where you know in your heart it is the best you can
possibly make it. If you're still not sure, put it away again for at least a
month, then re-read it. How does it make you feel? Are there still bits that
niggle at you, however much you try to deny it? Or do you feel totally happy
with it?
Revising is a large part of the craft of writing. If you tackle it the same way
you tackle learning to write better, you'll take a huge step towards your
publishing dream.
Sherryl Clark
is a writer of children's and adult fiction and poetry. She teaches professional
writing at Victoria University in Melbourne. Her website is at
http://www.sherrylclark.com and her blog is at
http://www.sherrylclark.blogspot.com/
