Revising, Please!
I am one of those people who enjoys revising more than the initial writing of the thing. Maybe a blinking cursor on blank page fills you with excitement and possibility, but beginnings tend to fill me with dread. Give me a mangy, long, stumbling piece of writing and I will lovingly tend to it (and by “lovingly”, I mean ruthlessly cutting it up and seeing what I can make it do).
I can’t overstate this. On my first date with my now husband, I was waxing poetic about how much I love revision…in a hot tub. I’m pretty sure the people across from us thought I’d been drinking the tub water or something.
Where to Start?
For me, it really depends on what kind of piece I’m working on. I have a much different process for, say, a fifteen page essay than an 80,000 word novel. With shorter work, I tend to re-read it, conduct research, and compare it to other stories or essays I’ve written to see if there are any similarities (for good or for bad).
Presently, I’m working on a big ol’ revision of my first novel. It’s requiring a lot of structural changes (essentially flipping the story to emphasize one of the two narrators more in this draft), and I’ve found that the Scrivener program has been so helpful to keeping me organized and letting me get a good bird’s eye view of this beast. However, you don’t need a program or even anything very high tech to revise a long manuscript. You just need some sort of way to see the big picture and keep it in mind as you write (I’ve drawn a huge, colorful fryetag’s pyramid before!).
Planners vs. Plungers
You’ve likely heard of this debate when it comes to writing. Planners, you guessed it–they plan, outline, and generally think ahead. Plungers, yep, they plunge. They’re also known as SOPers (“seat of the pantser” or “pantser” for short, both of which I find delightful). As I’ve been deep in revision mode lately, I started wondering–can you be a pantser reviser, or does the very nature of revising require a plan? I think I tend to be a hybrid, making some plans, but then jumping from place to place, and among various ideas to see what feels organic and what I honestly want to work on in that moment. So far I’ve cut 12,422 words during this revision!
All of this is to say, everyone revises differently (and hey, some of my students have told me they never revise! Hmmm…). What are your thoughts on revising your work? Drop a comment here, or on any of our socials: Twitter, Instagram, and/or Facebook.We’d love to hear from you!