The Empowering Beauty of Revision

In my experience, cutting back is the crucial act that allows the vitality, precision and emotional heart of a piece of writing to emerge.

-Pamela Erens

An example of revisions for Forth From Eden. I love the act of marking up physical paper to get the story to where it needs to be.

The revision stage is one of my most favorite stages of the story generation process. There is something magical about drafting a plot and creating characters and twists of events, and I certainly crave it after laboring over an already drafted work for a couple years, but in revision is where my love of writing lies.

Most people’s experience in writing was the high school or college essay. We’re all familiar with the routine. Teacher gives subject and rubric and three weeks to complete it (or in the upper-level college English classes three days), students wait two weeks and six days, only marginally thinking about the topic and dreading the deadline, then on the last day pumping themselves full of caffeine and pulling an all-nighter. There were times I printed it out just before class, the ink barely drying before being stapled and handed in.

Let’s be honest. Nobody ever spent much time on revising these papers. I remember a very bright kid in my high school – he ended up being Salutatorian – saying something to the effect of “I never have a second draft. I just correct the mistakes as I go.”

The difference between those assignments and creative writing, is similar to the Biblical comparison between the shepherd and the hireling. If you really want to fall in love with your work, you will come to appreciate the process of cutting out the fluff, centralizing the plot around the theme, bringing your characters to life, purging the inconsistencies, and replacing the telling with showing.

I have used multiple methods throughout the revision process. Aside from the valuable feedback from my Writer’s Group, which I spoke about in an earlier post, I’ve used the following methods:

Printing it out and marking it up: For some reason, it’s easier for me to find grammatical errors and make notes this way. There’s also something cathartic about making dramatic red scribbles through lines or paragraphs.

Using Ctrl + F: This is especially useful if you need to change a major character’s name. A member of my writer’s group, who lived in Mexico for 12 years, just told me this week that I need to change a Spanish nickname I have for one of my characters in my upcoming book On the Leaden Shore, so I’ll be utilizing this once we come up with a more fitting one.

Writing plot points on sticky notes: Pursuing the Sun probably contained my most complex plot, so I outlined every major event that occurred on sticky notes and moved the pieces around until it made the most sense. It also allowed me to get rid of plot points that didn’t fit and add plot points that were needed.

Notes that I saved during the revision process of Pursuing the Sun. The yellow sticky notes were existing, the pink were new.

Reading the book out loud: I’ve found this incredibly useful in catching dialogue that isn’t natural. If I have to take a breath during a line, it’s probably too long. It also helps me catch common mistakes like repeated words, unclear explanations, and awkward phrasing. If the book does not roll of the tongue, there’s some changes that need to be made.

Making character profiles: When I outline what a character wants, what they like, where they’re from, and what they fear, I can comb through their interactions with others and verify whether those scenes work.

Using a thesaurus: Don’t categorize this resource with the dinosaurs 😊, it is as relevant today as ever. This book helps you capture the right tone of your writing by replacing key descriptors with synonyms which are more fitting. Without beautiful words and phrases, a story is a sterile field.

 I have grown to love the idea of being willing to offer up my work to the flames, understanding that whatever comes out of the ashes will be more refined and stronger than its original. I’ve seen this time and time again and look forward to whatever comes of it.