Blood, Sweat, and Tears - Effective Revision

Alright! Breathe! You finished the entire manuscript! But don’t uncork the champagne yet – you’ve only gone half the distance. Writing was the first step, now you have to revise.

Nobody likes revision. Hey, nobody said you had to! Revision is about the cruelest thing for a young writer. In fact, I have personally seen at least two young writers nipped in the bud because they could not stand revision. I almost gave up when I got to that stage – until I invented my own personal method for ‘getting around revision’. But that comes later.

My point is, nobody likes being told that their style needs work. But unfortunately, no matter how much we stay in denial, the blunt truth is that our first draft is not as good as it could be. So we have to fix it. I have made a short list of steps you might want to take to start revising a rough draft.

Step 1: Read through the whole story over again.

Yes, the entire story. I know that you’ve just written it, the ink is still fresh on the page, and the words still fresh in your mind. But read it through again. You might have an Aha! moment, or find some huge fault in your work.

Step 2: Run spell check.

Seems basic, and maybe you’ve already done this. But spell-check is your friend. It will make sure that you stay grammatically and linguistically correct.

Step 3: Make a flow chart of your characters.

Basically, you’re writing a timeline here. Start from the beginning: how do you want readers to see character A? How do you want A to change through the story? Do you want A to solve their problems, and if so, have they done that? Then go back through the story and make sure that you have sufficiently developed A through the whole story. Hint: SW helps! Ask your readers and friends to tell you how they see character A. If they tell you something along the lines of what you have, then you’re right on target. If it’s way, off, however (say they think that your protagonist is actually the antagonist!!), then you’ve got a problem.

The point of this step is to pretend that you’re the reader and the author at the same time. Remember, you’re manipulating the reader’s thoughts, opinions, and emotions, and you want them to see character A in a certain light. Give them that light. It may be that you need to insert several ‘scenes’, in which your character is developed a little more. This step may need to be repeated with every draft you do, it’s all up to you.

Step 4: Draw a bell diagram of your (mental) plot and action.

Just like in Calculus! What you’re doing here is monitoring the action of the story. Your graph will look different, depending on your story. The highest point should be your climax. Everything before that point builds up to it, and everything after leads away. You can have more than one climax, it’s alright. Do this all from memory, DO NOT look at your story. When you are finished, make a diagram of the story, WITHOUT REFERRING to your mental notes. Compare the two graphs. Do the ‘lines of action’ match up?

The point of this seemingly pointless exercise is to get you to understand the difference between your mental conception of the story and what you have written down on the paper. A lot of times, we change our mental notes and ideas for a plot, but forget to change what we’ve already written. You may have come up with a completely new plot while writing, or changed course midway through the story. Make sure that what you thought up in your head matches what you put on paper. Your brain can do strange things to a story when you’re not paying close attention.

Step 5: Comb through the story looking for parts to cut out.

Treat your story like a piece of ham. Spin it around, upside down, cutting off bits of fat. Take five-page or one-page sections at a time and a Sharpie, and slash whatever strikes your fancy. Someone once said, “If you slash through every other word of your story and it STILL makes sense, you’ve used too many words.” Arthur Quiller-Couch was pretty blunt: “Murder your darlings.” If you particularly liked the way you constructed a sentence, cut it.

WHY? That’s what I wailed when my teacher cut out over half of my paper once, and that had been the part I was exceptionally proud of. She issued me a challenge: put the parts I’d liked away in a drawer, and take them out again after three months. If I still liked it, then there was nothing wrong with it. If I’d changed my mind, she was right. I did so, pulling the paper out again after three months. Let me tell you, my face burned so much that you could have fried an egg on my cheek. I could not BELIEVE I’d written such CRAP!

Yes, I know that two steps above I told you to insert little scenes to develop a character that’s not in sync with your plans. Well, here I’m telling you to trim around the edges: take out whatever’s not absolutely necessary.

Step 6: Rewrite the story.

WHAT?!?!?!? Aya, you say, have you gone INSANE?! I just finished! Why should I rewrite!!

The answer is simple: because you have thought through the themes, implications, and characters more than once by this point. If you rewrite now, your brain will automatically enhance themes that you thought of during the writing process. Rewriting allows the chemistry in your brain to spurt out on paper and make a picture. This picture could be radically different from your first draft, but it will almost certainly be better. You have the benefit of hindsight this time around.

You don’t have to rewrite the entire story, if you don’t want to. I do admit, that takes time. Instead, choose a ten or twenty page section and rewrite that. Compare it to the original and see how different it is. Again, use your imagination to make yourself both the reader and the author.

Step 7: Take a break.

Drop everything. Hold the presses. Give yourself a week, a month, or even a year. Let your story simmer in the back of your mind. Fine writing is like a stew: you stir it, churn it over for a while, then let it simmer. Don’t let the heat go, don’t lose the passion for your story. Just mull over it in your free time. When you come back, you will have fresh eyes and more energy.

Step 8: The Reader-Editor Trick

This is something that I was taught a while back, but it honestly works. It’s amazing, and I am forever in debt to my teacher, a published novelist. Here’s what you’ll need for this craft(no adult supervision required):

- a manuscript of a story (preferably yours)
- nine willing friends
- plenty of Sharpies and red pens

Make three copies of your manuscript and give them to three of your friends. Hand out Sharpies and red pens, if so desired. Your friends must then take the manuscript home and edit it for one week and one week only. They must read it and redline anything that doesn’t make sense, that felt awkward, that was unclear, anything they didn’t like. They may NOT show it to anyone else, or discuss it with anyone, including you.

When they’re done, take their manuscripts and compare them. Was there anything they agreed on that needed to be fixed? If the decision was unanimous between the three, trust them. They’re the readers, and the reader is like the customer: always right, at least when it comes to style. Make any adjustments that they recommended, and print out another three copies of the manuscript.

Distribute your three new copies to three NEW friends. They CANNOT be the old ones. You must have fresh eyes. Hand out Sharpies, etc., and let them at your work. Remember, they can NOT discuss it with others, nor can they show it to anyone else. They may have the manuscript for one week ONLY.

When they have returned theirs, make the comparisons again. Do any of them agree with the friend-editors from last time? If so, make adjustments. Your magic number is three: if three friend-editors pounce on the same problem, change the troublesome item. Trust the reader.

Repeat this process until you run out of either friends or patience with the whole system. It’s alright to cut down the manuscript to, say, a couple pages, but give them a representative sampling of your work.

When you’re finished making all the edits, send out a copy to all your friend-editors. Ask them to read it and give you an opinion on the edited version. Chances are, you’ll get a positive response. Remember, dear reader, the reader is almost always right in matters of style and clarity.

~Other Ways to Improve Your Style~

1. Reading

I’ve always been a writer. Heck, my mom still has stories in plastic sleeves about dolls that I made when I was three. I’ve begged her to get rid of them who knows how many times, but she’s ignored me…

Anyway, my style used to be rather pathetic. I used to prefer reading to writing. Even now, I think I still do. But my style was terrible. And then: my mom bought me a Brian Jacques. And I fell in love.

I think most of us have an author like that: the author who writes so well, whose style is unbelievable. For me, it was Redwall and Brian Jacques: he was about all I read from third grade to seventh. And let me tell you, those four years have had an impact on me to this very day. I am still told that my action scenes are vivid, that my description is wonderful. And that’s all thanks to Jacques!

So, the first way to improve your style is to flood your subconscious with a GOOD author’s writing. Don’t choose first-person sassy girl novels, because those won’t do much for you, unless you WANT to write that way. Choose someone like Tom Clancy, or Michael Hoeye. Good, clear reading makes good clear writing.

2. Fanfiction

I cannot BELIEVE I’m telling you to do this, but go out there and write fanfiction about a story that you really enjoy. And here’s why:

Fanfiction is a wonderful introduction to the ways of writing. It will also help you begin to develop your own style. Find something you like and go for it. I wrote Naruto fanfiction for almost an entire summer, and my style drastically improved. (This was my way of ‘getting around’ revision: working on improving my style.) The more you allow your style to mature, the less editing you will have to do in the long run. Some of this growth just takes time. It’s OK if your style seems forced, weird, strange. You might just need to get another birthday under your belt.

3. Take a Creative Writing/Literature Course

Most local community colleges and public schools offer some sort of writing curriculum/seminar. See if you can sign up for one of those. They’re really great (I went to a camp, but that’s a different thing), especially the college ones, because colleges can actually afford to hire published authors to come and help you with style! The more exposure you have to literature and writing, the better your style will get.

If you don’t want to or can’t do that, then go to the library and find some self-help books on writing, getting published, etc. I recommend Joseph Williams’ book ‘Style Towards Clarity and Grace’. It’s better than most handbooks I’ve found.

Practice makes perfect, so get out there and practice!

~Summary~


Keep in mind that my list is not a hard and fast rule. You may find that what I've suggested doesn't suit you, and that's perfectly fine. Develop your own method of revision. It's important that YOU, the author, revise, because you will keep it in the same voice as the original work. An editor can't do that for you, he has a different style.

In short, revision is all about style and presentation. You’ve already got the actual plot and story down, now, present it winsomely and dramatically. If you do it right, you won’t leave many readers disappointed.