Make revision easy for yourself—but not too easy

One thing I’ve noticed about myself and other writers is that we tend to have certain aspects of revision that we’re more comfortable with than others. It could be that we enjoy that aspect more, that we’re better at it, or that we simply tell ourselves we’re better at it even though we’re not. But whatever the reason, we home in on that part of the revision process, tell ourselves we’ve revised, and hope that’s good enough.

But if we love revising dialogue and hate revising descriptions of action scenes, our characters’ conversations will be intriguing and realistic while our sword fights leave the reader going, “Huh, I thought that guy was on the other side of the room.” And if we’re strong in revising certain parts of our work and don’t try to bring the other areas up to that level, the uneven quality of the writing can ruin the readers’ experience.

Sometimes I catch myself avoiding taking a good, hard look at parts of my work that I have a feeling will need to be reworked in more than one way, especially if those ways aren’t things I like focusing on. So here’s what I do to make the plunge into unpleasant revisions easy—without making the actual work so simple that I don't do a good job.

I listen to my gut, especially when I find myself hoping I can get away with something. Whenever I hope this, the automatic answer is no. The answer is easy, but the question can be hard to face. I’ve learned to notice when a part of my writing gives me that uneasy feeling that it isn’t good enough so I can home in on what’s not working, using feedback from my writers’ group when necessary. As I’m revising, sometimes I wonder if the revision I’ve just done is strong enough in whatever area needs improvement; when that happens, I come back to that section the next day to see if I was just feeling insecure or if I need to rethink that part. Often it’s the latter, but waiting another day often gives me the distance I need to clearly see what needs to be done.

I use what I’ve learned about the craft of writing to get my plan organized. Whether the information is from classes, seminars, novels and craft books, or even one-on-one conversations with other writers, I keep in mind what I’ve learned about good fiction. Dialogue and appropriately described action, as mentioned above, certainly make the list, but so do point of view, clarity, brevity, pacing, theme, and a host of other aspects that can make or break a novel. When I revise, I go through this list and think about what is and isn’t working in each scene. This helps me focus on one aspect at a time instead of getting overwhelmed, throwing up my hands, and proclaiming the work is “good enough.”

When I’m done with the big-picture thinking, I table the worries for later so I can get to work on the details. Writer’s block tends to happen when we believe we have to do everything at once. This can happen when we think we can never produce an entire book, and it can happen when we think we have to tackle every aspect of the writing all in one go. That doesn’t work for me. Instead, if I make a plan that lets me work on one thing at a time—point of view in one scene, then the dialogue in that same scene, then the extra words and descriptions that need to be cut, and so on—I can get the revision done and then evaluate later on how effective my efforts were.

If you’re struggling with revision, it could be that you’re trying to struggle with everything at once. Pick one thing to struggle with. It’s much more likely you’ll have a fair fight.