Hi readers,
It’s been a while hasn’t it? For that, I apologize.
I (not so recently anymore) finished the first draft of my work in progress (yay!!). This was a huge accomplishment for myself, not only because I finished my book, but because I also proved to myself that I could write, and I could finish a book. The glory of this accomplishment was as magnificent as it was short lived because I immediately plunged myself into the depths of revision hell.
That’s right. I said hell.
As a writer you’ll read any number of stories about the joys of writing. About the wonders and splendor of bringing to life your own stories and characters through the pages of your book. You won’t, however, hear as much about all the editing you’ll have to do afterwards if you hope to publish. This phase of your writing is what is commonly referred to as ‘revision hell‘. And make no mistake, it is a nightmare.
Line after line you’ll have to reread your own work, cleaning it up, revising it, then cleaning it up again. Improving it.
At first it can be fun. I for one loved to see how awful my early writing was in comparison to the quality by the end of my draft. It reflected just how much I’d grown as a writer. With that said, however, it also meant I had a lot of rewriting to do. I even had to rewrite my first chapter from the ground up. Over and over again.
There’s a point when doing revisions when you realize that the ‘fun’ that you found in writing isn’t present anymore; a point when you realize that this is work. And worse, you realize that this is arguably the biggest part of the job that being a writer will be.
Personally, I believe that this is the true final hurdle that separates the novelists from the writers.
Revisions are the real grueling legwork of being a writer that they don’t tell you about. It’s tiring, taxing, and boring. The hardest part about it is that your own writing will challenge you. There will be times it will outright spit in your face and you will doubt yourself as a writer. It’s an unforgiving process.
But do not fret! There are measures you can take to make the process feel less grueling. I’m not saying there’s any band-aid solution that will magically fast-forward the process for you, but there are measures you can take to ensure that you won’t need to go over the same chapter a hundred times.
1) Do your chapter summaries before you start writing!
The first countermeasure comes before you even start to write the book. I’ll be writing another blog post on this process specifically soon, but for now here’s the short version.
Before you ever start writing your book, know how you want your story to start, the middle, and the end. Afterwards, map out and write a chapter summary for each chapter of your entire book. These summaries should include the plot for each chapter. Then I encourage writers to write a list of key notes, or markers, for each chapter. Between the two you will have created a road map to follow for your entire book.
Having these summaries eliminates the exploratory writing process that often forces writers to continually go back and rewrite chapters. It takes away the unavoidable habit of editing as you go because you’ll already know where you want to go, and have ensured that what you’ve written is already geared towards your final goal.
The other added benefit is that in using your roadmap, when you reach the revision stage you’ll have considerably less editing to do, and more tidying up of your own writing. This is a huge time saver, making the difference between weeks to months of revision work.
2) Have beta readers!
In the current climate of the writing industry you can’t make any headway towards publishing unless your work has been revised and edited until it’s polished. Agents and publishers won’t accept unedited work.
Many think they can do all their edits by themselves, but the reality is that no other can be perfectly objective concerning their own work.
Beta readers are the perfect solution to this hurdle.
Think of beta readers as editors. Generally, your beta reader will be another author. What they do is read through your draft and pick apart the portions that don’t make sense, and offer advice as to how to improve certain sections. Like any editor, a lot will be opinionative. But the reality is that having an audience for your work, especially from another writer, will open your own eyes to new perspectives. More importantly, it will afford you the benefit of having others point out where your book needs the most work.
Beta readers do not, however, do the revisions for you. That leg work is still yours to do. (Sorry!)
You can usually find people willing to beta among the writers community on twitter, but I would exercise caution, and only trust your work to people you trust, and more importantly, have had opportunity to get to know. I would even go so far as to encourage you have them sign (digitally) a contract to protect your work.
3) Take a break!
Revisions are tiring, but especially so after you’ve just completed your book.
Regardless of how long it took you to complete your first draft, as soon as you complete it take a step back from writing.
Earlier I mentioned that I plunged into the depths of revision hell immediately after I finished my first draft. What I did not mention was how quickly afterwards I burned out.
Writing an entire book, regardless of how long, is an exhausting process on your mind. The magic your imagination brought you while writing your draft won’t be there anymore when revisiting it for revisions, and you’ll quickly find the exhaustion of writing take over. If you’re not careful this will lead to a burnout, and not only will doing your revisions take much longer than they should, but you might need to stop writing entirely for an indefinite period of time. Some authors may never return to their book.
So to prevent this I encourage you to take a break. Take a month. Okay, that may be an exaggeration (but not really). You’ve worked hard writing your book, and odds are you’ve put other pleasures of life aside to do so. Maybe you skipped on seeing that movie. Maybe you put that game on hold. Maybe, like most of us, you wound up with a backlog of books to read. Instead of waiting until your done your revisions, or worse, until you’ve published, now is the time to dig into those pleasures. Decompress your mind and give it a chance to breathe, away from the stresses of your, well, your mind.
Your book isn’t going anywhere, and when you’re ready to finally get back to it you’ll find yourself refreshed and better equipped to tackle the words on your pages. Never underestimate the power of a good vacation!
It may seem like tired advice, but more often than not that’s the best sort.
Revisions are tiring. Their grueling. Their unforgiving. But they are a necessary step on the road to becoming a published author.
You may feel discouraged by your own writing, and to that I offer these words:
Not long ago you never penned a single word. Now you’ve written a whole book.
Have faith in yourself and don’t give up!
Dream – Imagine – Create
A.
A Life Imagined 