Thursday, April 21, 2011

R is for Revision

R is for Revision.

I'm in the middle of a revision.
I'm so excited about this version because some things have changed in my story. Some situations have gotten less confusing. Certain characters have grown.

I like to turn to the book Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. It is full of exercises to make characters more dimensional, scenes more tense and meaningful.

When I'm writing I remember this tip from a writing conference I went to.

Re Vision
New/again Look/see


Revision isn't about finding all the misspellings, adverbs and poor sentence structure. It is about looking at the work with a new, fresh view.

Confession: I enjoy the revision process.

Do you like revising?

9 comments:

Alicia Gregoire said...

I have to admit, I'm not a fan of revision or editing. I'm about to start on my second draft of my WIP and have been putting it off.

Matthew MacNish said...

I'm supposed to be revising right now. Crap, better get back to work.

Unknown said...

Hmmm, revisions and I have a love/hate relationship. When I first begin revisions I love it. I know that I'm going back in and immersing myself in my words and it just feels like home!

...but then about twenty minutes later I want to cry.

Ellen said...

It really depends on the day and the project and the ideas in my head. sometimes revision feels like slogging through a giant swamp of "everything sucks and I can never make it better." but sometimes I'll just be minding my own business, driving/walking around and I'm like "OMG! I know EXACTLY how to fix that scene!!" and that's when revision gets exciting for me :)

Julie Flanders said...

I do, sometimes it can feel so great to feel like you finally have a chapter or even a sentence just right.

Thanks for the info on the book, I don't think I've heard of that one before and I'm adding it to my list. I've been reading so many writing books sometimes I have trouble remembering what I've already read, but I think this one is new to me!

Sylvia Ney said...

I enjoy revisions to a point. Unfortunately, I'm one of thos that can revise a piece to death. I MUST learn when to let go! ;-) I'm so glad I found your blog! I'm stopping by from the A to Z challenge and I look forward to reading more from you.

Unknown said...

I wrote about Revisions today, too. I actually called it a bitch :)

Sometimes, I love it though!

Alison Miller said...

Me too!!! I love re-falling in love with my characters and discovering things about them I never knew before. I always dread a rewrite - but when I'm finished, my characters and scenes rewritten seem so much fresher. It's a rejuvenating process.

Angela said...

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. I depends on my mood and how much stuff I find to correct.

Rewriting scenes is fun, picking them apart for grammar, not so much.