Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Revision, Revision, Revision #MFRWauthor #writing

Revision is a strong part of the writing experience. Some writers hate the process. Others embrace the process. Some ignore revision believing everything they write is carved in stone. It's not. The words in the story are easily erased. All the writer has to do is hit a button.  So what is revision.

Revision is about re-writing any scene that can be improved. Writers do this anywhere from one to thirty or more times. This is a given. So revision is important.

How many times do you ned to revise. Part of the answer belongs to developing critical judgment. Revision starts with knowing grammar, spelling and punctuation. You have to think of the manuscript as a whole.For me in this day of computers, it's important to have a print copy of the entire manuscript. Then I comb. What things do I look for. Dragging scenes. Weak motivation. Faulty dialogue. Awkward prose/ There are many more and part of the ability to do this comes with experience and not letting the story go until you've looked at every aspect of the story.

Revision also involves making every word count. Have you used empty words, strung out lots of descriptive words. Most worters over write the first round. I don't. My rough drafts are sketchy but I still have to go through the story and make sure I'm neither under or over writing. Painful or not you have to give up the love of every word you've written and check to see if all those words are important to the story and if they don't take them out.

Accept cheerfully any suggestions from critique partners or editors. You don't have to make the changes in the suggested way but you need to make the changes to improve the story.