[Editor’s note: the essay below is taken from an e-mail newsletter sent out by the writer Bruce Hale. you can find his web site at: http://www.brucehalewritingtips.com/. You can also sign up for his e-newsletter at that site. Each electronic newsletter comes with other information, including a writing joke.]
5 ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL REVISION
By Bruce Hale
So you’ve finished that first draft and let your story marinate in its own juices for a while, and now it’s time for revision. Only question is: where to start?
With a picture book, that’s not too terribly daunting. But with a longer novel, you’d be well served to devise a strategy before plunging into those narrative hickets that can swallow the unwary writer. I suspect everyone has his or her own favored approach to revision. Here’s the one I’ve found most useful…
1. FIRST READ
First time through, the hardest thing is to *just* read your story and take notes. No line edits, no grammar corrections, no paragraph revisions — just reading. But if you want to be able to see the whole forest, instead of the individual trees, this approach is vital.
By all means, take copious notes. “Tighten the opening on page 43;” “wonky sentence on page 12, first paragraph;” “fix the plot logic in Chapter 18.” These are all helpful. And they prepare the way for…
2. FIRST REVISION
Once you’ve waded through your story and taken copious notes, congratulate yourself. It’s not as bad as you thought, right? (We hope.) With this optimistic thought, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and plunge into wholehearted revision.
The first time through, work on larger issues: plot holes, character inconsistencies, gaps in story logic, slow scenes that need to be trimmed, and so forth. You can always do the fine polishing later.
Revise sequentially if you can, rather than skipping around. For any sections that require you to write new material, use the same method you would in a first draft: write it fast and sloppy. After all, you can always fix it in the NEXT revision.
3. READ-ALOUD REVISION
Taking the time to read your work aloud may seem redundant at this point, but it’s necessary. You won’t believe how many errors you’ll catch. Homonyms, awkward phrasing, missing words, echoes (unintentionally repeated words) — all these will pop out at you like Halloween skeletons at a haunted house.
This is the revision where you can really focus on the sound and rhythm of your writing. Listen for those areas that sound clunky and don’t really roll off the tongue — that’s your cue to break out the belt sander and make things smooooth.
4. DIALOG REVISION
Once the story is as good as you can make it, and you’ve read aloud to catch hidden glitches, it’s time to turn the microscope on your dialog. First, make sure each character speaks differently. Have them use different idioms, word choice and catch phrases — otherwise, they’ll all sound like each other (or like you).
Top-notch authors like Elmore Leonard vary their character dialog so deftly, they don’t even need attributions (he said/she said). It’s that clear who’s speaking. In real life, we all have our own ways of putting things. So just make sure your fictional characters possess that same distinction.
5. FINAL CHECK
Before I send my story off to agent or editor, I usually try to let it sit for a week or so, then do one last read-through, to make sure all my changes fit, and to smooth out any remaining rough edges. This is an ideal time to search for words you overuse. (And we *all* overuse certain pet words.)
For example, I know that I tend to drop in “just” and “only” too often, and I tend to have too many characters shrugging and nodding. A quick search for these words shows me where I’ve overdone it, and a quick fix guards against too much sameness in the manuscript.
And that’s about all I can bear to write on the subject of revision right now. I think you know why. Yes — time to get back to revising my latest story.
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