Treatise on Revision

[Guest]

Basics of Revision

Inspiration should not be inhibited by writing and writing should not be inhibited by inspiration. This may sound like a silly play on words, but it does illustrate the importance of revision in a writer's craft. When inspiration comes and a writer takes on the page with zeal, never should grammar, style, or anything at all get in the writer's way. That initial pen to paper is where the food and wealth of the work is. A writer should remove all inhibitions on the first draft and allow any and all ideas to flow onto the page (or screen).

Once done, however, do not let the value of your inspirational moments stop your revision. Just because it came directly from the heart or soul does not mean it will communicate that very well to a reader. Unless your work is not intended to be read by anyone other than yourself, a first draft should never be a final draft.

Revising a piece of work means more than simply correcting grammatical and spelling errors. While that is certainly necessary, the real focus of revision should be on ensuring your choice of words effectively promotes your ideas, intention, emotion, and plot. While you can never be completely objective of your own work, you can certainly use tools to improve your ability to do so.

How do you revise your work?

1. Read
A good writer is a good reader. Anyone can throw words onto a piece of paper and communicate an idea, but without reading, no one can know if those words will mean anything to anyone else. How can you objectively revise your work if you have no idea how other people's words are understood by yourself?

Read for research, for entertainment, for inspiration, and for understanding. The more you read, the more your vocabulary increases, your sense of good writing evolves, your grasp of the language develops, and your style expands.

2. Revise Grammatical Errors
A computer program can do this. Watch for run-on sentences, incorrect use of punctuation, passive sentences and spelling errors. Probably the smallest aspect of revision, correcting grammatical errors should only take one draft.

3. Revise Word Choice

You are almost through the revision process. Already your piece will have gone lengths and bounds from the original draft. There is only one thing left to do, and really, it is the icing on the cake. Go through your work again and take note of all the average, everyday words you use. Then think of other words to use instead. This is also a good time to remove clichés, add the five senses to text, and simply amplify your words.

For example, let's take the last couple sentences I just wrote and apply this process to that:

Go through your work again = Breeze the writing once more
and take note of all the average, everyday words you use = and evaluate all the mundane, common words used
Then think of other words to use instead = then consider replacing them with stronger words
Breeze the writing once more and evaluate all the mundane and common words used. Then consider replacing them with stronger words.

Sounds much better, eh?

Pull out a thesaurus, expand your vocabulary, use active and descriptive words, play with the senses, and visualize descriptions. What does it feel like to be stabbed? Punched? Loved? Hated? Yelled at? Take those emotions and turn them into visual, audio, or textured concepts. Use a sound to describe a color or a texture to describe a smell (the rose hummed red; the sewage smelled like wet hair...etc). If a word looks normal... change it.

4. Wait and do it again

The biggest trick to revising your own work is to be objective about it. Revising immediately after you've written it means you are still drenched in subjective-this-is-the-best-thing-I've-written syndrome. After you gone through a revision, set it aside for week, month ... or however long it takes to forget the subjective nature of it and then revise again. Rinse and repeat, until there is no doubt your work is completely polished.

There! Now you have revised your work. Read it one last time, but take away your critical eye and try to enjoy it as an objective reader. When finished think back on the overall feel of it and then decide if you need to take it through another cycle of revision.

[Maeve]

This is something I stumbled upon just recently, and pondered since. Perhaps it can be integrated in the material above, as it seems to touch upon it sideways. Or perhaps it should be in grammar.

1. Be sure that your words are an exact match for what you want to say.
Everyday speaking language sometimes contains roundabout, vague ways of describing things, that should not be used in a novel as it interferes with the flow of the reading. Word should be used with precision.

Red Alert words are:

• similar to
• almost
• kind of
• sort of
• just
• really
• only

These are modifiers, false groupers and aparant modifiers. They can often be replaced by more accurate wording, which makes your work fresh and lively.

2. Be sure you know all your words are appropriate for the setting.
Be aware of anochronisms if you are writing fantasy or historically based novels.

• Arrows are loosened not fired, nor do medieval commanders shout "Hold your Fire" (no gunpowder is used)
• Adrenaline, hormones and the working of the brain are all recent discoveries, as are modern medicine concepts like bacteria. So don't let them slip accidentally in the dialogue of your characters.
• The concept of equality was a post renaissance invention, and to a medieval mind was an alien thought. "Nobility is not a Birthright" is there for a ridiculous quote from the movie Robin Hood, prince of thieves

3. Don't use words or even whole dialects that you are not familiar with
Avoid the thee's and thou's if you cannot do it realistically. Be careful with scottish or lowbrow dialects. If you are not sure how to do it, but are set to use it for flavor research first! Especially in fantasy, sci-fi and historical genres many readers are self appointed experts on the subject, and your mistakes will rudely awaken them from their supsension of disbelieve, making them unable to escape in your book while they mutter about your errors.