A few months ago, I finished the first draft of a novella. It was the first (non-blog) writing project I had completed in a long time, so I was excited to reach the end and get the book out there to my fans as quickly as possible. I just needed to do a quick self-edit before sending it off to my beta readers and my editor.
I still haven’t done that.
It’s not that I’m not working on the revision. I am. But the mess I left for myself at the end of the first draft is making it way harder to finish this self-edit than my books usually need.
I’m not going to get into the reasons that my first draft was so bad or why the revision is so hard, but I am going to share (with you and myself) some tricks for getting through the slog when it feels like progress is impossible.
6 Revision Tricks
1. Put It Away
Sometimes the problem with the revision isn’t the book, it’s your perspective.
If you’ve ever gone back and read something you wrote months or years ago, you’ve probably been surprised by how objectively you can see the project. Maybe it was way better than you remembered. Or, if not, maybe you could see clearly how to fix it in a way you couldn’t imagine when you first wrote it.
The magic of time is that you are less emotionally connected to the words and your brain has had time to release the blinders that only allowed it to consider a limited selection of ideas.
Try taking some time away from the project. The longer the better.
But maybe you don’t have time. Maybe you’re on a deadline or you’ve set yourself a goal that you don’t want to miss. Don’t worry, the rest of the tricks can be used at any time. Even right after you write The End.
2. Walk Away (Literally)
Writing and revising are cerebral activities. You do most of the work in your head. Which means it’s really easy for your mind to get stuck in a same-thought loop.
Physical activity can help break you out of that rut.
Get out of the house. Go for a walk, go shopping, or go to the gym. When you engage your body, your mind has to divert some of its focus to the activity so you don’t, you know, fall down. Which leaves your subconscious free to work on the story problem.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve walked away from my desk in frustration, determined to go out in the world and not think about the story ever again, only for the solution to smack me in the face almost immediately. Sometimes before I even pull out of the driveway.
Your subconscious knows all of the possible ways to fix your story. You just have to nudge your conscious mind out of the way.
3. Start at the Beginning
If you’re stuck partway through the story, it might help to go back to the start.
Read your manuscript from the beginning.
Maybe you’ll notice breadcrumbs that can guide you forward. You’ll see clues you forgot you planted, characters who disappeared, and subplots that never went anywhere. Picking those threads back up might be just what you need to keep going.
Your subconscious remembers those unresolved elements, even if you totally forgot about them. That could be what’s causing the block.
Immersing yourself in where the story begins will not only refresh your memory, but it’ll give your subconscious the chance to suggest a solution.
4. Start at the End
Or try the other end of the spectrum. Jump ahead to the end and remind yourself of where the story is trying to go.
Re-read the last chapters of the book. Make notes about the resolution and the end state the story world. Look for things you need to set up earlier in order for that to happen. Pay particular attention to how the characters have changed over the course of their journey.
Maybe you haven’t laid the groundwork for the transformation. You might need to add in more obstacles and challenges for the character to overcome in order to become who they need to be.
Maybe you need to show more contrast between the beginning and the end. If I hadn’t shown Greer to be a selfish person at the beginning of Sweet Venom, her sacrifice in Sweet Legacy wouldn’t have been as powerful.
Reminding yourself of where the story and characters are going to end up might help you figure out why you’re having a hard time getting there.
5. Change the Format
When I first started writing, I could only revise on paper. I had to print out the manuscript and dig in with a pencil and a stack of sticky notes.
Now I try to do all of my revising on my laptop, but every so often I get so stuck that I have to resort to print. My brain processes things differently on paper than on my computer screen. This means I get a much-needed different perspective on the story.
Sometimes I’ll load the manuscript onto my Kindle. There is something magical about reading a book in the format of a finished book. All of a sudden I’m seeing the story not just as the author, but as a reader. My mind immediately starts to notice things that need fixing.
Another format, which I haven’t tried very much yet, is audio. You can read the story out loud to yourself (excellent for catching typos) or have a text-to-speech app read it to you.
Any time you can change how your mind perceives the words, there is a good chance that you’ll see things in a new—and hopefully useful!—way.
6. Talk It Out
Sometimes, all it takes to get me unstuck in a story is to tell someone about the problem. Whether it’s my mom, my best friend, my critique partner, or my hairstylist, the very process of expressing the problem often makes the solution crystal clear.
This person doesn’t have to be another writer or even someone who knows anything about story. They do need to meet three criteria: they should be someone you trust, they should be willing to listen without controlling the conversation, and they should be able to ask questions.
Even if their questions seem silly or pointless, the act of answering them and explaining your answers is a great way to make the story more clear in your mind.
If you don’t have someone you can talk to about story, you can try talking about it out loud to yourself or even writing out the imagined conversation in a journal.
The key will be asking yourself, over and over again at the end of every statement, WHY? or WHY NOT? If you follow the question and answer trail long enough, eventually you’ll reach the solution.
I can’t guarantee that any of these tricks will work. Every single book I’ve ever written has been it’s entirely own beast that tries to defy everything I’ve learned from writing its predecessors.
But hopefully they help. Hopefully they spark something—an idea, a solution, a twist—that will help you push through the revision.
If you give any of these a go, let me know how it turns out. And, for the love of Zeus, if you have any others for me to try, please share!
Now I’m off to work on that novella.
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