Revisions! - Writers Forum

Quillqueen · 04-15-2006, 02:31 PM

Having finished my book, sent the first draft off for critique by a friend, and settled back into my chair before the computer...Revisions suddenly set up a Great Wall of China between my story and I. Help! At times I feel ruthless, like butchering the whole thing and gluing it back together, and at other times I'm such a ninny, and I don't want to ruin it, even though I know it needs lots of work.
Any suggestions about how to approach revisions/rewrites? Any tips will be recieved with immense grattitude--

Gwen: the Quillqueen

Steve Booth · 04-15-2006, 02:40 PM

Man. Do I know that feeling. I have stories in which I think I've re-written the opening chapter like 40 times

Here's a couple of things:

1) Be very wary of making changes that have 'big-picture' consequences unless absolutely necessary. Dont go changing the continent your hero (or heroine) lives in for example.. unless you plan on rewriting half your chapters!

2) When the 'omg this needs to be made better' bug hits you.. and you start re-writing, when you are done with your edit, pause for a moment, and ask yourself, as objectively as possible 'did this really make it better'.

3) Don't be afraid to use the 'Undo' key. Control-Z IS YOUR FRIEND. Remember, unlike the age-old environment of typewriters (shudder), in our electronic age we can take stuff out as easily as we can put it in! Don't be afraid to try to make it better.. you can always go back in a few seconds!

4) Finally, don't bite off too much at once. Take it one chapter, one paragraph at a time. Dont worry about the Elephant.. worry about the hairs on his left front foot's toe-knuckle! Do it 'one bite at a time' and have patience.

Hope that helps!

Steve

aliceedelweiss · 04-15-2006, 02:44 PM

hide it in a deep dark hole for as long as you need, forget about it. Right when you write something you're passionate about it and don't want to hurt it, so give it time to fall away to the old stuff, then hack at it so its beautiful

If you're still attached to a piece, you'll get no where. and after you've done that, read over it. and if you still aren't happy, hide it again, and hack at it again. just keep at it

I hope that helped, and wasn't too vague...

simon woodhouse · 04-15-2006, 03:36 PM

Leaving the MS unread for a while is a good tip.

When you do come to look at it again, don't be frightened away if it appears to need a major overhaul. I've written three novels. The first draft of the first one was pretty dire. The second one was a bit better, and the third (or so I thought) was pretty good. But when I came to looking at the third with a view to doing a bit of re-writing, I realised it needed a total re-write. So I took a deep breath and got on with it. I plan to go back to the second draft of the third novel at some point over the next six months. Hopefully I'll still be as pleased with it as I was when I finished it, but if it needs lots of work, I'm prepared for that as well.

FrankBlissett · 04-15-2006, 05:31 PM

Quote:

at other times I'm such a ninny, and I don't want to ruin it

Keep in mind too that you don't need to destroy your drafts. While holding on to every single change can make things cluttered, there's no reason you can't keep a copy of the current draft in one file, and the working revision in another.

-Frank

Quillqueen · 04-15-2006, 09:17 PM

Wonderful,this makes me feel better. Probably that's one of my big problems: I'm trying to work on it too soon after finishing the draft, and it needs to breathe. Thanks for getting back to me with the --very-- helpful tips, I'm grateful.

Gwen

Quillqueen · 04-18-2006, 12:23 PM

Something else: I want to make a lot of serious changes to my plot, which would make for a lot of rewriting. Would it be better to go through the extra work and make the changes, or to just work on the plot at hand and try and make it better?

I promise I am setting the project aside for a while, but I just thought I'd ask for future reference.
Cheers~

Beardedtroll · 04-18-2006, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Booth

3) Don't be afraid to use the 'Undo' key. Control-Z IS YOUR FRIEND.

On a related note, I would advise you to get some kind of revision control system (CVS, Subversion or if you're using Word, something like Workshare Professional), learn how to use it and then use it religiously.

Quillqueen · 04-19-2006, 12:05 PM

Oh, I've never worked with any revision program things like that. How do they work? Do they cost anything?

Gwen

Beardedtroll · 04-19-2006, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quillqueen

Oh, I've never worked with any revision program things like that. How do they work? Do they cost anything?

Gwen

Well, somewhat simplified they work by having a repository or library of of all your work files as well as a history of all revisions of those files. In another place you have a local copy of your files that you work on, and every now and then (typically once a day) you use a small program to register any changes you've done to the files with the central repository.

This gives you a historic log of all the changes you've done to the files, as well as the ability to retrieve a copy of your files as they were at any point during your work; so if you realise that you need that chapter you deleted four months ago, you can just go to the revision control system, retrieve a copy of your files from four months ago, copy the chapter from the old versions of files and paste them into the current versions.

That's the main thing revision control systems do, and as a fiction writer working on your own that's the main thing you'll be interested in, but there's more to them too.

Some of them are free, and some cost money. For the free ones I'd recommend Subversion, although if you use Microsoft Word you may want to consider purchasing a system that integrates into Word as a module. I've never used any of the latter, so I can't really advice on that.

Quillqueen · 04-19-2006, 02:56 PM

All right, splendid. Sounds like a god-send. I'll take a look and see what I can find.

Scales, scales, scales...

Gwen

BryanBeasley · 04-19-2006, 09:40 PM

"Murder your darlings"

- some famous writer

Anne Lacey · 04-21-2006, 12:59 AM

It was the hardest thing for me to set my ms down for a few eeeks. I was so itching to start editting it! But I'm glad that I did. I'm almost finished with my first revisions now. I printed the whole thing off so I could see it in front of me and then I editted the paper version with my trusty ballpoint pen. I highlighted sentances or paragraphs that were very good too. Then I went to the computer copy and made the changes. Good luck and congrats on finishing it!