Saturday, October 29, 2011

Revision?

~~What I know about revising a manuscript wouldn't fill a thimble. Some would say what I know about writing a draft of a novel would only fill two thimbles, but I do know good advice when I see it. Check out Tracy Hahn-Burkett's post on Writer Unboxed--"Macro-Revision: Take It One Piece at a Time" and let me know what you think about revising a manuscript.

~~Do you have any advice or ideas about how to organize the revision of a manuscript?

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link. Interesting post. That's kind of what I did and it makes me feel better. I was afraid I was making it take so much longer than it needed just because I couldn't get everything in one pass

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  2. I'll file this one under remember, you can't do it all at one time. ; )

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  3. The only thing I can think of is that it really shouldn't have taken me as long as it did.
    I thought my draft was finished after last year's NaNo; in retrospect I should have stopped calling it finished and stopped adding up how many scenes were missing until I'd really finally finished.
    That happened around the end of May. And then I had to go back and fix everything that was in square brackets.
    Then in August I reread the whole thing from start to finish and was also in Barbara Rogan's workshop, and fixed a lot as a result of it.
    It's with betas now and so far so good/not too much to change (I really really hope this keeps up).
    In between, I seem to have tidied up the language quite a bit, but I'm a little scared - I never did do an edit for metaphor/theme/imagery/perfect word choice.
    So my advice would be to draw up an editing schedule and stick to it [g]

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  4. Ha! Since I've retired, schedules have a way of just melting into puddles of neglected intentions. ; ) When I realize something will need changing I really want to go back and do it over *right then*. That just doesn't work for even hoping to finish, does it?

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  5. That was kind of my problem. My fear of "all of it sucks!" kept me from doing multiple read throughs, focus on one specific item to edit each time.

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  6. I'm revising a story right now and I can only tell you to keep on chugging. One page at a time and it will get done.

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