I have never been much of one to revise stuff I wrote. Papers? Yeah, whatever. Check for grammar and spelling, I’m done. Stories were much the same, right up until I made my first (and so far only) pro story sale. The editor wanted the story, but had some revisions for me. I was baffled at how to make the changes. But I blundered my way through it.
I have two completed first draft novels sitting on my bookshelf that I never did anything with because I had no idea how to revise them.
Then I started writing fanfic and started working with betas. And man, I have been lucky to work with some amazing betas. So I started learning how to revise.
When I was writing the first draft of this novel (the working title of which seems to be “OMG I NEED A TITLE”), I got some truly amazing feedback from a couple of pros, and both times was knocked on my ass by it, frustrated and irritated at not knowing quite how to fix the flaws they saw. Fortunately, awesome people that they are, they had some suggestions, and I’ve been learning a lot.
Fast forward to now, writing the second draft, where I have several scenes of new stuff to add. And I have been getting SO IRRITATED at myself, because my god, I’ve been writing such CRAP! Why can’t I write anymore?
And then, the utterly obvious hit me: everything else around these scenes has been through at least two or three rounds of rewriting and tweaking. OF COURSE THEY’RE BETTER.
If I needed a dramatic example of what a difference revising makes, this would be it. Right. So back to spewing crap for this first draft stuff.
This is so interesting to me! Revision is something that I’ve been doing for so long that I can’t even remember not knowing how, but this is a good reminder that not everybody who writes has a long-standing background in writing. For many people, at least some parts of this are new to them.
But I know that in a community of writers, it can feel like everybody else has already mastered it all (BTW: ahahahaha, no) and you’re the odd man out. So I think it’s important to talk about things like this, to not only show that you’re not alone if you don’t know, but also to talk about how you DO go about developing those skills when you don’t have them.
Also? When you’re looking for someone to mentor you or someone for you to emulate, the people who’ve been doing a thing for so long they don’t remember how they learned it aren’t always the best people to turn to. Sometimes you WANT the people who struggled and sweated—because they’re the ones who can talk to you about all the crap and fiddly bits that they had to work for, and how they accomplished it.