Ugh! (Or the Trials of Revision)
Posted by annastan on May 28th, 2010. Filed under: WIP, Writing Rants.I had another writing date with my friend Alisa yesterday. We’re both deep in the trenches of revision so we spent a lot of time eating cookies and whining (oh, and writing). Our biggest complaint? If you change something in one scene, that means you have to go through a hundred other scenes and change those as well. The thought of doing all that rewriting can be daunting and mentally exhausting.
As we were lamenting, I read Alisa this great post by Kiersten White and it perked us both up. My favorite line: “[You] take something that was fun and make it into something that is good.” And that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? At some point, working on the story isn’t fun anymore. It’s painful and frustrating and you’d rather do anything else. But if you want the manuscript to ever be good, you have to keep going, even if your brain starts leaking out through your ears.
What makes it worth it is when you look back at the scenes you’ve revised and you realize they’re so much better than they were before. Or you add in a new scene that you never would have expected to be in the story but it totally works. There’s a lot of toil that goes into revising, but there’s also surprise and satisfaction. If you keep forging ahead, you never know what you might be able to achieve:
May 28th, 2010 at 10:11 am
I agree, Anna. As I was reading your post, the art of child-rearing kept popping into my head. Writing the first draft–or vomiting it out, whichever you choose–is like giving birth: tiring and painful but filled with excitement. Revisions are more like the next eighteen years of do’s and don’ts to the child. “;-)
May 28th, 2010 at 10:47 am
This is so true – I feel as if I’ve been revising for an eternity, but the book is so much better for it! Good luck w/ your revisions.
May 28th, 2010 at 11:10 am
That is so satisfying! It’s one of the things that keeps me writing!
May 28th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Cute pix. And that is so true. At some point in revising, it becomes hard work and mentally draining!
May 28th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Sheri, I’ve heard quite a few people make that comparison. I don’t know if it makes me more or less afraid of having children!
Kristi, I know exactly what you mean about eternal revisions, but if we’re making progress then it’s all worth it, right? Happy revising!
Lydia, if we didn’t have those little victories, we’d probably just give up when it got hard. I hope you have lots of satisfying moments to keep you going!
Laura, I guess all we can do is fight through it. Then maybe one day we’ll be able to split trees in half too.
May 28th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
“If you change something in one scene, that means you have to go through a hundred other scenes and change those as well.”
This. It’s like pulling at a thread and finding out, as if you didn’t know, that the thing runs through the whole piece of cloth.
May 28th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I am having this issue as I write, so I have been adding comments via Word that state things like ‘flashback’, ‘personal info’, or ‘freakout’. Then, when I want to change a detail, I can just jump through my comments and change what I want. It has worked so far, but may start to fail after 40 thou…
May 28th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
I am right there with you in revision you-know-where, and it’s definitely a love-hate relationship. Great post!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Martina
May 29th, 2010 at 9:36 am
This is so true. I love Kiersten’s line about taking something that’s fun and making it good. Yes, it’s hard, but the satisfaction that result buoys you to keep going. Great post, Anna.
May 29th, 2010 at 10:00 am
[...] I had a writing day with my friend Anna. What makes a successful writing day, you ask? Brainstorming, whining, writing. Oh, and cookies [...]
May 29th, 2010 at 10:41 am
hehehe. Thanks for this, Anna. I’m right there with you. I just decided to change the age of one of my minor characters from 5 to 10. It adds a lot of the depth to the story but OH MY GOODNESS WHAT A PAIN! I keep counting the number of chapters he’s in and sighing loudly. Good luck with your revisions!
May 29th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Marcia, I just love that analogy! I guess in the end it’s all about making sure those threads weave together in a way that best serves the story.
Jon, that sounds like a great method. Whatever you can do to help avoid revision meltdown later on is a good thing.
Martina, it certainly is a love/hate relationship. Actually, most of the time I find myself in “like” territory, so I guess that’s not too bad.
Andrea, that’s so true. If we didn’t have those moments of satisfaction, I don’t know if that many writers would keep going!
Anne, that sounds like such an undertaking! Even the tiniest change can have huge consequences throughout the manuscript. Good luck – you can do it!
December 6th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
[...] had a writing day with my friend Anna. What makes a successful writing day, you ask? Brainstorming, whining, writing. Oh, and cookies [...]