Terry Hickman's Light Bulb Alley: Revising writing
The following exchange occurred on Speculations Rumor Mill, my favorite Web hangout for genre fiction writers. Lenora's metaphor is the most lyrical writing I've seen on the usually dull subject of revising your work. It's presented here with her permission. Thanks, Lenora!
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Message 19 was left by Lenora Rose on 2003-01-31 01:25:15. Feedback: 0/0I revise both finished pieces, and unfinished pieces I abandoned for some reason. The latter is a good way to hook yourself back into the manuscript if there's something worth exploring.
I revise in waves and ripples and pools.
Wave revision: Go through the entire MS beginning to end. I usually read it through once first. If the draft is on paper, making typo & phrase corrections, as well as really general notes for bigger issues. If it's on computer, I fix typos and sentences but do not touch bigger issues until I've read to the end (Or, if an unfinished but previously dropped draft, to the end of what's written). Then I save a new copy of the work with a new version number, and do all the major changes, the huge and gross cuts and adds in one massive series of major revision sessions. I work from beginning to end mainly - but only mainly. The result at the end is recognizably a complete new draft; sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. It's not necessarily a final draft. Even the novel I've been sending out queries for is only finished enough to show to agents; I'm expecting to have to revise one more time when they or the editors make their comments.
Ripple revision: Sometimes an idea comes to light, or a character reveals something that changes a prior scene. So I go back, and change anything from a word the character speaks, to the season in which things are happening, to a whole new and/or replacement scene added. The trick is that this "one" revision usually triggers others; and one has to make similar little fixes in two or three other scenes to make it all flow. It's intuitive, disorderly, and kinda weird, because it only happens when the connections between parts of the story are coming clearer. It can happen in mid draft and in mid wave revision, or based off one comment in a critique. I've had it result in a whole new draft, though usually by turning into a wave; I've had it result in essentially the same draft, because the changes, while all over, were simply not big enough to feel like a new draft.
Pool revision: Ripple revision without the ripples. To strain the metaphor, it's either building a channel to let a pool gone stagnant start flowing properly, or a channel dug to send water into a plot hole, and make it a pleasant pool. It's patching a plot hole or a similar problem that does not currently change anything outside the one scene. Happens a lot in early drafts, less in later ones. And never results in a new draft unless the plot hole encompasses the entire story.
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