Why Revision Is Just a Matter of Problem-Solving

You wrote a novel! Now what?  Today, author Jane Glatt , shares the process of learning how to revise a draft… and why it’s just a matter of problem-solving:

Congratulations! You did it! You wrote your novel—you finished it and wrote THE END in all caps. There’s nothing left to do except pat yourself on the back and celebrate. Throw a party, eat cake, have a glass of wine. You did it!

You wrote your novel and every single word is perf—oh, wait, maybe not every single word is perfect. And there might be a scene here or there that doesn’t quite work the way you want it to. And your wonderful, heroic protagonist—did they struggle against great odds? Did they scrape through by the skin of their teeth or were they so fabulous that they made things look easy? Maybe too easy?

Congratulations. You wrote your novel and now you’ve made it to the next stage: revisions. You absolutely should celebrate—but you’re not done. Your novel isn’t yet the best it can be.

Revisions are hard but remember that you’ve already done the impossible—you’ve faced the blank screen and like the true magician you are, you’ve created something—a story—out of nothing. If you can do that, revising doesn’t sound so difficult, does it?

I think of revising as problem solving. And before you say you’re terrible at solving problems, I’ll remind you that you just wrote a novel. You created a bunch of problems that your protagonist had to solve in order the get the one thing they want/need/can’t live without in their fictional life. You are a great problem solver.

All you have to do is figure out what the problems are. And that—figuring out what needs to be fixed—is a skill that can be learned. Just as it took some time to learn how to write a novel, it might take some time to figure out how to revise one. 

But there will be things that clearly need work. Start there. Once you make one change, don’t be surprised to find that another problem—and the solution—presents itself. Before you know it you’ll have reached that THE END again.

And now you know you’re not done. Or maybe you are? In either case one more read through won’t hurt. And you’ll very likely notice something else that doesn’t quite work; something you missed earlier. You are learning a new skill, after all. 

But don’t give up. You didn’t when you were writing a novel so don’t give up during the revision process. I did ten revisions of my fantasy novel Unguilded. If I’d stopped at six I wouldn’t have been published, the second book in the series wouldn’t be published May 2016, and my next book wouldn’t be scheduled for fall 2016. I didn’t give up. And neither should you.

Jane Glatt is a fantasy novelist and the author of The Mage Guild duology. Unguilded was published in 2015 and The Unmage in May 2016 and earlier she self-published the Brotherhood of the Throne trilogy. Jane loves that writing fantasy allows her to indulge her curiosity about an eclectic group of subjects. So far she’s done research on synesthesia, tidal rivers, cities atop bridges, guilds, Ojibwe mythology, pirates and privateers, plants used for healing and the history of spying.

Top photo by Flickr user jurek d.