Why Revisions Are Hard

I'm knee-deep in revisions on a project I haven't even told you about yet, but I will soon. Promise. Anyway, I just spent 10 minutes (okay, maybe small exaggeration, but at least five minutes) on two short paragraphs. And I am reminded why revisions can take so bloody long.

Here's the section I'm working on. Set up: Tori is a lawyer, talking to her assistant. Tori is desperate to make partner before her mother, who has Alzheimer's, is too far along to know that Tori has succeeded. As a result, she has little time for socializing — or men. In this scene, her assistant is urging her to have a fling with a sexy guy she met the weekend before, who just sent her a dozen roses.

 

"Betsy!" Tori slapped her hands against the files stacked up on her desk. "I don't have time for a one-night stand. I assume, since you make my calendar, you've looked at it? Do you see a lot of free nights in there?"

"That is your choice, not a requirement," Betsy retorted. "At least give Brit a call. You've got to thank him for the flowers, don't you?"

"I'll send him an email."

 

This was okay, but I wanted Betsy to push Tori a bit more, and reference Tori's recent success with a client. So I made a little change, and that change set off a domino run of problems. See if you can tell why I wasn't happy. The words in red are new:

 

"That is your choice, not a requirement," Betsy retorted."You just closed a huge deal. You could take a night off."

Tori narrowed her gaze, not backing down an inch.

Betsy sighed. "Right. You're like talking to a brick wall. At least give Brit a call. You've got to thank him for the flowers, don't you?"

 

Did you catch the problem? Now I've got "talking to a brick wall" rhyming with "give Brit a call."

I tried various ways of revising the sentences, and finally come up with:

 

"You're like talking to a brick wall. At least call him. You've got to thank him for the flowers, don't you?"

 

I like the way wall and call are separated by structure, but of course, I've created a new echo-y problem:

 

"At least call him. You've got to thank him for the flowers…

 

I tear out a few piece of hair, pet the dog, and drink more coffee. Then I play around with this for another few minutes and end up with:

 

Betsy sighed. "Right. You're like talking to a brick wall. At least call him. You've got to say thank you for the flowers, don't you?"

 

Great. Problem solved. Tomorrow, I will probably delete this whole section and render all this work meaningless. But at least it gave me something to blog about.

 

HA! The life of an author…