Seeing Through the Dark: Revision and Research

By Tamara Dean

Long ago, as a beginning writer, I dreaded revision. I believed the axiom, “All writing is rewriting,” but I wasn’t confident that I could improve my drafts significantly by spending more time with them. I tinkered—replacing weak verbs and cutting unnecessary bits—enough to tell myself that I had revised. Then I submitted my stories and essays.

Sometimes they were published in small journals.

But usually they weren’t.

I’d sent them out before exploring and exploitin...