7 Rules to Write By – #4: Have the will and skill to revise.

It’s Jeff’s turn to be critiqued, and he’s doing everything right. He listens carefully, taking notes. He doesn’t argue or try to explain; he gets it that if people are confused by what’s on the page, he needs to fix it on the page. He notices when several people bring up the same issue. But then, the next time he’s up for critique, he presents a revision of the work he showed last time. And almost nothing has changed! The material may read a bit more smoothly, but it still has the same fundamental problems of structure or characterization or story logic that it had before.

If you’ve spent any time in writing workshops or critique groups, you’ve probably seen this happen. Or maybe you’ve been Jeff. You genuinely valued a number of the comments at the first critique session and did your best to work with them, and then you heard from the group that they saw no substantial improvements.

Revision is the territory that separates the professionals from the amateurs. First, you need to be willing to make changes based on feedback from a trusted teacher or group … and, down the road, from an agent or editor – and serious writers are. But it takes more than a professional attitude to revise effectively. You have to know how to do it. That’s why rule #4 is:

Have the will and skill to revise.

 Comments on one’s writing tend to be diagnostic – “this is a problem” – rather than prescriptive – “here’s how to fix it.” That’s good; it’s your story. But how do you take those diagnostic comments and use them to bring more clarity and power to your writing? Here are some tips.

* Resist the temptation to jump in and start revising the minute you come home after being critiqued. Give feedback at least 24 hours to settle.

* Go over what you brought home from the critique session – your notes, written comments from the group, maybe a recording – and look for two things:

- Where do several people raise the same issue?

- What resonates for you? It may be a comment from just one person, but it’s the person whose judgment you trust the most, or it just rang true.

Those are the areas to work on.

* What happens next depends on what level of revision is required. Some suggestions are at the micro level of changing a few words or tightening a scene. Easy-peasy, right? You can dive right in. But often, when someone does a revision in which not enough changes, it’s because s/he needed to work on an intermediate or even a macro level.

* An intermediate revision might involve such things as fleshing out a character or plot element, building a relationship, changing the sequence of scenes, or weaving material into the early chapters to establish motivation for an action taken halfway into the book. If you need to do this more complex level of revision, be aware that whatever you’ve already written has a certain authority simply by being on the page. If you just open your document and start writing, there’s a good chance you won’t go deeply enough. I suggest doing some prep writing away from the page, for instance:

- character sketches

- free writing from a character’s point of view

- scene analysis: taking apart a scene and writing what each character is thinking and feeling moment to moment, as well as what they say. Robert McKee in Story (p. 154) gives a terrific example of this process in his analysis of a scene from “Chinatown.” (Story, while aimed at screenwriters has some great information for novelists, even if you do sometimes want to throw the book across the room.)

- structural analysis: working with your outline – or making an outline, if you hadn’t before – to consider changes in sequence or plan where you want to deepen or add new material. For instance, you might have Cathy mangle her sister’s thumb in an accident in chapter 3, a guilt-inducing event that will help readers understand why, years later, she puts up with her sister’s demands. BTW, as a general rule, it’s good to make your characters suffer.

* What if you literally have to do a re-vision, to take a completely fresh look at some macro aspect of the fictional world you’ve created? If you’re contemplating large-scale changes, you can use the same prep writing techniques as for an intermediate revision – character sketches, scene analysis, etc. Having an outline can be essential, if you need to consider different approaches to structure, sequence of events, and when various characters will come on the scene.

For a macro revision, you also need time – weeks or even (gulp) months in which a new vision can take shape strongly enough to hold its own against the concrete reality of what’s already on the page. And changes at this level aren’t isolated to a single chapter or scene; they send out ripples. For instance, my fabulous editor at Random House asked me to take a different approach to the contemporary chapters that are about one-quarter of The Tin Horse. I spent two months doing character sketches and free writing, playing with my outline, and just letting ideas percolate. One of the biggest changes I eventually made was to move the entrance of one character from chapter 17 back to chapter 4, and the ripples extended through the entire novel: I needed to develop that character more and weave her into the contemporary story from chapter 4 on; and her expanded presence revealed surprising aspects of my main character, Elaine.

Trying for this deep a re-vision may feel terrifying. Fantastic! Remember Rule #1 of 7 Rules to Write By: Go toward what scares you. The scary places will bring out your best work.

* One last thing: Save your old draft.