Why You Should Throw a Wrench In Your Editing Routine

The “Now What?” Months are here! In 2014, we’ll be bringing you advice from authors who published their NaNo-novels, editors, agents, and more to help you polish November’s first draft until it gleams. Author Michael David Lukas arms you with tips to keep your editing process fresh:

As Thomas Edison so wisely said, writing is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent revision. Or maybe it was ninety-nine percent perspiration. And, come to think of it, he was probably talking about inventing, not writing…

Regardless, it’s true. Writing is all about revision. And revision is hard work, in no small part because it involves killing your darlings and ripping your beautiful beloved writing to shreds. And so, as you set out on the long road of revision, here are a few tips and tricks that might help make the journey a little smoother:

Make an Aspirational Outline.

Now that you’ve gotten a few weeks between you and your first draft, sit down with a blank piece of paper and make an aspirational outline, a blueprint of what you want the next draft to look like.

Now that we’re a few weeks away from November, you will most likely have tons of great ideas for how to change it. The novel should be set in a utopian Seattle of the future, not that dusty abandoned copper town in Idaho. The main character should be a talking elephant, not a morose concert pianist.

Whatever brilliant changes you decide to make, this is your chance to integrate them into the book. This is your chance to sketch out a new structure, before you are drawn back in by the luminous prose of your first draft.

Print it Out.

Once you’ve made your aspirational outline, then and only then, you can peek at the first draft. Print it out, sit down at your kitchen table, and try to read it over once through without making any notes, try to get into the flow of the book, as a reader would, try to lose yourself in the plot.

Mostly likely you will feel a little relieved (this isn’t so bad) and a little sick to your stomach (but it isn’t so good, either). Once you’ve read it through once, pick up your red pen and read it over again, this time with your harsh editor/mean English teacher hat on. No need to sugar coat your comments. The only feelings you will hurt are your own. This is your chance to chop things up, move them around, cut them out, and make the first draft fit into the aspirational outline.

Change Your Routine.

After you’ve been working on revisions for a while, take a tiny step back and throw a wrench in your routine.

If you usually write at night, try writing in the morning. If you write in the coffee shop down the block, try writing in the library. If you write by hand, try the computer. If you write on the computer, try writing by hand. It may seem counter-intuitive to break your routine once you’ve gotten rolling. But even the tiniest of changes will help you see this new draft in new ways, and make sure you don’t get stuck in a new rut.

Go for a Walk.

If you do get stuck in a rut, try going for a walk. As Henry David Thoreau said, “Methinks the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”

Or, if you don’t trust Thoreau, take it from Friedrich Nietzsche: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

Michael David Lukas has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, a night-shift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and a waiter at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont. Translated into more than a dozen languages, his first novel  The Oracle of Stamboul  was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. He lives in Oakland, California.

Top photo by Flickr user Tsahi Levent-Levi.