Anatomy of a Revision (Or, Surmounting the Suck)

How to revise your writing

Anatomy of a Revision (Or, Surmounting the Suck)

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Last week I posted about “the suck,” that stage in our writing where all our efforts feel disappointing, underwhelming, or downright bad—inspired by traversing my own suckfield while drafting a contracted article for a writer’s magazine: a 2,000-word feature on developing character, with an imminent deadline.

Intuitive Editing Tiffany Yates Martin
Intuitive Editing Tiffany Yates Martin

I talked in that post about navigating the Quagmire of Suck and Suck Swamp and the Great Abyss of Suck (okay, maybe not actually by their geographical names) to find your way to what you’re trying to get on the page. This week I thought it might be instructive to walk you through my actual journey across the Suckpits of Suckville to the shiny gates of Finished Draft City, in case it might serve as a map through your own Cesspool of Suck.

(Readers of Intuitive Editing may recognize some of these recommended techniques from that book.)

Approaching an Edit

You already know a bit about how I  got to my first draft, from last week’s post. I started, as I usually do with my nonfiction writing, with an outline and my proposal for the article. If you’re writing story, the equivalent of that might be your summary or synopsis, your logline, your outline if you are a plotter, or whatever type of prep you’ve done to organize your thoughts and central story.

Then I start writing, using the points in my outline as a guide and just getting my thoughts on the page as best as possible. This might be the equivalent of your “shitty first draft,” the “vomit draft,” whatever bodily effluvium you like to describe the process of initially getting a version of the story on the page. Or you might be more methodical, fully fleshing out each scene, polishing as you go. There’s no right or wrong way—just your way.

Once I have what feels like a complete-ish version of the article, I step away at least overnight, longer if possible, to let it sit and simmer and come back to it with fresh eyes. Invariably it continues to percolate in my brain, and so in the meantime if ideas or phrases or corrections pop to mind, I jot them down or send them to myself in an email to consider when I start revising.

And then—this is key to a successful revision, friends—when I come back to it I read the whole thing through without stopping to fix anything. I may jot a quick few words of something that jumps out at me that needs addressing later, but this is my best chance to objectively take in the whole of what I have, the way a reader will, and I don’t want to squander that objectivity by bogging down in revising before I’ve actually assessed the effectiveness of the whole piece–in other words, the editing.

Editing = assessing

Revising = addressing

These are separate processes—and most authors skip over the first essential step. You can’t know what may need to be revised until you’ve assessed it with an editorial eye to determine what’s working and what’s not.

This applies equally to full-length manuscripts as to my shorter article—don’t stop and fix at this stage. Read it all the way through like a reader and see what you actually have on the page.

Tip: Read your WIP all the way through, like a reader, without making any revisions.

When I reread my first-draft article from last week’s post, it turned out it was not quite the steaming pile of stank I felt it was as I was writing it.

This may sound familiar to you—we are our own harshest critics, and it can be difficult to see how effective our writing is as we’re doing it. Our creative efforts never really match the way we saw them in our heads. So it was a pleasant surprise to find I had more usable material than I expected.

But it wasn’t ready yet. Not by a long shot.

Stanch the Bleeders

Once I know how the whole is holding together, I start analyzing more deeply. Does it immediately hook the reader? Does it flow? Does it say what I wanted to say? Does it deliver on the promise of the premise? Is it effective? Clear? Complete?

When I have a clear idea of what’s working and what isn’t, now I can start revising.

But rather than going from the beginning and revising as I go, I start with the major foundational elements that jumped out at me that may not yet be fully holding together. Master editor Sol Stein calls this the “triage” method of revision, and I’ve found it to be the most effective and efficient way to approach it. Starting with minor things is like applying a bandage to a paper cut while the patient is bleeding out from a missing limb.

And addressing the big-picture changes is likely to affect the rest, so you’re also avoiding wasted effort on verbiage that may not make the final cut once you stanch the bleeders.

Tip: Start with the big-picture concerns, and circle in on finer points in subsequent revision passes.

The first thing I picked out was that after I had finished the first draft, I thought the article felt weighted with too many examples from specific books I used to illustrate points, which I was concerned cluttered the piece and diffused impact. I’d intended to come back to the revision and carry a single main example through instead, but on my reread I realized the books actually illustrated the points well, and across a variety of genres, which felt more useful to me to a broader swath of authors.

Tip: Pay attention to what’s working, as well as what isn’t.

But…that central example felt clichéd and sexist—I’d reached for something easy while drafting—so I brainstormed a new one.

That meant that I then needed to go through and address every section where I had used that example to illustrate a point, changing it to the new version, and replace all references to it, which altered the gist a little—for the better, I thought, clarifying the central theme.

Tip: Look for where you’ve defaulted to stereotypes or easy, predictable choices and brainstorm something more unique, original, and unexpected.

Momentum was uneven, so I changed the order of some grafs and sections to lead the reader into and through the article by grouping thoughts together more cohesively, ensuring I’d built the thesis logically—brick by brick—and improving the overall development and flow of the piece.

Then I went back to the opening, which I often simply paste in from my article or course proposal just to get me started. In revision I’ll go through and reexamine this and see if it accurately sets up the premise of the piece as written, if I’ve said it in the clearest way, or if I have anything to add. This is also where I’ll hunker down a bit to see if I can come up with a stronger hook.

Tip: Orient and hook your reader right away, and ensure you draw them through the story by engaging their interest, presenting a problem (whether fiction or nonfiction), and propelling them steadily through the WIP.

Break It Up

Sometimes I’m doing all this in a single edit and revision pass—but much more often it’s multiple ones. Anytime I feel myself getting lost in the weeds and lose my objectivity—and you will—I take a break.

Not only does that let you come back with fresh perspective, but in that downtime away from the manuscript your brain often keeps churning through your work, making new connections and examining things from various angles. Then when you come back to it, you can continue to analyze what’s working and what isn’t, and fine-tune ever more granularly.

On a subsequent passes, for instance, I discovered that two of my main points were phrased in a way that made them sound like the same thing—which was redundant, but also inaccurate, and a major flaw in the article that I’d been blind to on several passes—so I reworked them to say what I’d intended to say.

Tip: Edit and revise in stages, and step away regularly to restore your objectivity and give your brain a chance to percolate on your WIP and uncover issues you may have initially missed.

Once the substance of the piece is as strong as I can make it—in the case of your writing, that means all the story elements are solid and cohesive—that’s when I take a magnifying glass to the prose itself.

Tip: Line editing comes last.

This may be one of the more important tips in this post. Too often this is where revisions go wrong straight out of the gate: Writers want to begin an edit by massaging our glorious words to make them as striking and elegant and vivid as possible. It’s what I call “the sexy part” of revision, but as I often say, that’s like decorating the house before it’s fully built. The most beautiful décor on earth won’t hide sloppy or incomplete construction.

Often as I am writing, so that I don’t get bogged down I will put in placeholders like “heading” or “transition” where I need one, if I don’t want to take the time while drafting to think about it. I will put uninspired or inexact language in brackets so I know later to go back and find better words or phrasing.

I’ll highlight any easy default words I know I’m using too often, and revision is when I’ll go in and look for more varied and imaginative ways to phrase things.

I will keep reading, combing through the language to make sure I have said everything exactly as I want to say it but that it’s not repetitive, to see if I can come up with a more exact or colorful metaphor, etc.

As much as possible I continue to take breaks between revision passes, whether that’s just getting up for my desk for a while, or letting it sit overnight or longer. Every time I come back to it with a fresh perspective, I see new things.

When I can no longer see it objectively, it’s time to send it to my editor for her fresh eyes and input. This article came in over my assigned word count, but I can’t tell if it’s bloat or needed expansion on the topic, so this is when I bring in a truly objective perspective.


Editing fiction and other story is a little different from editing and revising an article, but the main principles are the same:

  • Take time away after finishing the draft to attain objectivity
  • Make your initial read straight through without stopping to “fix” anything
  • Start with the bleeders—the biggest issues
  • Home in ever more granularly on each revision pass, like a sculptor making ever-finer adjustments in her creation, making sure to take time away in between passes to regain a measure of objectivity
  • Line edit last
  • Make it as strong as you’re able; then bring in an outside objective perspective

I’ve created an extensive Self-editing Checklist that may also be useful in your own editing and revision process that you can download for free here.

Over to you, authors—do you differentiate between editing and revision, so you can approach your own work with an objective eye? Where do you struggle most in the process? What are your best editing/revision tips and tools?

If you want to see the final result of my editing and revision, the article I wrote about in this week’s post and last, “Acting Against Their Nature,” will be featured in the July/August 2024 issue of Writer’s Digest.

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6 Comments. Leave new

  • Christina Anne Hawthorne
    February 15, 2024 1:41 pm

    Maybe it’s because “edit” and “revision” are tossed about interchangeably so often that, at some point, I defined them myself—backwards. 🤣 At this point, I struggle to switch the definitions, though I otherwise follow your advice.

    The only thing I can think to add would be what I’ll call sectioning. If I’ve written a scene or post that defies all my efforts to fix what feels “off,” I’ll break it into blocks or sections. In other words, so I can see individual trees in the forest (beware the evergreens, they hide a lot!). I’ll often discover the paragraph order is wrong, or that I’ve repeated myself.

    I downloaded the checklist. Thank you!

    Reply
  • Cristy Robinson
    February 15, 2024 2:27 pm

    I think I struggle most with gaining perspective on the draft. I’m a fiction novel author writing in series. So when I lose the big picture, it’s a disaster movie! I had never heard of differentiating between editing and revising, but I think that one tip will help me see the forest. Thanks as always!

    Reply
    • Objective perspective is a hard one, maybe the hardest part of editing our own work–especially with a series.

      A few tips that I’ve found useful: Keep a series style sheet that lists out all your characters, including brief descriptions and relevant backstory, as well as places and other key elements of the story world. It can also be helpful to create a “Cliff’s Notes” version of each title–with the major players of each book, the central plot and key subplots, running threads for the series, etc. (This can be as simple as collating the detailed synopsis of each title.) I also recommend defining the overall series arc and character arcs–the long-term overarching journeys–as well as the arcs of each title.

      Finally, practice in gaining that editorial objectivity is invaluable–and why the most popular course I teach is probably my “Analyze Like an Editor/How to Train Your Editor Brain” workshop. If you are constantly honing your skills in seeing what’s on the page in other people’s stories, where you have built-in perspective that most of us lack in our own stories, it trains you to be able to do that even in your own writing.

      Thanks for the comment, Cristy!

      Reply
  • I find that sending my draft to read in Kindle (or a kindle app) is a great way to read through without being tempted to stop and make revisions. I do make a note when something pops out at me, but acting on the note is for later.

    Reply

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