I usually don't revise. If I have to rewrite something, I start from scratch and work in anything from the first draft worth salvaging, which is usually little.
Generally speaking, though, if it doesn't come in the first breath, it ain't comin'. For me.
Hmm... that's how I am with critical papers for school, but with creative writing, I'm not blessed with quite the brilliance I have for argumentation, so I can't get away without revising. It's very sad, because I don't know how to do it, which is really, really, REALLY cramping my style. *sigh*
I hate typing in general. It reminds me of school work. But revision, once I get it typed out, I'm fine. I'm a bit of a perfectionist though and may continue revising something for months before the deadline, and I send it off, still not sure I've covered everything. I usually don't. It probably comes across as over-worked, because it is.
You know, you realize that the first five or six paragraphs of your first scene are stuffier than King Tut's tomb
This means I get to cut more, and type less. Which is good, "Kill your 'darlings.'"
someone points out that your main character's bipolarity suffers from borderline personality disorder
Well sometimes disorders can go hand in hand, people (as well as characters) can be misdiagnosed. I think one of my characters actually suffers the exact opposite of this. No one's pointed it out to me, yet, but reading Girl, Interrupted and knowing people with Bipolar Disorder, my character acts a lot more like the latter than the former. Unfortunately I don't have any personal experience with BPD, I
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Heh. My examples of things to revise were sort of hypothetical. :-)
I hate revising specifically because I'm afraid of my pieces feeling over-worked. Like I said, the more I revise, I feel like the choppier and choppier the piece becomes until it's really just several no longer fluid scenes stuck together in a single Word document. And nobody wants to read that, you know?
First of all, don't write shitty first drafts. Write good first drafts. Forget about Annie Lamott or whomever -- maybe she writes shitty first drafts, but that doesn't mean you have to.
Second, if you read it through and certain parts sound flat or wrong, or if you come up with a better way to say something, then that's how you know you need to revise.
Third, learn not to fear revision, because that will interfere with everything and make you creatively constipated and lead you to make stupid mistakes.
Fourth, if after you've done what you've done, it sounds choppy, put it aside for a couple of days or longer. Work on something else. Then return to it, and if it still sounds choppy, rewrite it. Take it from the top, include what you want to include, and leave behind what you don't like.
Revision to me is re-vision -- if the vision was okay the first time, then why re-vision it? Save that energy for something new.
Re: 1st half When I was doing my undergrad in creative writing...jeff2001May 4 2007, 15:57:14 UTC
I am always annoyed by smug answers which suggest you should just be a better writer the first time around.
I am always annoyed by bitter responses suggesting a mountain of work because of the implicit assumption first drafts "always" suck.
Not everybody does it your way. The poster probably vomited in fear after seeing your list of demands. "Every writer is different", right? Not everybody does it by intellectualizing it.
And it's not a bad thing to suggest that maybe the default state of all writers is not crap, and that one should try at least to bring one's A game to the first draft. Even if it needs revision, and it often will, it may need less revision than otherwise.
Also, it's not criminal to put writers off, because many of them blow, and are better off being welders. :-)
Re: 1st half When I was doing my undergrad in creative writing...mm511May 4 2007, 19:22:04 UTC
First, I've not vomited in about fourteen years, and I intend to keep it that way. Every writer *is* different, and I'm trying to find where I fit; the whole point of this post was to have people tell me their own ways to revise. This is as valid a version of revision as yours (don't) is.
Second, simply because I (and Anne Lamott) agree that first drafts are often shitty does not mean that we did not put everything we had into those drafts. Regardless of how stupendous something is the first time around, I would bet my life that it can always be made better, and that's what revision is about.
Once you have lined up your narrative in sequence (some things may be going on simultaneously) then line up your characters. Make a case for why each one would be there, would Serenade really blow off her martial arts class to go clubbing? If so, what's the reason, if it is no more than 'because I need her there to do X' you have a problem on your hands, yes, the big red pen comes out again. Also, this has a great advantage of seeing where you have continuity issues, if X is at both the club and the battle and the scenes are going on at the same time, you can work it out pretty quickly. Also, it lets you see what the main narrative drivers are, could they be strengthened? How do they advance the story? What better ideas could you come up with
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Thanks for all your help! There's some interesting things to consider in these posts! I don't know if I'll ever *love* revision, but I hope that sooner or later I'll at least learn how to make the best of it.
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Generally speaking, though, if it doesn't come in the first breath, it ain't comin'. For me.
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You know, you realize that the first five or six paragraphs of your first scene are stuffier than King Tut's tomb
This means I get to cut more, and type less. Which is good, "Kill your 'darlings.'"
someone points out that your main character's bipolarity suffers from borderline personality disorder
Well sometimes disorders can go hand in hand, people (as well as characters) can be misdiagnosed. I think one of my characters actually suffers the exact opposite of this. No one's pointed it out to me, yet, but reading Girl, Interrupted and knowing people with Bipolar Disorder, my character acts a lot more like the latter than the former. Unfortunately I don't have any personal experience with BPD, I ( ... )
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btw, love the T.S. Eliot quotage
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I hate revising specifically because I'm afraid of my pieces feeling over-worked. Like I said, the more I revise, I feel like the choppier and choppier the piece becomes until it's really just several no longer fluid scenes stuck together in a single Word document. And nobody wants to read that, you know?
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Second, if you read it through and certain parts sound flat or wrong, or if you come up with a better way to say something, then that's how you know you need to revise.
Third, learn not to fear revision, because that will interfere with everything and make you creatively constipated and lead you to make stupid mistakes.
Fourth, if after you've done what you've done, it sounds choppy, put it aside for a couple of days or longer. Work on something else. Then return to it, and if it still sounds choppy, rewrite it. Take it from the top, include what you want to include, and leave behind what you don't like.
Revision to me is re-vision -- if the vision was okay the first time, then why re-vision it? Save that energy for something new.
Reply
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I am always annoyed by bitter responses suggesting a mountain of work because of the implicit assumption first drafts "always" suck.
Not everybody does it your way. The poster probably vomited in fear after seeing your list of demands. "Every writer is different", right? Not everybody does it by intellectualizing it.
And it's not a bad thing to suggest that maybe the default state of all writers is not crap, and that one should try at least to bring one's A game to the first draft. Even if it needs revision, and it often will, it may need less revision than otherwise.
Also, it's not criminal to put writers off, because many of them blow, and are better off being welders. :-)
Reply
Second, simply because I (and Anne Lamott) agree that first drafts are often shitty does not mean that we did not put everything we had into those drafts. Regardless of how stupendous something is the first time around, I would bet my life that it can always be made better, and that's what revision is about.
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Thanks again!
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