7 Myths About Revising your Writing

If you want to improve your writing you know you have to revise your writing. But, in my work with writers I encounter a lot of resistance when it comes to revision.

Some of this resistance comes from myths around the best way to revise and edit your own writing.

I’m here to bust seven of those myths.

For more, listen to the companion podcast episode

1. Revision is all about seeing where you’ve failed

It’s not. 

As I talked about last week, seeing where you’re succeeding can be just as important, if not more than seeing what’s not working. You don’t want to cut out your best lines!.

It can be helpful to get other people to look at your work, both for a fresh pair of eyes on a project we may be too close to, and because we do tend to be a little hard on ourselves. 

Experienced writers tend to have a well-developed sense of what’s working in their writing as well as what’s not…but it’s not flawless and we all need a little feedback from time to time.

And when you DO find something that needs to be reworked (let’s not call it a ‘failure’) work on celebrating. 

  • Seeing what’s not working gives you an opportunity to fix it. 
  • Going back to older stories and noticing what’s not working, is a measure of how far your skills have advanced. 

So celebrate!

2. You must walk away from your work for two weeks, before you revise

Continue reading “7 Myths About Revising your Writing”

Now What?


Revision Mess

StoryADay September is over, and now, a week into October, you might be missing the thrill of high-velocity creativity. 

But this is the perfect time to look through your stories and figure out:

  • which ones are perfect (ha!),
  • which were useful exercises that will forever be consigned to a dark corner of your hard drive, and
  • which might be worth revising.

Don’t Love Revision?

I know, I know! 

  • Turning out new stories, racking up the word count, feels productive. Revisions can feel like, ugh…spinning your wheels.
  • Writing first drafts is kind of exhausting, and revision feels like preparing to climb the same mountain twice.
  • Writing new words, when you’re in the flow, feels like flying. Revision can feel like staring at a report of ‘why my writing sucks!’

If any of these treacherous thoughts are keeping you from making your stories the best they can be, delighting and impressing readers, and learning to be more productive in your writing practice, you’ll want to grab the  free StoryADay workbook: 

seven, concise pages of tips and mindset tricks to help you learn to, well, love revision. And it’s yours free, right now!

And when you’ve read it I’d love to know what questions you still have. Have you been in critique groups before? What worked and what didn’t? Are you terrified by the idea? (You’re not alone!)

Just reply leave a comment below and tell me what you’re thinking.

2019 Day 30 – Roll Call

This it! The end of StoryADay 2019! You are an absolutely rockstar for being here today!

Do me a favor? Leave a comments below, and answer these two questions:

  1. How many stories did you write
  2. Did you meet your goal (or get close enough to feel proud of yourself)?

But don’t forget to write today’s story.

The Prompt

About A Writer

Normally I don’t encourage stories about writers because it seems kind of cheap (and uninteresting for the readers), but today I think you’ve earned it.

  • Use this prompt to write a story about a writer like yourself who has just undergone a big challenge.
  • Or satirize the idea of writing about a writer.
  • Or use it any other way that occurs to you. (And hey, it worked for Stephen King, so who am I to question it?)

Use all the tricks you’ve been practicing this month to show us what a day in the life of a writer can be.

Planning Ahead

You’ve achieved so much this month. I’m so proud of you.

To keep the momentum going, mark your calendars for these StoryADay events throughout the year.

  • Serious Writer’s Accountability Group (SWAGr) – 1st of every month (sign up for reminders here)
  • Critique Week, October 20-17 – A chance to get your story reviewed by your peers and by me (more details coming soon)
  • NaNoWriMo Support Group – for members of the Superstars group only.
  • Critique Week, February 22-29 – A chance to get your story reviewed by your peers and by me (more details coming soon)
  • And much more, including weekly writing prompts on Wednesdays, posts in The Reading Room, podcasts, interviews, and workshops.
  • Use the StoryADay Events calendar to stay up to date

Go!

Don’t forget to leave a comment saying how many stories you wrote this month, and how you feel about it! Then come back tomorrow to record your June goals in the SWAGr post.

113 – Should You Edit While You Write?

This could be a really short podcast (just me screaming “NO!”), but I decided to talk in a more constructive way about the reasons why I think it’s important to write fast first drafts and save revisions for later.

With thanks to my StoryADay Superstars group for raising this talking point as they go through StoryADay September.

 

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

[Write on Wednesday] Revisit An Older Story

One of the only ways to get better as a writer is to learn to revise our stories. This month, at StoryADay we’re focusing on revision. Keep reading for a free lesson on how to achieve the right revision mindset, and for news about this year’s StoryFest!

The Prompt

Take a story you have written before and rework it, today

Tips

  • Listen to this audio lesson (or read the transcript) that helps you shed any negativity you might feel about revision.
  • Do not correct your grammar and typos first! Instead, look at the structure of the story. Does it make sense? Is anything missing? Is there any conflict in your story?
  • Then look at your main character. Are they consistent? Do they develop over the story?
  • Read through this guest post from DIYMFA.com’s Gabriela Pereira, about how to approach this layered method of revision. Pick one layer to work on first. Don’t get overwhelmed.
  • If this very structural method of revision doesn’t work for you, still bear in mind the general principle that the big story questions come first, spelling corrections come last!
  • Now is the time to think about your audience. Who will want to read your story? (Hint: don’t say ‘everybody’.) If you’re writing romance, you’re probably writing for women ages 25-39. Are your settings, situations, characters and language appropriate to that audience? If you’re writing an adventure story for 13 year old boys, is your protagonist slightly older than them and does he have strongly defined personality traits and friends with complimentary traits? Is the situation he faces exciting and just slightly outside his capabilities (but not too much? If you’re writing for flash fiction fans, is your story a little Rubik’s cube of a thing, but much, much prettier?
  • What length should a story like this be? Check out Duotrope.com for listings of publications seeking stories (they list story lengths and sub-genres). It’s all very well to write something unique, but it’s much harder to get published if nobody can fit you into a sub-genre. And since we’re talking about revision, this month, I’m encouraging you to think about audience and market more than I do when we’re just working on creativity!

STORYFEST IS COMING, June 23-24, 2018

If you took part in StoryADay May this year, our annual story showcase is scheduled for the weekend of June 23-24. (See previous versions of StoryFest here)

To take part, make sure you’re on the mailing list (sign up below) and watch your inbox for information about how to submit your favorite story and recommend one by another StoryADay writer. (No, there’s no ‘judging’ or selection process, you simply nominate one of the stories you wrote during StoryADay May this year.)