Writing is Rewriting

By AnnetteDashofy

Once again, I’ve dug into my list of questions asked by my street team. This one comes from Sandy Giden who wanted to know about my revision process. As you’re reading this post, I’ve just completed teaching a workshop on the topic at the Writers Road Trip Conference in Erie, PA. As I’m writing this post, I’m preparing for the workshop. Perfect timing.

By the time I’ve written “The End” on my first draft, I’ve already made a lot of tweaks. I don’t necessarily recommend this to beginning writers though. To them, I say, “Finish the book!” It’s too easy to keep coming back and rewriting the first three chapters without ever reaching the last one. Besides, things will happen later in the book that require you to come back and fix, possibly delete, that highly polished scene in chapter two. The one you spent hours perfecting. Killing your babies is painful enough when they’re diamonds in the rough. Deleting what you might feel is your best writing will make you sit in a corner and weep.

Once I’ve completed that first draft, I go back to the beginning and read it all the way through. Being old-school, I like printing the whole thing out so I can make notes on the pages and paste sticky flags all over it. Lately though, I’ve decided to conserve paper and have started doing my read-through on the computer. Instead of marking up pages, I keep a notepad handy to jot page numbers and memos.

This first read-through is where I attempt to catch inconsistencies, loose story threads, repeated reveals, and various other continuity problems. I might also start picking up on overused words and phrases, but I don’t fix those yet. I simply make a note.

I try to complete this read-through in one day…two at the most. Otherwise, I won’t remember stuff like Zoe learned XYZ on page 20 and learns it again on page 250.

With my notes in hand, I dive back in, fixing the mistakes I found, deleting chunks that feel unnecessary or sluggish. This is one of two MAJOR rounds of revisions I make. This is also where I start focusing on language.

In my first draft, I use a lot of lazy verbs and words I know are weak. They’re my placeholders, getting the idea down quickly as I power through the pages. During this major rewrite, I find those placeholder words and stop to puzzle out better ways to say what I meant with stronger verbs, less wordy sentences, tighter structure. I may spend an entire day on one page to get it where I want it.

As I close in on my deadline, I make several passes with that list of overused words I made earlier. Thesaurus in hand, I make use of the “find” feature and go on a seek-and-destroy mission. For me, this means one overused word at a time and multiple passes through the manuscript.

Before sending the almost completed book to my editor, I do another read-through to find any place where fixing something on page 193 made that scene back on page 59 totally wrong. 

Once I complete the second read-through and made the necessary adjustments, I ship it off to my editor.

I’ll get it back with a list of issues that need to be addressed, which is when I do my second major rewrite. The process is very much the same as with the first except I’m working from my editor’s notes instead of my own.

This is really the last chance I have to make the BIG fixes. I’ll do another read-through when I’m done, right before I return it to my editor.

(Before you ask, YES, I get really sick of reading my own book by the time it hits the bookstore shelves.)

From then on, I only have the opportunity to fix the small stuff—typos, missed words, punctuation, etc. in the line edit and proofreading phases of production. Proofreading, by the way, involves one last read-through, but this time the book is in galley form, which means the pages look like the finished product. Somehow, that makes it more fun!

That’s my process. What about my fellow writers out there? How does your revision process differ from mine?