Great Guides to Revisions

I have revision on the brain – two novels that drain all life and sanity from me when I gaze upon them, three short stories that are great but need complete rewrites, as in throw-away-the-current-version-and-retell-the-story rewrites. So I thought I’d post a couple of links to some of my revision resources.

For bare technique, nothing beats Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Manuscript Revision. It’s the mental pain equivalent of sawing off your own arm, but it gets all the suckitude over with FAST. One notebook, one red pen, one printed out manuscript, and about a week of horrifying, relentless mental agony – and you’re all done and ready to create your clean copy. Pro tip: the third paragraph on that link? Read it EVERY SINGLE DAY you’re revising. It’s comforting.

To give yourself perspective, read Chuck Wendig’s 25 Steps to Edit the Unmerciful Suck Out of your Story. With a caveat that there is pretty raw language in this piece, it will make you laugh at the evil that is revision. To use these two articles together, you can insert the One-Pass Manuscript Revision technique somewhere around Chuck’s #12 or 13.

Once you have your revision ready, go out and read Dave King and Renni Brown’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. The editorial notes you took above were for major revision and changes to your novel. King and Brown’s book will help you with the nuts and bolts, smoothing out rough edges and making your story flow properly.

Concurrently, I recommend coffee – lots and lots of coffee.