Revision Is A Bear! Or Is It?

As I new writer, I approached revision like this:


The mere thought of all the potential mistakes in my novel made me feel as if I were, well, being eaten alive by a bear. Where do you start when there are SO many problems with a story? I chose to ignore the big, structural problems, choosing instead to focus on small, safe things like word choice, punctuation...

And it wasn't too effective. My manuscripts gathered a stacks of rejection form letters from publishers. Eventually, I learned the importance of revision, but I still didn't have many effective tools for approaching it. I simply read through my manuscripts over and over again, looking for things to fix. And sometimes I couldn't see the problems through the, um, car windshield.


Earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend Darcy Pattison's novel revision retreat. Aha! Using Darcy's workbook, Novel Metamorphosis, we learned how to tackle revision issues one at a time. First we created a novel inventory, noting the plot action and emotion in each chapter. So helpful! At a glance, I noticed a potentially weak chapter and places where I could strengthen emotional resonance.

Another incredibly useful revision technique is the shrunken manuscript. Darcy showed us how examining our novel in 6 point font, single spaced, can show us the overall patterns in our stories. One attendee realized that her story lacked conflict for several chapters in a row. That's exactly the kind of comment I used to ignore (my critique partners just didn't get it, I'd tell myself). But it's hard to argue with bright, bold highlighting. To learn more about the shrunken manuscript process, check out Darcy's blog.

All weekend we worked on small sections of our stories, which made the process seem quite do-able--and not quite so scary or overwhelming. Because revision really isn't a bear, it's simply a series of small tasks. Think of them as cuddly little bear cubs!

Happy revising! (We couldn't resist stopping at Bear World on our way home from the retreat.)

Posted by Sydney Salter