“My pencils outlast their erasers.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov
I’m always reminding my students that “good writing is re-writing”.
I push them to read their work out loud. To look for redundancies. Delete unnecessary phrases. Re-order sentences.
This is only a start, of course. Revising is not the same as editing. A perfectly grammatical essay can still be trite, boring, or nonsensical.
First comes the vision, then many revisions.
What is the essence of your story?
What are you trying to say?
What do you want the reader to think/feel?
Revision is an art that’s both gratifying and frustrating.
Revising a story involves assembling many, many moving pieces into a cohesive whole.
The mission is daunting and best not attempted as a solo task. There are many revision resources to help you.
Deep revision, however, means seeing your story through fresh eyes. This is not easy to do when you’ve been working on the same novel for three years.
That’s where critique partners, beta readers, mentors, and editors come in. These team players will gently point out flaws in your game. They’ll notice inconsistencies, pose thoughtful questions, and suggest revisions to help you reach your peak performance.
Sometimes these revisions are painful to employ.
Like cutting out large sections, or crafting a new beginning.
Or saying goodbye to a character.
Or changing the ending you thought was pretty darn clever.
In order to revise you must take in the big picture…
and then re-vision the story.
When your clouded eyes begin to see anew, change is possible.
The art of writing revision can be applied to our lives.
We can look back at certain chapters of our life and realize we had misread them all along. Light shines on the pages. Contrasting colors come into view. Characters take on new dimensions. Truths are revealed. This re-vision shapes tomorrow’s unwritten chapters.
Revision allows for transformation.
We all have stories we tell about ourselves. We cling to these narratives, even when they no longer serve us.
Sometimes we need an editor to help us see where to make deletions, insertions, and add fresh imagery to our story.
And sometimes, the best—and hardest—thing to do is to let go of that story and begin a new one. ~
EVELYN KRIEGER 
The Art of Revision: Seeing your writing (and life) through new eyes.. I have considered seeing the storyline through the eyes of the character.
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Do you mean point-of-view? Certainly the character’s perspective is part of the plot. How does this figure into revision?
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So well expressed, as usual! I really was taken by contemplating the idea of revision and understanding what it actually means. How we by nature see with a certain lens (typically a hyper-focused one!) and therefore need and greatly benefit from the ability of others to lend their own perspective. We can be so blind to so much because we are bogged down in our own story or our own viewing of the story. Revision is so necessary. And it can be a gift too. Eyes are the window to the soul as they say, right?
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Evelyn, an informative article on the gift of revision … and the transformation that develops in one’s work … and life! It takes courage to change a huge part of a novel, not going ahead with a favourite character or re-writing chunks of it. Yet I find it enjoyable, therapeutic and almost like a puzzle – this is where the fine art of writing comes into play!
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I agree, Annika. I’ve come truly understand the old adage: “Kill your darlings”. It’s hard to let go of scenes and characters you like but aren’t serving your story. My current manuscript is too long so I’ll be figuring out that puzzle soon.
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Revision also means accepting the risk of failure sometimes.
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I suppose so, but at least you made the attempt to improve or fix things. Figuring out when to let go of your writing or artwork is also essential. For me, revision has proved to be a vital tool toward making meaning out of a mess, untangling threads, and lining up the words so they shine in their proper place. Have you found failure in the process of revision?
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