Friday, January 27, 2012

Learning from Revision

Happy Friday! I'm especially happy this week because I finally got through the first part of my revisions! It was the hard part, the part where I re-envison the story, adding in completely new scenes to keep up the tension and cutting out scenes that slowed the story down (or were confusing to anyone but me).

I haven’t done much to celebrate yet, besides eating a gooey chocolate dessert and planning a night of doing nothing but napping and watching T.V. My family said, “Napping? You don’t nap.” Ha! I do if I’ve spent every waking moment (plus some when I should have been sleeping) on revising my novel.

So, after that nap, I’m moving on to the next part of my revision process, where I work on revising for consistency. If you want to read more about that, I've blogged about it over at MiG Writers today.
Some things I discovered during my revision:
1. Doing a little work on the book every day does eventually get me to the end.
2. Making big changes and taking risks leads to a much stronger story. Every time you write something, you're setting up a limitation or constraint that will affect the rest of the story. For example, in my earlier version, one of my characters was kept in a guarded room for some of the story. Re-visioning this situation to give her a bit more freedom opened up so many possibilities.
3. I use words like "much", "just", and "but" way too often.
4. Goat cheese and walnut ravioli

I hope you had a great week too!



11 comments:

  1. Reenvisioning and rewriting big chunks is scary and a bit overwhelming but usually worth it! And one day at a time works good!

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  2. I use the words "just", "for a moment", and "a single swift motion" ALL the time! It's super annoying LOL :)

    Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

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    1. "A single swift motion" would definitely stand out if you used it more than once!

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  3. Congrats on getting through this part of revisions. I SO feel you on the nap. I plan on taking an EPIC one on Saturday. :)

    Oh and I love the words "definitely" "really" "felt" and "seemed".

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  4. I'm just doing that right now, some re-envisioning. It's scarey because it means you have to rewrite so much, but like you said you end up with a stronger novel.

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    1. I actually got past the fear thing and then enjoyed what was happening, because I knew it was better for the story (at least I think so, no one else besides me has read it yet).

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  5. Congrats and thanks for sharing your vision on revision! Me...just is the word too!

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    1. Thanks, Deb. I am working on getting rid of all those "just"s!

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  6. This sounds like me. Even though I outline my stories, it's guaranteed scenes will be deleted and new ones will be added. But you're right, it does make for a stronger story. :D

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  7. Congratulations on finishing! What an accomplishment!

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