Learning To Embrace Revisions In Your Own Writing

Writing can be challenging. Everyone has their own challenges with the writing process, but I find revising the most frustrating. Revising any of my writing can be difficult, but it is particularly challenging when revising an entire novel. I learned this after revising my debut novel, and I’m going through this experience again halfway through revising my second book. However, it is an inevitable part of writing. Anyone’s first draft is seldom their best work. To publish high-quality writing for your readers, you must make revisions. 

Writing Is Rewriting

Revision is not easy because it requires you to rethink, reconsider, and reconstruct your writing until you are satisfied with what you have written. When writing a novel, I find completing the first draft less challenging because I understand it is supposed to be flawed.

This applies to the first draft of any of my writing. But for writing novels, the goal is to write enough content to tell a cohesive story. Plus, letting my imagination and creativity run wild as I write and develop characters, dialogue, settings, plot, and more can be fun.

But once my story is complete, I must begin the inevitable task of polishing my work. If you are a perfectionist like me, you may revise your writing more times than you should. Revising is never a one-and-done experience for me.

Whenever I edit my writing, I always go back to ensure the changes I made make sense. If it doesn’t, I’ll make additional tweaks until I am satisfied. It can be a tedious and time-consuming process if you are genuinely passionate about what you are writing. When I revise my writing, I go all in because I want my readers to read my content with as much passion as I had while writing it.

Revising dialogue is one of my biggest roadblocks with storytelling. It’s challenging to write conversations that sound realistic and natural. Other times, I can’t find the right words for my characters to articulate.

It helps to read the dialogue between characters out loud to see if they flow smoothly together. It’s also helpful to have beta readers read your writing to see if your dialogue needs improvement.

The Truth About Writer’s Block

Another challenge I experience with revising my writing is dealing with writer’s block. Revising a story often requires deleting some of your writing, which can affect your word count. Some of the content I write in my drafts are not worth keeping. This can include dialogue, paragraphs, characters, details, and more.

Typically, if what I write doesn’t enhance the plot of my story, or I don’t like it, I will remove it entirely. However, eliminating content often means developing new ideas to replace my deleted work. It can be challenging to think of new ideas relevant to my story.

Taking short-term breaks helps me with overcoming writer’s block. Sometimes I need to let my mind think of something else other than writing for me to start fresh again when I do return. Brainstorming for new ideas helps me when I feel stuck in my writing.

Revising Takes Consistent Practice

Finding time to revise a novel can be just as challenging as finding time to write one. It took me at least a year to make revisions to my debut novel before I made additional changes based on the feedback from my editors.

I’m moving quicker with revising my second novel because I understand the process and know what works for me to make revising less time-consuming. It helps to write and edit simultaneously on certain days of the week. This consistency trains my mind and body to focus more on my writing and creates an environment for me to be one step closer to publishing quality work. 

If you want to share more with me, you can get in touch with me on social media and at jsims@jairesims.com.