Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Rev-is-ion

Revisions.

One little word provides HOURS, months of work.

We take our first draft jumble of words, hack them to pieces, rewrite, cut words, add words, tighten sentences, reorder scenes, show not tell, and generally make our story sparkle like a Cullen.

Everyone has their own ways of revising. I'm always curious to see the revision process another writer follows. Why we add, cut, change what we do to tell the best story we can. So when Maggie Stiefvater posted a dissection of a rough chapter of The Scorpio Races, with a description of why she made the changes, I headed over to see what I could learn to help hone my own revision skills.

And now ten other amazing authors have (like Kimberly Derting, Saundra Mitchell, Kiersten White, and Brenna Yovanoff)  have done the same. Head on over HERE to check out the links to the posts.

What about you? Any revision tips/tricks to share?

P.S. Don't forget to get those pitches ready for Feb 1st. We have another fabulous Mystery Agent lined up waiting. Details will be posted soon.

3 comments:

Stina said...

I love doing revisions. That's my favorite part of writing. I'll have to check out those links. What a great way to help us grow as writers. :D

Emily R. King said...

I'm in revisions, again, and I've discovered that taking it slowly, a chapter or two a day keeps my head clear and ready to tackle another two tomorrow. If I do too much, my work suffers and I'm ineffective.

Kell Andrews said...

Fun to see others work through revisions -- like a master class.