The “Write” Mindset for Revision Success
Some writers (like me) love revision—it’s when our creativity comes alive so that the true story can take shape. Some writers absolutely hate revision, it feels like herding mental cats into a bathtub. The rest tend to fall somewhere in between those two extremes. However you feel about revision, it’s a critical part of the writing process, especially if you want your writing to be read by anyone else.
Writing a novel is a complicated process, revising it is even more complicated. When you’re drafting, you can focus on one part of the novel at a time. When you’re revising, you have to consider the impact that each change you make has on the novel as a whole.
As with any long and difficult endeavor, your success in revisions will frequently depend on the mindset that you bring into your work. In this blog post, I’m talking about five revision mindsets that can help you overcome the doubt, despair, and overwhelm that might otherwise keep you from success.
Let’s dive in!
Revision Mindset #1: Don’t compare your first draft to someone else’s published work.
Many first time novelists become overwhelmed when they realize that their first draft is nothing like the published books sitting on their bookshelves at home. Too often we think that each draft has to be perfect and that anything less than a brilliant, publishable story is a sign of failure. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Every published book on your shelves was revised multiple times with multiple people helping at various stages of the process. That’s true whether you read indie or traditionally published books. Revision is a natural, essential part of the process. Having the fortitude and ability to make significant changes to your novel is a sign of your strength as a writer, not a sign that you’ve done something wrong.
If you’re feeling down as you realize the magnitude of the changes that need to be made, stop that inner monologue in its tracks and remind yourself that revision is the mark of a professional writer—not a failure.
Revision Mindset #2: Change makes progress.
When it comes time to revise, don’t be afraid of big changes. Prepare yourself to move scenes, cut them out, or add new ones. On an even bigger level, you may need to cut characters or significantly change their character arcs. You might realize that a POV is distracting from the core story or realize that you need to add a POV character in order to amplify the stakes of your novel.
There is no one-size-fits-all. The changes that you make are going to be unique to your novel. Stay open to any and all changes that serve your story. Revisions of this magnitude will take work, but that hard work will pay off in a story that reaches its full potential.
If you get overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to take a break and recharge with some intentional rest. A pause is better than a hard stop and there’s no rule that says you have to finish your revisions within a certain amount of time. Which brings me to the next mindset…
Revision Mindset #3: Be patient, not all progress is linear, and that’s okay.
Expectation does not always match reality when it comes to the speed of your revisions. If you go into the process thinking that you’re just going to need to add some commas and fix some typos and then discover that you need to make massive developmental changes, it’s easy to feel like you’re in stasis. Fight the urge to measure your success by the speed of your revisions.
Instead, focus on the little things that you’re doing to move closer and closer to the best possible version of your book. Allow yourself the time and flexibility to dig out the heart of your story and polish it to a shine.
That may mean backtracking and rewriting a chapter that you’ve already revised. It may mean revisiting your ending fifteen times before you find the perfect image for your final scene. Expect to write multiple drafts. Most published writers do. At an extreme level, Patrick Rothfuss apparently wrote 200 drafts of his novel The Name of the Wind before it became a breakout success. Now, I’m not saying you need to hit triple digits, but don’t expect to rewrite each scene once and be done with it either. Your novel will take the time it takes, and whatever that means for you is okay!
Revision Mindset #4: Feedback is a necessary tool, but not a mandate.
Writing a draft is often a solitary endeavor. We write alone, protecting our fragile ideas from prying eyes until the moment when we realize that we can’t do everything alone. Self-editing is an essential part of the process, but it’s not enough. You need an outside perspective on your work to create a book that readers will love (for the specifics of why that is, check out this blog post).
Make a plan to include feedback at some point in the revision process. You don’t need to let anyone read your first draft, but make sure that someone reads your novel before you hit publish on KDP or send your first query to an agent. Whether you get feedback from critique partners, beta readers, a professional editor, or some combination of all three, you need objective feedback on your story. [Curious about the types of feedback you can get—check out my guide to the types of editors here].
Which brings me to the second half of this point. Once you have feedback, use it to your benefit, but don’t take it as gospel. No matter who you’re getting feedback from, make sure that you assess their feedback critically. That means carefully considering the intention behind their feedback, the implications that following that feedback would have on the rest of the novel, and how much their feedback corresponds to your vision for the novel as a whole.
There’s a fine line between respecting your vision and rejecting good feedback that you simply don’t want to listen to. There’s often no clear cut answer. And that’s why it’s so critical to have writing friends and mentors that you can turn to when you’re not sure what to do with feedback you’ve received. A quick brainstorming session with someone who knows you and your writing can help you figure out what to do with critical feedback (you can also check out this blog post on making the most of professional feedback).
Revision Mindset #5: You can totally do this!
No matter what shape your draft is in, you can make it better. An absolute disaster of a draft can be rewritten into something beautiful. I won’t sugarcoat: it’s going to take a ton of work. When I say rewrite, I mean you may need to totally overhaul your draft from start to finish.
But that’s okay.
It might take a long time. There may be slow downs and false starts, you may need lots of help, but you can absolutely do it.
Happy Writing!
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