Preventing the Revision Blahs

One of the questions raised in the creative writing class I teach is: how do you prevent becoming sick of your story as you revise/edit/improve it?

Excellent question. As someone on my third rewrite of the same novel…a novel I’ve spent over 300 hours  on editing alone…the only answer I have is you’d better really like your characters. I know I’m with mine more often than I am with my own friends. Which may be why I know them better than I know my own friends.

But I digress.

Here is what I do in order to plod on, despite the fact my eyes have glazed over and drool has dripped off my chin. I take one scene…just one itty-bitty scene, and plump it up. I increase the tension. I create a bigger reaction from a character. Or maybe make a reaction smaller, more subtle. I fool with it, sometimes for days, almost as if it was its own story. By taking off small bites, I can eat the whole enchilada. And sometimes give it extra spice to boot.

This entry was posted on 20. February 2010 at 21:15 and is filed under Writing Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.