Saturday, March 17, 2012
At what point do we stop revising?
We all want our books to be perfect. We want every word, every sentence, every paragraph to crafted with utmost originality, the words to be spelled correctly, our grammar flawless. The novel, short story, or poem has to have some form of emotional effect on our readers, or we never feel like we've done our job.
I self-published my first completed novel last year in the Spring. At the time, I was satisfied with the end result. Since then I've pulled the book from the sales sites and began a process of rewriting. I'm quite pleased with the way the novel is going, but I began to wonder...How much is too much? At what point do we stop revising?
I know I'm not the only one who does this; I've seen countless threads on various writing sites where others advise to set the book away for a few weeks and let it marinate. But...I can't seem to make myself do that. I tend to revise each chapter after it's finished, then go back through several times. After that I give it to a few people for critiques, then back to revising again. But, even though I thought I'd done plenty of revising, I'm back to rewriting the whole damn thing.
How many times do you revise and rewrite each of your pieces of work? Do you tend to over write? Do you obsess over your novels or other pieces when you've finally put it away?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Well I do obsessively write and rewrite, but I think if I ever do publish anything, I won't ever touch it again. Unless there's some major technical error I found after the fact or something. Because otherwise it sets a precedent for a never-ending cycle, and at some point you have to put that energy to use creating something new.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are in a critique group, have at least three trusted beta readers, and a good editor for hire. Make sure you interview the editor before you hire them. A lot of them don't have a clue as to what they're doing.
ReplyDeleteNOTE: You need other eyes to help you find your diamonds and gems.
I constantly catch myself editing while I write, yet even after I go through the final draft process it seems like there's always a mistake or four that get through.
ReplyDeleteSome of these mistakes are glaring, but make it through several beta readers before I end up noticing. Usually a missed letter in a word that leaves another functioning word -- easy for the mind to miss and invisible to spell check.
Eventually, though, you have to leave your work at the best quality you could produce at the time you wrote it and move onward. If you're going to succeed, you need to stock the shelves. If nothing else, your fans will appreciate how your writing has grown over time and your strengths as an author will shine.