On Revision and Gingerbread Houses

I got to give a presentation to a HS Creative Writing class recently. Their teacher asked me to talk about revising, and I never realized how passionate I am about revision until I sat down to hammer out a presentation.

I'm not going to share the presentation here, but as I proceeded to get ready for the holidays, I couldn't help but come up with an analogy about gingerbread houses and writing.

*Disclaimer* - every writer has a method that works best for them - this is very specific to how writing works best for me. Take what works for you, and leave the rest.

First Draft -

When you write your first draft, you're making the dough. Adding in all the ingredients - prose, dialogue, action scenes, introspection, even (most likely) a little too much backstory and character development. That's great! Get it all out there! The more you have to work with, in the end, the easier it will be. And if it's only a brown lump now, that's okay! It doesn't have to start as a shining masterpiece!

Let it sit -

I advised the students to take a few weeks off from working on their ms after they finish the first draft. For me, I never want to take a break, but I've noticed two things that happen, which really are in my best interest. One - I may not be writing, but my brain is constantly churning through the story, reviewing and weighing everything together. Typically, I have a realization about something the story NEEDS or how to fix a plotting problem after about a week of just thinking it through. Taking time to mull it over has always been a benefit.

Two - When I do come back to the ms, my eyes are fresh. I'm a lot better at picking out problems and figuring out how to fix them. For me, letting it sit is a HUGE help.

Intermediate Drafts -

The first novel I completed (which will live forever in ones and zeros on a thumb drive and will NEVER see the light of day) is the perfect example of this. The first 30,000 words were so much backstory - necessary for me to know my character, but super distracting for my readers (it was a romance, and my beta readers all fell in love with the ex-boyfriend, and were mad when she fell in love with the real love interest!) I only kept 5

pages of that original 30k, and the book was much better for cutting it.

Intermediate drafts are where you nail down your plotting, make sure your pacing is working, and check the balance between dialogue and prose. You nail down any research you didn't do during the first draft and make sure the story is consistent. You add or subtract character development as needed. The major shaping of the story happens here.

Polishing Drafts -

All the little details go here - and just like making gingerbread houses, this is my favorite part!

You make sure your dialogue is natural, your prose shines - but only in those moments where it won't slow down your action - and your pacing is on point.

This is also the place for using Find to make sure works like "Just", "that", and "like" are only used as needed (Wordle is a great tool for finding the words YOU overuse.)

This is where you make sure you have smart quotes and single spaces (yes, single spaces between sentences these days.) Make sure your grammar is as good as you can get it.

But why don't you just hand your first draft over to someone else and have them point out what needs to be done?

Because if your beta readers are so bogged down/distracted by problems you could fix, they won't be able to see the problems you're going to miss. It will be harder for them to catch your vision, and help you work towards it.

Look in the back of your fav book - most likely there's a long list of acknowledgements of people who helped make the book what it is. Most authors don't ... and dare I say can't ... do it all on their own. So, if you want them to help you make your ms really shine, make their job easier by polishing it as much as you possibly can before you hand it over to them.

This isn't to say you won't ever have to revise - I just did an R&R for my agent, and I expect any editor will have suggestions for more revisions - just that the revisions will be more clear and easier to do, because you've already cleaned it up as much as you can.

Good luck, and happy revising!