Timely Revision

And its questions

What is the best time for a writer to revise a story?

At least a week after the latest draft. A month is generally better.

But on the whole, it helps to not wait too long. Sometimes, if you are stymied on it -- and working on something else -- but not often.

In part this is, of course, because if you take too long to loop around, you get very few works done and out the door, and that irregularly, which doesn’t help.

But an important part of it is to have the work sufficiently fresh in mind that, when you come across a sentence that makes no sense as written and say “What on earth did I mean by that?” you have a chance to rummage around your memory and dredge the originally intended meaning up.

Then you can rewrite to actually express what you meant.

Rewriting on the spur of the moment, as soon as you finish the draft before, is fine if you know you have things to fix, but it precedes rather than substitutes for revising in cold blood.

It is only in revising in cold blood that you can notice that your sentences do not actually make sense as written.

It is only in revising in cold blood that you can notice that the lengthy discussion in the garden doesn’t actually mention that it’s happening in the garden, let alone give the vivid details that illuminate the discussion (which is the reason for setting it there).

It is only in revising in cold blood that you realize that at no point do you actually depict, or even describe, the friendship between two men that makes their current quarrel so bitter and painful to them both.

I particularly note that if you notice the later, it is wise to make note of it. It is even wiser to, after adding the information, to scratch the note off the list of things to do. I have, on more than one occasion, discovered that I realized some knowledge had to be given, and had put it in six times. Since they were written weeks apart, it did not occur to me at the time, but reading in cold blood, and at a good clip, cured that.

(If you do not revise your work in progress but go back and rewrite as soon as the draft is done, that noting that work is needed and then scratching it off is vital.)

A month or so is enough to let you keep the story in mind, also. At least, enough so that when you open the work and start to re-read it, you realize what a shift in mood the story undertook. How a character changed in purpose and characterization. All sorts of swerves, down to realizing that you had assumed that you had put in all the foreshadowing, but you hadn’t, because you hadn’t even seen what was emerging.

On the other hand, if you dig up a trunked novel and remember that plot bunny, and it starts to bound about again, all is not lost.

Sit down and re-read the novel. Get it in mind that way.

If you start revising while re-reading, you may find yourself in a tangle as you discover things you did not remember. Or that you have to knock out what are structural supports and so have to totally overhaul the work. Which may explain why you were so stymied on it. (Major issues tend to take longer to resolve than small ones.)

Possibly even the wisest thing to do is toss the manuscript back into the trunk and then start with an outline or whatever you start with. This works best when you are throwing away the characters, their names, their world, and their situation to entirely rehome the plot bunny. If you conclude that it was stymied because you had hared off after the wrong tale entirely. Then the gap may have been the best way to, since it let you see clearly that you did it badly the first time that you need to start over entirely.

Timing is not quite everything, but it can be important.