Thursday, December 16, 2010

Revision is a Four-Letter Word Disguised as an Eight-Letter Word

I fear that I may have self-helped myself beyond help, if that makes any sense.  For the first time, I have reached the revision stage of writing a novel.  I have loaded up on resources so that I am educated on the art before I crawl down the red inky path.  Some of my resources have been very helpful, others are downright discouraging.  Where one author suggests that revision is like cutting my own hair (let’s call this author "Mr. Helpful"), another essentially suggests that I am an amateurish moron and should cut everything I have  written (let’s call this author "Mr. Dick").  For a short list of books that hypothetically could be the source of Richard (for long), perhaps look at the Creative Writing Toolkit.

I suppose you think
this an inefficient use of words?
I like Mr. Helpful’s analogy, and I am unashamed to adopt it.  I will clip away at my writings, making sure not to cut so much off in a given chapter so that I am forced to lop off other areas that already look fabulous (I initially wrote Fab, but edited it out).  In fact, I may even leave the ending of the book abnormally long to create a mystical mullet novel.  Feast on that Mr. Dick.  

One question for you Mr. Dick, if you are so good at revising and publishing novels, why are you writing a self-help book on the subject?  True, I did buy it, but shouldn't you be writing the next Harry Potter or Twilight series?  Tis what I thoughteded! (these are all things that prevent a story from being published – oh yea, watch this.  Bam, I’m on a blog.) 

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