Revisions, Revisions, Revisions

[astraether]

I finished a revision of my novel. I can't quite say I'm finished altogether -- how many times do you revise something before you call it done? But at least I went through the entire thing and tweaked/edited/added/deleted as necessary, so that's something. It actually grew, from about 92K to 94K, but I felt I rushed things toward the end in the

Comments

[domynoe]

how many times do you revise something before you call it done?

It's done when it's done? I have a hate phase. Honestly, I hate the hate phase because it makes it harder for me to work, but it's one saving grace is that it gives me a hint as to when a novel is done: when I start liking it again. Usually the round that I start liking it is my last round before beta readers, I revise from betas, then I get one final (very specific) reader, and usually that's it.

For my first novel, it was a total of 9 rounds (if you don't count the previous 4 attempts that never resulted in a finished draft). For the second, it was 7 rounds.

Honestly, you have to find a way to let go of the author angst (or you'll NEVER let go of the manuscript) and try to be as objective as possible. Then there are times when you just have to say you're done even if you don't feel done. If you can't find much to change except a word here, a comma there, a paragraph shuffle somewhere else, you're done.

[astraether]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm pretty good at being objective; it's certainly helped me to critique other people's work so I know how to find weak areas in my own. There's definitely an art to tightening up the writing. I realized that if I'd said something already, and then repeat myself, then I can take out the repetition. Less is more, and all that.

It's important to take one's ego out of it. I think/hope I'm getting better at that. I feel pretty good about this revision, overall. I don't know if it's the "last" one, but it's gotten me closer to where I want to be.

Thanks for chiming in!

[annathepiper]

There's TOTALLY an art to figuring out when enough revising is enough. I still haven't quite gotten down that point for my books.

Of course, then you find out that if you actually SELL a book, the revising isn't done because they will totally ask you for more. I once asked mizkit how many revision cycles she went through on Urban Shaman, and she said it was over 20. O.O

[astraether]

Eesh! Well, I guess that's to be expected. Learning process, and all that. Hope things are going well with your own writing/publishing endeavors! I've seen the art for the e-book and it looks pretty dang cool!

[annathepiper]

Thanks! Things are indeed going VERY well. :) I'm really happy with the Faerie Blood art and am looking forward to finishing and deploying Book 2!

But yeah, revisions, it's hard! You have to find the magic area between "Okay now I'm SURE I've fixed all the problems here" and "I should stop screwing around with this thing and just send it out on query ffs".