Some authors revise their manuscripts as they go along,
others write flat out and then go back and revise after the story is completely
written. Just like everything else in
writing, there’s no right way or wrong way to revise your manuscript. There’s only the best way that works for you.
For me, I seem to alternate between the two depending
on the story and how well it’s flowing and how much pre-thought I put into the
plot, characters, etc.
Today’s blog post came about as I sat at my dining room
table with a hard copy of my current work in progress. I’m about 50 to 75 pages from completing the
manuscript and yet I can’t seem to make myself finish it. And I don’t know why. I’ve been at this point for
about two weeks now. Usually, when I get
within 100 pages of the end of a story, I can’t tear myself away from the
computer. I’m so driven to see how
everything works out. (Yes, I’m a
pantser.) Instead, I find myself working
on another story I've been thinking about.
Thinking if I went through and worked on revising some
scenes, I’d get my mojo back, I worked on a few chapters, adding notes in the
margins, drawing lines through entire paragraphs that seemed to serve no
purpose, adding more dialogue in some places, and taking it out in others. Pretty soon, I was suffering from “revisionitis.” This is a term I made up to describe the
feeling I sometimes get when revising a manuscript. Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in following
the “rules” we’ve all been told when we first started writing that I feel like
I’ve revised the life right out of the scene.
Other times I change a sentence or word only to change it again or back to
what I’d originally written. At this
point, I usually stop, knowing I’m not going to accomplish anything productive.
How about you? Do you
revise as you go along or after you’ve completed the ms?
On a separate note - Tuesday, 11/8/11 I'm being interviewed at Sizzling Hot Book Reviews. Please come check it out. Here's the link: http://www.sizzlinghotbooks.net
Katherine
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