Dear Story Nurse, I'm not the kind of writer who can start editing a draft as soon as I'm done with it. By the time I stumble over the finish line of a novel-length project, I need some time to emotionally detach from the story before I can think about how I want to change … Continue reading #120: Separation Before Revision, Part Two
Without a degree of separation between book and self, revision is far more difficult, and may be impossible.
The visual is a hook, a way for the reader to be drawn into the story.
Writing marries intuition to intellect, and sometimes the intuition part means you just know when the thing is done and no amount of hacking at it will make it not be done.
Revision requires a shift in perspective, from writer to reader. What do you want your reader to experience while reading your work, and how do you want them to feel at the end?
Revising is as individual as writing. There's no wrong way to do it, and there are no hard and fast rules about how it goes.
The person you injured is you, in the sense of costing yourself the time and effort of repairing the problems with your work, and the person you need to apologize to is you.
Drafting is engineering and construction. Revision is art and design.
You already made your work in the best way that you know how. Now you need editorial advice. That's part of the process for any writer, and being an editor in no way exempts you from it.
I love semicolons; they're great. The issue is what you're doing with language and content that leads to the use of so many of them.
