The Art of Detection, Part VI: Revision and Conclusion

It’s one of my favorite parts of writing, personally, because I’m a perpetual editor, and I always see things I can make better and deeper.

But if you are one of those people who hate it, I’d like to offer some ways to think about your edits, whether they’re ones you initiate yourself or ones recommended by your writing group or your editor.

Katherine Paterson? Edited. J. K. Rowling? Edited. Kevin Henkes? Edited. It happens to everyone worth reading.

In case it bears saying: Your editor does not hate you.
Your editor does not think you’re stupid because your work needs revision.
Your editor does not care if you make copyediting mistakes, and you do not need to apologize for them.
Editors are interested in making your book work. That’s really pretty much the only thing we care about.
If I identify a problem in a manuscript, the writer does not have to take my specific revision suggestion on how to solve the problem. I am fine with my suggestion being ignored.

BUT she does have to either fix the problem another way, or convince me it’s not a problem at all.

An editor’s greatest joy is a writer who can recognize the weaknesses in her work and respond with a revision that addresses them.

If you receive an edit and think “No! Never! Mr. Fluffy has to stay!”, sit down and think why you feel this way.

Is it because you really love Mr. Fluffy as a character? Because you see him as serving an important function in the novel? Or because you spent five hours writing that scene with him?
If it’s important to you for a writing reason, look at why your editor suggests dropping him. Is there a way to solve the problem and yet keep him in the book?
But if it’s only important to you for personal reasons—like the five hours you spent on that scene—then you sigh and cut it with no kicking or screaming.

Don’t waste your creative energy on negative emotion. Your first priority must be not your own experience or ego, but what’s good for a reader’s experience with your book. (This goes for the editor’s ego too.)

4. And really, if you hate cutting that one line or plot development because it’s so perfect and you spent so much time on it, remember: It’s just disappearing from this work. It’s not disappearing from the world.
You can use it again somewhere else.

This is probably obvious, but: Save every draft in a new file, or transfer anything significant that you cut to an OUTTAKES section at the bottom of your document
You never know when you might need the backup, or if you may want to add it again in revision, or when that one line will provide the title or the idea for your next book

Finally, whether you’re writing a first draft, editing an old draft, or about to send off a brand-spanking-new draft, try TRUCK #10: Give it time.

When you first receive editorial suggestions or come up with ideas for a revision, take the time to absorb them and think about them, so they can grow into the bones of the manuscript
Give yourself time to experiment with trying new things or directions
Time to make your work the best it can be.
Editors get suspicious when authors return revisions too quickly

Because it usually indicates the author has made only surface changes—he hasn’t really thought the issues through.

If you print out a fresh draft of your manuscript and want to send it to me, please: Stick it in a drawer for a week and reread it then.

If there are things that still need to be fixed, they’ll be more apparent when you approach them with a fresh eye than immediately after you’ve finished the corrections.
And if it’s ready to go—it will still be ready to go in a week.

And if I go to the trouble of asking for a revision of your manuscript, I’m not going to lose interest in it because you get it to me in four months instead of two

I’d rather have an author who took the time to write a good revision in four months, than one who rushes it right back to me without doing the work.

So that brings us to the end of our parade of TRUCKs
I hope you have found things in it that will be helpful to you.
I said at the beginning that the editor’s work and the detective’s aren’t very much alike—and I stand by that.
But we are both searching for that elusive truth, in life or in fiction
Or the best of all, fiction that readers love as much as life, for all the truth it contains

Holmes says, “What one man can invent, another can discover.”
And “My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence.”
I live for the great stories that lift us out of the commonplace of existence;
And if yours do that, I look forward to discovering your inventions.
Thank you.