The one secret that makes revising a novel 500x easier
Revising a novel is a bitch.
If you’re revising a novel right now, I hope you’re surrounded by understanding people who 1) don’t ask you what the book is “about” 2) don’t ask why it isn’t in Barnes & Noble yet 3) don’t ask any questions at all, actually, but just show up unannounced with chocolate bars and wash the dishes for you.
But if you aren’t so prettily disposed, don’t worry: I’ve got your back.
I’ve been there. I revised my first novel, Marilou Is Everywhere, so many times I lost count. I wrote and cut 1,000 pages. I hurled new drafts back at my agent like a psycho volleyball queen spiking the ball down a sophomore’s throat. I was so frantic to finish that I couldn’t stand to slow down and actually read what I had written.
In that whole messy process, I learned something that truly surprised me: The hardest part of revision isn’t the writing. The hardest part is taking stock of what’s there.
That meant reading every shitty dead-end scene and cringing over every hambone-dumb dialogue attribution and enduring the godawful awareness of myself, my fears, my obsessions, and my themes, which I had unwittingly laid bare in the book.
But it also meant noticing the glowing bits of intuitive brilliance and bearing witness to the moments of genius which I couldn’t even remember writing.
It kind of reminds me of how I felt when I wanted to lose weight in my 20s: I was afraid of looking at the scale because I didn’t want to know the number, because the number would make my situation dishearteningly actual. I just wanted to run, sweat, and starve blindly until the number changed, or I changed, and didn’t even care what the number was anymore.
Whenever I want to change something badly enough, that desire creates a kind of anxiety that makes me want to run in a million directions at once. And if you’ve ever tried to run in a million directions at once, you know it quickly reveals itself to be A) doomed B) fucked C) pointless D) inferior to watching Ugly Betty for the 80th time.
But like I said, I’ve got your back, and that’s why I made this foolproof novel inventory. All you have to do is read it and answer the questions; it gives your manic bunny mind something to do while your sane inner self is taking stock of what’s actually in your book.
Because that’s where the real magic is happening: In your subconscious, the connections are beginning to knit themselves together. The hints and intuitions are growing light and luminous, and before you know it, they’ll start to float up in your consciousness like paper lanterns in the sky.
You’ll always be able to figure out what to do next if you can stand the uncertainty of waiting to find out what that is. And dwelling in uncertainty is brave, no matter how you get there, and for that you have my serious admiration and utter fondness.
