Revising vs. rewriting

Honestly, I think you may be worrying too much about it. My general theory of writing (and I think I'm not the only one with this theory) is: you won't truly know what you did wrong in any given story, if anything, until it's in print and you're standing at the newsstand reading it. Whether it's a spelling mistake or a lost character, or even what you truly meant when you wrote the story, that's when you'll ultimately find it.

Now, it sounds like you're getting some comments back with your manuscript. It seems like everyone likes something or another about it, they just don't like the whole package. This could mean that, yes, you haven't finished your re-writing stage properly...or what it could also mean is, you just haven't connected with the right agent/publisher who is on the same frequency as you.

My personal recommendation is that you read over it once more, change anything you don't like that time, and then "lock it down," and make ye no more edits unto the manuscript. Just keep sending it out until you can wallpaper your office in rejection slips (god forbid it should take that long, though) and just get on with your next project.

When I first started submitting my manuscript, an agent commented on a lack of detail in the first chapter regarding the MC's location. But I didn't change anything, as the surroundings weren't really important at that point – the MC was only passing through. If I'd had two or three comments about this, I'd certainly have thought about making some alterations. However, as I was happy with the way the MS was, I didn't want to change it according to the comments of one person.

I think my point here is that if you're happy with it, keep submitting, eventually you'll find someone who likes the novel as it is. That's what happened to me.

Remember, in writing, tie goes to the writer.

popmuze said:

Is it possible that in all my revising, I may not have actually done any serious rewriting?

Or is it vice-versa?

Click to expand...

Have you been revising, or have you just been trimming? Contrary to many simple dictionary definitions, "revision" means "To see with a new vision." "Rewriting" simply means to reword a sentence so it reads better. They shouldn't be thought of as synonyms.

When you rewrite a sentence, the sentence says the same thing in a better way. When you revise a sentence, it says something else.

When an editor talks about revisions, he nearly always means he wants the story itself changed, made stronger. He doesn't just want the words used to tell the story changed, and he doesn't merely want extraneous narrative trimmed away, he wants changes to the story itself.

Excess verbiage does often hide a story, but if you trim a manuscript to the point where it can't be trimmed further without losing someting important, but the story still isn't strong enough, still doesn't come to the fore, it's time to stop trimming and start revising.

But, yes, it's possible the story itself needs changed, made stronger. You know what the story is supposed to say, and you know what the point of the story is, but you know what you intended the story to say. Can editors and agents see the same things you intended?

Trimming is neither revising nor rewriting, but trimming can bring a strong s story to sharp focus, or expose a weak story. If you've trimmed all you can reasonably trim, and agents and editors are still saying the story is too weak, then it's probably time to start changing the story itself.

The whole thing...

Serious writing involves everything about writing; story, plot, theme, grammar, spelling...The Whole Thing.

So revisions are part of making this piece whole. If it requires going back to a blank page, (rewriting) then so be it. Making sure it is not only engaging, but readable are critical to the success you seek.