Lost in messy revisions

morngnstar

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
2,271
Reaction score
297
Take a deep breath. Your list of issues may be long, but you'll gradually whittle it down. It might get even longer first. Don't try to tackle everything at once. Solve the biggest issue. Chances are you'all eliminate or replace some of the parts with smaller issues. Don't try to sit down and solve it all at once. If the problem is troubling you, it will stay at the back of your mind, and a solution will occur to you when you least expect it. Then you'll be excited about sitting down to solve the little problems, not intimidated.
 

morngnstar

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
2,271
Reaction score
297
Not to ding you - what works, works - but pantsers like me can't outline.

I absolutely can outline, but I can't tell if there are issues from the outline. I have to write it and read it. Over and over several times. Maybe I could get better at the skill of recognizing when at outline completes a satisfying story. It would certainly make me more efficient, which I need to be. I've been actively working on my first novel for a few years.
 

Zoe R

Fluffhead! Fluffy fluffy head!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 30, 2017
Messages
183
Reaction score
31
Thank you for the great advice of duplicating your files before starting revisions. I keep making small ones so it didn't seem like I would need to yet :insert face palm emoji: but I'm sure I would regret it if I didn't start making copies. I don't work too much with outlines, because I find as I'm writing the characters make different decisions than were intended, and to make the plot go back to an outline wouldn't flow as well. That said I also didn't plan my back story well enough so now I am stuck restructuring that, and have a bunch of revisions to do before I continue lol
 

Jason

Ideas bounce around in my head
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 26, 2016
Messages
6,011
Reaction score
1,036
Location
Nashville, TN
...
#1 start by making two digital copies of your manuscript. First copy is SAFETY, second copy is MASTER. You will copy both the safety and master to a disc or USB flash drive. You never touch the safety. Safety is the insurance in case the master gets fouled. You will create a working copy of the master and this will be saved with a new filename. The revision copy is what gets edited- not the manuscript, not the safety, not the master. Your original manuscript had twins and one of them had a baby.

The advice to always work on a COPY of your manuscript is extremely pertinent. But you don't even need to get rid of earlier versions. Data storage these days is essentially unlimited and ridiculously cheap. I just number previous versions of manuscripts and save them, permanently. More than once I've needed to go back to an earlier one to retrieve something, and it's nice to be able to do that.

caw

I back up my work on a thumb drive - you never know with computer viruses these days...

You can also attach the document and email it to yourself.

I wasn't speaking specifically about backing up work (I do that, too, on multiple external devices), but more about retaining old versions of manuscripts. Too many people seem to think they have only that one single priceless document to work on, and get all blocked up about altering it, for fear of losing something they may want later. There's no point in doing that.

caw

In early revisions, I usually write each chapter as a separate doc. I keep them all in a common folder, and when that revision is done I copy everything to a new location, and archive the old version. Along about version 3 or so, I combine the work into a single file, get the formatting right, then do an edit run through the work again. Each new version is archived. Lather, rinse, repeat.

External devices / drives are always a smart idea. it's too easy these days for files to get corrupted. Everyday, I copy all I've done to an external device.

Lots of great backup strategies here and I would also chime in agreeing with these in principle. Backing up your work, especially if your process includes multiple versions is of critical importance. Additionally, while there is always the mentality of "to each their own", backups are often done with less awareness than is really needed. Mine consists of a Dropbox folder share that I have on my own SAN, so there's localized redundancy, and availability online as well.
 

Jamills08

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 2, 2017
Messages
223
Reaction score
23
Location
Midwest/south
These are great suggestions and I have to say I feel the same way. Overwhelmed. Therefore I need to back off of it for a bit. Good luck you can do it!
 

spork

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 19, 2016
Messages
116
Reaction score
19
Location
Ohio
I don't usually outline the story before writing (I have difficulty imagining the whole story beforehand) but with this MS I did write a chapter outline for half of the chapters (after that I was so immersed in the writing that everything came out spontaneously). Still, the thing is, I finished this story a long time ago and I've been revising it ever since, and a lot of the concepts and characters have changed and developed, but my revision process has been bumpy and erratic, so there are lots of consistency issues (I come up with new concepts that I start adding in the middle of revisions, and then have to fix the earlier parts). So this time I'm creating a clear list of issues and restarting the revision process.

Have you considered writing a chapter-by-chapter synopsis? I'm also a pantser and writing a synopsis helps me visualize the big picture once I'm finished with a draft.