Revision Tools for Writers
by Mary Kole | Former literary agent, now a freelance editor, writing teacher, and IP/story developer for major publishers and creators.
Revision is one of the primary tools for writers that everyone needs in their toolbox, but few writers bother to learn how to do it properly. Most writers type out a draft, go through it sentence by sentence to polish the prose (without doing a big structural edit), then hit “submit,” dreaming of literary representation and a publishing deal. But if this is your approach, you’re not using all of the tools for writers that are at your disposal.
Revision Tools for Writers
Patience is probably one of our favorite tools for writers that we recommend over and over. This is usually a huge bummer for writers, who expect a magic bullet kind of answer. But patience helps answer other questions, like whether a writer should finish a draft and then rush it out to submission. (Often, this results in them deciding that they need to revise and resubmit the project multiple times, which is considered a bad look.)
The answer is, generally, no. Keep polishing it as much as you can. It all depends on what tools for writers you’ve already applied to the project. If you're just dashed off a first draft, don’t submit yet. On the other hand, if you’ve spent a few years revising already, it might actually be time to push it out the door, especially if you’ve gotten sign-off from your critique group or beta readers.
Most agents are more into a slow-cooked, gourmet meal than fast food. It’s often their priority that writers don't rush their work when it’s requested, like with a revise and resubmit letter. Just because an agent asked for your full manuscript, doesn't mean you need to dash it off to them, especially if you’ve been revising and don’t feel it’s ready yet. That's not the right way to go. If more time will allow you to create a stunning revision, then take it. You want to do this right, given all the work you’ve put into developing your writing skills to this point.
Critical Tools for Writers For the Long Haul
When a literary agent drops a client (“help! My literary agent dropped me”), it’s generally over revision issues. When agents take on writers, all they have to go by is what's in front of them—their ideas for future projects and estimations of their writing and revision skills based on their current manuscript. A writer's revision capabilities have always been the biggest unknown when they begin their relationship with an agent or a publisher. Literary agents and publishers might ask writers for a lot—and they can’t know whether a writer will deliver.
As far as tools for writers go, the ability to take a step back and see the project with fresh eyes is key. It’s possible to revise a work to death—that’s the result of staring too hard at the text, or not hard enough. That, however, is not revision, which is one of the most crucial tools for writers. What is revision? The true meaning is to break the project down to its very bones and rebuild it from the ground up, especially if you have a feeling that it needs major changes.
The ability to revise is one of those tools for writers that you will never regret developing. Neither is patience. Once you've put the manuscript away for a few months and come back to revise it again, you'll be able to approach it with fresh eyes. Investing in this cycle of write-revise-repeat and developing your revision tools for writers might very well pay off when that fateful moment arrives: "I got a full manuscript request!"
You may become so fed up with your manuscript that you feel the urge to vent your frustrations. This brings us back to another of the most important tools for writers: patience. This is a journey, and if you don’t enjoy the process and fixate only on the destination, you’ll miss out on a lot of exciting skills and tools for writers along the way.
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