In my opinion, revising is the most important and most underrated skill a writer can have. Revision begins once you have a complete draft of a manuscript, not before, since you can’t re-envision something before you’ve seen it fully. Many writers would like to write one draft and be done with it, and to them I say, “Good luck!” Most writers fine-tune their first drafts and call it revision, but fine-tuning is not revision. In order to revise well, the first thing you have to do is open your mind to the possibility that your manuscript is going to have to change, maybe even in some major ways.
Why is revision so important? You began your writing project with a particular idea in mind, but there’s a chance the writing process transformed that idea in ways both large and small. You also began your project with only one person to please: yourself. Revision is about looking at your manuscript from the reader’s perspective. If your writing isn’t clear, consistent, and compelling for the reader, you haven’t done your job.
Now that you have a complete draft and therefore know where the manuscript begins and where it ends, it’s time to think analytically about what the manuscript is doing and how that differs from what you want it to do. You can begin by asking yourself the following questions:
In what ways does it make sense for me to start and end where I do? In what ways does it not make sense?
What events, actions, or ideas are absolutely necessary to get the reader from the beginning to the end of this manuscript?
What holes still exist in the content, and how might I fill them?
