Tag Archives: revision

For Writers: Re-visioning, Rewriting, and Other Forms of Fine-tuning Your Fiction

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Cat

As with all writing advice, mileage will vary according to the individual. The best thing as a writer that you can do is to pay attention to your own process and make it more effective. Experiment with lots of things, identify the practices that work, and incorporate them into your process. Keep experimenting, mixing things up a little, every once in a while, writing to the sound of whale songs, or dictating while hiking, or using a pen rather than the keyboard — it doesn’t matter what as long as you keep testing things in a way that lets you grow as a writer.
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First Editing Class: Notes and Observations

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Cat

The Editing class is split into three sections. In this first session, we focused on developmental, or “big picture,” editing. Here’s some notes on the process of editing. Continue reading →

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Revising Through A Single Lens

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Cat

I’ve been reading Donald Maass’s excellent, excellent book Writing the Breakout Novel (which is, unfortunately, not available on the Kindle so I actually had to do the archaic order and wait for a hardcopy thing) and it’s at a perfect time for me since I’m beginning the second pass at the current project. As I’ve read, I’ve collected ideas to apply to rewrite. I’m making the heroine’s past considerably more complex, shoving the hero a bit more ruthlessly out of his depth, making some bad guys more ambiguous morally, killing my very favorite character, letting a villainess be much, much bitchier (and funnier), and raising the stakes repeatedly. Continue reading →

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