REVISION HELL 101... 102... 103...
Mia Zachary copyright November 2002 

Revision Hell 101

After reading that letter, I sulked for four days. I felt overwhelmed, sort of like the sick and dizzy feeling right before final exams. I knew I was being tested to see if I understood what the line required and what Brenda was looking for; to see if I could take the suggested revisions, remake them in my own voice and run with them; and to see if I could accept constructive criticism and write something marketable.

When I finished sulking, I chose to accept the challenge and the opportunity that was being handed to me. No matter how good you think you are, your writing can always be improved upon. But you’re all alone because no one writes a near flawless manuscript on the first draft. Revisions are a career necessity- as in you won’t have a career if you’re not willing to do them.

I started with a fresh eye and four brand new highlighters. I printed a copy of Brenda’s letter and marked up the entire thing- blue for suspense, orange for story elements, yellow for character and pink for relationship. Then I cut/pasted another copy of the letter so that all related comments were together under a heading- Hero, Heroine, Sexual Tension, etc. That gave me a better perspective of what needed to be done, just by looking at the length of each section.

Next, I highlighted a copy of the manuscript with the same color code I’d used on the revision letter and flagged each page to be edited with a color coordinating post-it note. It was a lot of repetitive work, going through the manuscript four times with each color, but it made the specific revision areas easier to find when I started self editing.

With a first revision, you need to concentrate on the big picture. Don’t try to fix everything all at once, but instead choose one main problem to work on at a time. I started with my hero, since he seemed to be the weaker of my two characters. By going back to my character interviews and notes, and really focusing only on this issue, I was able to find those traits that lift Alex from average to extraordinary.

Thankfully, I was a stay-at-home mom at the time, because it took me a while to go through the manuscript again and again, searching for and revising a different major problem each time. I resubmitted the manuscript on November 22, 2001, and waited to hear back.

The Second Phase

Brenda’s March 30, 2002, revision letter was only two and a half pages single spaced. I considered that a vast improvement. She told me on the phone that the first revisions were to make the book better, these revisions were so she could buy it. Here are some of the, in her words, ‘piddly’ changes she asked for:

General comments

What you’re aiming for is more peaks and valleys, the greater the highs, the harder the lows.  I noticed many awkward transitions, how they get from place to place is sometimes a little clumsy.  The movement needs to be better integrated into the story.

Story needs more passion, more sexual tension, more edge, more emotion. We want to feel the overwhelming urges the characters are experiencing, as well as their confusion because they’ve never felt that way before. Think back to the euphoria you felt the first time you fell in love. He was all you could think about night or day, right?  Now add a sexual edge to that, and give your characters that feeling.

We need to get this information across in more subtle ways, through hints along the way, dialogue and body language. Some introspection is fine, but it needs to be broken up.

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