How to Gain an Appreciation for Revision

I received a message this week from a regular workshop attendee about a student of her own. Apparently, the student was having a hard time finishing any of her creative writing assignments, and her teacher was hoping I would have some ideas of how to help her. After asking some follow-up questions, I learned that the student had plenty of enthusiasm for writing, and just needed some guidance to make proper use of it.

The situation sounded pretty common actually. Many writers deal with inner-editors that make them  feel like they have to get a story right the first time. In the case of this student, she was so concerned about writing the story correctly from the beginning that she would try to plan out to the number of sentences in each paragraph! While this may be an extreme case, I think that the advice I gave her teacher would be of benefit to any writer that doesn't understand the benefits and pleasures that come with editing.

Editing and revision are often misunderstood by novice writers. They think that "writing" is just the creation of the first draft and that editing is something non-creative or hard that you have to do after you've had your fun. The truth is, revision is the best part! It's when the writer gets to take something that was merely "ok" and makes it exceptional. It's shuffling words around and changing everything and creating your dream house out of the temporary shack that was just keeping the rain off before.

If you find yourself paralyzed with performance anxiety when writing your story, you might try out the advice I gave to this student's teacher. My recommendation was to use her writing sessions to work on revision, rather than first draft writing (counter-intuitive I know, but hear me out). My advice was to have the student revisit a finished short piece that she had already done in class, then ask her what she wished it had looked like. Questions at this point could include "What would you have done if you had more time?" or "What do you think could make it even better?"

The key to this exercise is to change something significant about the piece. If you find yourself freezing, then try assigning yourself something specific to change. It can be anything. Make a character sad instead of happy. Change the ending. Turn them all into elephants. Just something to make you think of every story draft as a malleable object. Above all, have fun! At worst, writing should be a pleasant chore, like working in the garden or building a model. Remember that you are writing (and revising!) because you love to do it.