When You Can’t Write, Rewrite: A Revision Cheat Sheet
I once heard a writer say that one of her most pivotal writing philosophies was to touch the work every day, or “not let the paint dry.”
I loved that concept for many reasons, but mostly because “touching the work” doesn’t necessarily translate to significant output, or achieving a high word count. For as consistent and disciplined as I aim to be as a writer, I don’t always have the energy or courage to sit down in front of a blank page. I am not always in the mood to slay dragons, to beat back the ongoing imposter syndrome and perfectionism lurking in the shadows.
On those days—days when I am low on energy, low on bravery, or sometimes just low on time—I am learning to embrace the art of revision. I print my essays out on real paper and take a red pen to each line. Where can I go deeper? How can I make this line funnier? Yikes, too many adverbs here.
“Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.” Patricia Reilly Giff
A reminder for you, and also for me:
When you can’t write, you can still touch the work.
When you can’t write, you can still paint the trim.
When you can’t write, you can still rewrite.
// Revision Cheat Sheet //
Activate your verbs. Strong, dynamic verbs help create a strong, dynamic story. Hot tip: print your essay on paper and highlight every verb. Can you make 20% of them more active? Watch out for too many “to be” verbs (am, is, are, was, were) and overused weak verbs (have, has, had, go, went, say, said, do, does, did, get, got, etc).
Cut verb qualifiers (from Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools). Qualifiers “attach themselves to standard prose like barnacles to the hull of a ship.” Scrape them away and watch your ship glide.
Sort of
Tend to
Kind of
Must have
Seemed to
Could have
Used to
Begin to
Cut your adverbs. At best, adverbs spice up a verb or adjective. At worst, they’re redundant. Look for weak verb-adverb combinations that you can revise with more active verbs.
Ex: She went quickly —> she dashed.
Ex: She ate greedily —> she devoured.
Ex: She spoke softly —> she murmured.
“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Stephen King
Take it easy on the -ings. Prefer the simple present or past tense when possible.
Be Better Than The Gap. There’s a scene in Crazy Stupid Love where Jacob (played by Ryan Gosling) tries to turn Cal (Steve Carrell) into a ladies man by embarking on a Pretty Woman-esque shopping montonge. When Jacob tries to convince Cal he needs to up his denim game, Cal responds, “Why can’t we just go to the Gap?” In response, Jacob throws his head back in disgust and stomps outside. “Be better than the Gap” is my personal reminder to not use clichés. Don’t be basic. Clichés lack specificity and rob you of an opportunity to hone your writing voice.
Let punctuation control pace and space (from Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools). Learn the rules, but realize you have more options than you think.
If a sentence is a road ….
Period = stop sign
Comma = speed bump
Semicolon = rolling stop
Parentheses = detour
Colon = flashing yellow light that announces something important is ahead
Re: Dashes … There are two great occasions to use a dash:
A pair of dashes can set off an idea contained within a sentence
A single dash near the end can deliver a punchline.
Look out for pets wearing evening clothes. If you’ve ever seen the episode of FRIENDS where Joey writes a letter with a thesaurus, you know it’s not always better to use fancy words. As Stephen King writes in On Writing, “One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.” King recommends writers use the first word that comes to mind, so long as it is appropriate and colorful.
Be specific. In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg notes, “When we know the name of something, it brings us closer to the ground. Learn the names of everything: birds, cheese, tractors, cars, buildings. A writer is all at once everything—an architect, French cook, farmer—and at the same time, a writer is none of these things.” Hot tip: search your document for uses of “it” in your draft, along with any other common words or phrases you can make more specific.
Place Gold Coins along the path (from Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools). If you want a reader to keep reading, they have to be rewarded along the way. A good opening is already a gold coin. Most writers know how to end with a gold coin. But what about the humdrum of the middle? To keep your reader’s interest, consider dropping a few rewards—like foreshadowing and cliffhangers—throughout the piece.
And last but certainly not least …
The Rewrite Formula: Second Draft = First draft - 10%
Talk about the easiest way to “touch the work.” Open up a draft in progress and (mindfully) delete 10% of your word count. According to Stephen King, who knows a thing or two about writing, this is some of the best advice he ever received.
“It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings than it is to kill your own.” - Stephen King
Anything else you’d add to this list? Let’s chat! Share your best revision tips & tricks in our Facebook group.
If you enjoyed this writing lesson, don’t miss these:
How to Write a Great Introduction
Use Good Words
Play Around with Dialogue
