Writing Group Thread: Revision Passes
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In our weekly writing group threads, several of you have raised the subject of revision, so I thought we should start with outlining some basics. Namely, the idea of revision “passes,” or rounds of revision in which the writer focuses on developing one element of a drafted text at a time.
The premise behind approaching revision in passes, or steps, is that revision is not a one-time deal, but a many-layered process— or rather, a process that needs to take into account just how many different elements compose a written text. We have sentence-level poetics and syntax, we have structure; we have world-building and character building, scene and setting; we may have conceptual or genre concerns and constraints; sometimes we have critical, philosophical, and cultural arguments and questions the writer is pursuing. It’s a lot. And perhaps the most overwhelming and self-defeating way to approach revision is to try to tackle everything everywhere all it once.
By tackling revision in passes, you acknowledge the magnitude of the process, and break it down into manageable steps.
Though I think it’s important to remain flexible in your revision process, here’s a helpful breakdown of some basic revision passes you can start with on a draft of pretty much anything, in the order I would do them in: