Think back to the last great book you’ve read. The author probably spent a lot of time writing it, and most of that time was spent in revision. I’ve a read a lot of fiction from authors of all experience levels, and it’s SO obvious when they’ve sent me a first draft.

Hemingway famously claimed that the first draft of anything is shit. Strunk pushed his students to write with vigor, claiming vigorous writing was concise. A first draft is never vigorous or concise, and it’s always a terrible piece for publication.

Yes, revision is time consuming, but your writing is worth the effort, and you’ll feel a lot better sending it out into the world fully prepared for the challenges ahead.

Revision is actually my favorite part of the process. It’s when I get the see the rough stone of my ideas, take shape into a beautiful sculpture of the narrative.

Check out the companion video to this post.

The Great Myth⌗

It’s a common belief that great writers can pump out a masterpiece on the first try. This is almost never the case. Further, it can be difficult to send works-in-progress to non-writer friends, because they might expect to read a polished manuscript rather than a bug riddled first draft.

The first draft is supposed to be bad. The whole point is to get words on paper, without the pressure of perfection, so you can focus on refining later. This is better for productivity and yields a better story.

Jack Kerouac is famous for writing the 1957 novel “On the Road” in a three week long binge on a single 120ft scroll. This is true, he did that. But it’s not the whole truth. Prior to this mythological feat of creativity, Kerouac had written at least half a dozen drafts of “On the Road” over the course of several years. So no, he did not write a legendary novel in three weeks, he wrote it for the seventh time, in three weeks.

J.R.R. Tolkien is famous for creating the sprawling fantasy setting of Middle Earth, but he only published a handful books while he was alive, with everything else compiled and edited by his after his death. Tolkien was a notorious perfectionist; he revised seemingly innocuous sentences of “The Hobbit” in between print runs.

Think about it. Did Michelangelo hit a piece of stone with a hammer and magically out popped the statue of David? No, of course not. The actual statue took ages to complete, and years of practice and failed statues leading up to it.

What is Revision?⌗

Being on the internet, we have access to information and communities we never would have without it. Unfortunately, sometimes the isolation of the internet removes context.

Without guidance the new writer will find the term, “Revision” to be vague. What is it and how do you do it? I didn’t know this when I started, and I had to figure it out for myself. As you grow as a writer, you find some things work well for you and other things don’t.

Revision will mean something different to you as you grow your skills, but this is what it means for me:

  • Revision—processes in which a writer revisits existing writing with the goal of improving its overall quality. This takes of the form of proofreading, correcting spelling, grammatical, and syntax errors, omitting needless words, restructuring sentences and paragraphs for clarity, and often, rewriting the piece entirely.

Rewriting is essential. You can’t polish a turd, but you can cook a meal again. Often that second attempt will taste a lot better. God, that is a gross metaphor.

Writing is an iterative process and every story has a different recipe. When you write your first draft, it is an act of exploration and discovery. Dufresne wrote, “The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.” When you rewrite, it is a route you’ve traveled before, and learned the roads to take to avoid traffic.

You don’t propose marriage on the first date. So take the time to get to know your story, and find out what makes it unique. Just a like a first date, you’re not going to find out all there is to know from one dinner. If you do, then the story (or your date) might lack substance.

Admittedly, some pieces don’t need to be rewritten, or shouldn’t be. Poetry is coveted for its immediacy, spontaneity, and imperfection. Some poems are products of a moment in time, and can’t be repeated. But a novel, and other forms of fiction and nonfiction, is not like this.

Learning to Revise⌗

The best way to learn revision is practice. Take your old writing that you think is so awful, and rewrite it. However, uninformed practice is usually useless. You need have a mindset and some knowledge that will enable to recognize and solve problems present in the text, you weren’t able to when you wrote it.

Read great writing from writers you enjoy. Stephen King says reading terrible writing to see what not to do is just as important. Doing this, you will naturally intuit the laws of grammar or composition over time and develop and innate sense for whether your writing flows.

Don’t rely this though. Brush up on elementary grammar. Understanding the different between an adverb and adjective or what the hell a split infinitive is will only make your life easier down the road. Don’t drive in the dark without headlights! Ideally, you should have this knowledge baked in from Elementary and High School, but if you were an underachiever like me as a kid, you might have some catching up to do.

The best book I can recommend for this purpose is the fourth edition of “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. At 80 pages and freely available on the web, there is no excuse for any modern writer not to have read this.

Don’t stop at reading, either. Take note of the rules and principles you recognize as something you’ve struggled with and focus on fixing those while you draft. You’ll start seeing these mistakes in your older writing. Seriously, taking the time to learn about writing and the language you write in will change the way you see text on paper.

For fiction, I recommend “The Art of Writing Fiction” by Andrew Cowan, which has a similar reference for syntax common in novels.

I’ve seen a lot people resist the idea of “rules” in writing. As an editor, I don’t mind if a writer breaks convention for artistic license, but only if I can see that they understand what it is they’re breaking. It’s pretty clear to editors and agents when rules are broken arbitrarily, and to us, that just looks like bad, lazy writing.

Learn the basics first, even if its boring. It will be boring. But it will make your life easier. The great irony of procrastination is that doing it right the first time is always easier, and lot less work.

Revision at Work — An example from my own writing⌗

If you’ve seen my YouTube videos, you know I’m nearly finished with my first novel, and I’ll be publishing it through the Arcanist. It’s in it’s fifth draft right now, and it’s taken me four years to get to this point. I started working on this book at the beginning of my fiction writing journey, and I’ve learned so much through revising and iterating on this story.

I just so happen to archive everything I write, so I’m going to flaunt my own dirty laundry to show you the power of revision and rewriting.

What Lies Below, Opening Paragraphs of First Draft, 2022⌗

“How did he die?” He was hunched forward with his elbows resting on the dissection table, his intertwined hands pressed into his scarred bearded chin.

“Stabbed. By a spear I think,” His sister said trailing off, staring blankly at the wall. He was breathing when I carried him back to the wagon.”

“Were you followed?”

“I reckon so.”

Iason Tohr examined the corpse of Marcus Delian, a man he’d known for more than twenty years. A man he had great respect for. He poked callused fingers into his friend’s swollen neck, then inserted one into the wound on his chest.”

This passage is awkward and impersonal. Marcus is Neryth’s husband, and he just died! Yet there is no emotion to be found in the scene. Not to mention mistakes in formatting dialogue, the uncertainty in how or when to introduce the characters, and the egregious use of the passive voice.

Now let’s look at my most recent of edit of this scene. Admittedly, I am attached to it and I’ve had a hard time bringing it up to snuff. Let’s see how it fared after one rewrite and four revisions:

What Lies Below, Opening Paragraphs of Fifth Draft, 2025⌗

“How did he die?” Iason Tohr asked, staring down at an ancient dissection table that held the dead body of his closest friend. He linked his fingers together unconsciously, pressing them into his overgrown beard.

“They threw a spear at him,” Neryth said, her dark eyes affixed on a crack in the wall. His younger sister was far away, existing between life and death. “Those animals didn’t even let him speak…”

“Did they follow you?”

“They chased me for a time, but they were all on foot.”

In front of him lay Marcus Delian, a man he had known for two decades. A man he had great respect for. Once, Marc was vigorous and lithe, even retaining those traits as he approached his fiftieth winter. Iason poked two calloused fingers into his friend’s swollen neck, then into the wound on his lower pectoral.

In this iteration, there is more evocative language and the writing is concise. Iason and Neryth are immediately introduced, and the reader sees a bit of their personality and appearance due to their actions. Because the voice is active, saying what they are doing, rather than what they could be doing, the emotional impact of the scene is much more prevalent.

Conclusion⌗

When you take pride in your work, and take the time revise it as you grow, you will find there are a lot less stories you wish to throw away, and more that you want to approach again. I used to be embarrassed when I showed people early drafts of my book, but now I’m excited. It’s the best example of my skills as a writer.

I no longer feel the need to justify bad writing, the revised writing speaks for itself. But that only comes with time, iteration, rewriting, and revision.

So now you understand why revising and rewriting, though tedious and time consuming, is worthwhile. I’ve given you hard evidence and resources to further your leaning. The rest is up to you.

If I failed to convince you at this point, perhaps a flood of rejection letters will do the trick. Keep writing, keep revising, and I see you next time.

Sincerely, James