The Art of
Revision
ENGLISH 8
Revision vs. Editing

Revision = changing the content of what you are
writing


Example: Adding a detail is revision.
Editing = changing the appearance of what you
are writing

Example: Adding a comma is editing.
Revision is like. . .
Revision is like cleaning your
room because it may not be
fun while you’re doing it but
when you’re finished, you can
stand back and see what
you’ve done, and think, “Wow!
That looks great!”
- Lisa Schroeder, author of I Heart You, You Haunt Me
Revision is like. . .
“Revision is like getting
everyone in the choir to sing
in harmony because if one
voice sticks out, it ruins it for
everyone else.”
- Kathi Appelt, author of Kissing Tennessee and
Poems from Homeroom
Revision Takes Planning

Before we start editing in depth, we need to focus
on revision.

There are SO MANY WAYS to revise! We’ll show you
just a few methods or strategies to making your
writing better . . . . But that isn’t all you can do!

You need to have a plan about how you are going
to go about your revisions – you can’t just slash and
burn for no reason!
Big Things to do for Revision

Adding material

Details

Description

Plot background

Character Development
Example
First paragraph:
“I want to go home!” Karen screamed.
her.
“But you can’t,” said a rough voice from behind
“It’s not fair.”
“We will let you go when we are done with the
experiment,” said the voice.
Karen sobbed.
Cut, Cut, Cut!!

You can add. . . but you can also take away.

What do you cut?

Repetitive information

Information that slows down the pace

Irrelevant information

Words you tend to overuse (example from my own
writing: “realize”, “noticed”, “obviously”)
Word Choices

Try replacing common words (things, good, stuff,
cool) with words that are more unique.

Try eliminating adverbs and describing them
instead. Example: Instead of “he walked quickly”,
what could you write to describe how he walked?
He walked with his head down, arms swinging back
and forth, legs eating up the ground.

Try eliminating phrases like “it looked like / it seemed
like” to make your statement stronger.
Quotes from Real Authors re:
Revision
“I just love to use just. It’s just so natural to just write and write and
just let the words flow, you know? I weed most of those justs out in
revision.”
- Linda Urban, author of Crooked Kind
of Perfect
“I have a few little rules. Never more than one metaphor per
page. Never use the same word in the same sentence (other
than common words). Try not to use the same word in the same
paragraph, and maybe not the whole book. And if you can’t find
a new way to express something (avoid cliches at all costs), then
just say it straight, i.e. “She was crying.”
- Nora Raleigh Baskin, author of
Anything But Typical
Tip from John Green
That really depends on how you define “draft.” I believe that all
writing is rewriting–even when you’re writing something down for
the first time, it’s still an act of translation in a way because you’re
trying to use text to bring life to this thing that exists in your mind.
And I’m a big believer in revision: I almost always delete most of
my first drafts (often as much as 90%). But there are many minidrafts along the way, so it’s hard to talk about the process
quantitatively. I do try to save the file with a different name each
time I’ve made some dramatic changes I fear I might later regret,
so that’s some measure, maybe, of how many drafts there are.
The final copy of Katherines on my hard drive is called aok284;
the final copy of TFiOS is called okay192.
-
Author of The Fault in Our Stars