Here’s my dirty secret: I don’t like revising. The very word sends shivers down my spine. It’s a necessary evil—a tedious, messy hurdle standing between me and the manuscript of my dreams. I’m completely and utterly baffled by writers who tackle revisions with the kind of unrestrained enthusiasm I usually reserve for a 29 oz. jar of Nutella.
Revisions are M-E-S-S-Y
Revisions are messy! I’m deleting and adding and shuffling and changing and renaming. If I pull a thread in chapter two, do I accidentally affect the events in chapter thirty-three? Oh, and that plot twist in chapter sixteen? Yeah, doesn’t make sense anymore. Cut that. If I fix this detail in the second sentence of the first chapter, can it derail what my character feels in chapter three?
I repeat: revisions are messy!
Rachel Griffin To The Rescue!
Enter Rachel Griffin, all-round magical unicorn, messy-revisions-savior, and author of THE NATURE OF WITCHES, WILD IS THE WITCH, and BRING ME YOUR MIDNIGHT!
Rachel has developed a revision process that is suuuper structured and very helpful! I took her course “Writing is Rewriting” at THE WRITERS CONSERVATORY. It’s a very hands-on online course designed to help you get through the chaotic process of revising your novel. In the course, Rachel offers all kinds of practical tools that help organize the messiness of a draft: crafting an edit letter, creating a chapter-by-chapter outline, prepping for pitfalls and self-doubt, doing read-throughs and targeted revision passes, and so on.
Lessons Learned
Without giving too much away (I highly recommend taking Rachel’s course if you’d like to know more) Rachel taught me to start with a VERY extensive revision prep. Doing the prep work was time-consuming, challenging, and not fun AT ALL, but it did help me understand my story much, much better. It also helped me understand that I had to sit and think on some things before I could move on to the next step: theme, want and need, and the story finale.
Rachel also taught me to start with macro-level revisions—story structure, character arcs, and theme—instead of diving headfirst into sentence structure and word choice. She encouraged stepping back and asking questions like: Does the story flow logically? Are the stakes high enough? Are the characters consistent and compelling? Is the voice strong enough?
Once the big-picture issues were addressed, Rachel moved on to deeper layers of revisions: refining dialogue to reveal character dynamics, intensifying emotional beats, and ensuring worldbuilding details enhanced the story vibe.
She showed me that not everything can be fixed in one go: prioritize what matters most and focus on one layer at a time. Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
It’s a Mindf*ck
Rachel’s course gave me the tools I desperately needed, but the REAL shift came when I embraced her mindset about revisions: writing is rewriting. It’s part of the game, so make it fun and SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP.
I still don’t LOVE revisions…BUUUT, thanks to Rachel, I’m waaay better equipped to tackle them and I’ve come to realize (albeit reluctantly) that rewriting makes my story much better and stronger and more magical and voicy—step by step. Revisions are incremental improvements and an opportunity to enhance ALL THE THINGS that made me want to write the story in the first place.
Honestly, it’s kind of empowering to mold a story with intention and make deliberate choices to strengthen its impact, one messy step at a time. Mindf*ck, am I right?
Happy revising!