I can't believe that it took me this long to figure it out. I've been revising the same way for years, and just today did I finally figure out that I've been doing it all wrong, all this time. At least, I've been doing it wrong for me.
Over the years, pretty much every writing class that I've ever taken has taught me that when it comes to revision, start big and work your way down to the small details. The funny thing is that the best writing is the details, and if those are wrong, the rest of the revisions that I make have to be revised again, and I still end up frustrated that parts of a piece that I know should be working simply aren't. What I learned, and what will completely change my life and my work as a non-fiction writer, is that I needed to turn that advice on its head.
Non-fiction is a funny thing, because those of us who write it and specialize in memoir or personal essay are often the protagonist of our material. Even when we don't write about ourselves specifically, we write about the lives, joys and struggles of people that we know well. Because of that, it's often difficult for us to extract our narrator selves from our writer selves. The material is so intensely personal that our attachment to it is unbearably strong. I've struggled over the years to distance myself enough to see the work in a more objective way. I've started many pieces that I never finished, because I wasn't happy with the way that they turned out, but couldn't fix them because I was unwilling to "kill my darlings."
I took a different tack today, almost by mistake, and it was a revelation. Rather than focusing on revising globally (working on the "big ideas") of the work, I started with sentence level revisions. Changing verbs from passive to active, working on constructions, deleting adverbs, making weak verbs strong verbs. I worked only on sentences: not paragraphs or pages or everything all at once. What amazed me was that as I did this, I was able to be objective! I wasn't working on changing big elements of the story, I was simply picking out every word and adding, deleting, or changing them. I revised the sentences one by one, tedious work, but worth every minute. As I looked back over what I did today, I realized that I'd improved this piece in one day more than I've ever improved another piece of my writing after months of work! As I continue to work my way up to the bigger things, I can only imagine that by the time I get to the really big elements, I'll be able to see the piece with a far more detached and professional eye. It'll change my life.
There's a reason for the old adage, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." For most people, what I've been taught likely works just fine, but for me, it caused anxiety and stress that I didn't even understand. Whatever you do, find the way that works, not for everyone, but for you. Try as many different approaches as you can, and wait for the epiphany to unfold.
