Writing Process

How an Award-Winning Author Approaches Revisions

Revision can be as creatively rewarding as drafting, so long as you pay attention to the right things.

Photo by Alex Jones on Unsplash

One of the best books on writing is A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by acclaimed novelist (and writing teacher) George Saunders. 1

One of the book’s recurring ideas is that good fiction, at its core, rewards the reader’s attention line-by-line. As long as you write a line that can keep the reader going for the next line over and over and over, then you can write compelling stories.

Here are some of his lessons on revision that I’ve applied to my own work recently:

#1: Revising requires paying close attention

The act of writing is the process of making decisions line-by-line until you have a finished draft. “Sure,” you might ask, “but how do I make good decisions?” Saunders’ answer is to pay attention to what you’re communicating through the story with every line.

“Good stories,” he writes, “are alert to themselves.” They respond to the decisions the writer makes with every sentence. A story is a dynamic vehicle for meaning, and every line shapes and clarifies that meaning in small but…