Forever revising

I did a school visit last Friday while I was in Winston-Salem for the BOOKMARKS Festival (which was very, very awesome!). I spoke to an English class at North Forsyth High School about writing and becoming a writer.

I have to pause here to say that I am SUCH an introvert. In my first year of being published, I dreaded speaking engagements. I know it was very obvious at my early speakings that I was incredibly nervous. My voice shook and my mind would go blank about what I was supposed to say. But by now, I’ve done so many speaking events that I don’t get as nervous as I used to. I’m still a little nervous, but much more confident about what I’m saying and with interacting with the audience. School events are my favorite for speaking because I really enjoy talking with the students and hearing what they think about books and about writing.

Teachers always tell me that their students don’t like rewriting. They want to write their papers for class once and be done with it. So one of my favorite things to do at school visits is to show one of my manuscripts after revisions. I love the open mouth stares and the gasps when I show them pages and pages of a book that have red pen marks all over them. Entire chapters crossed out, new text handwritten on the back of printed pages, circles and arrows to indicate things need to be moved around, squiggly lines and notes all over the margins. I like to see how they react when I tell them that I tossed aside the original version of Troy High and then rewrote the entire thing, even after I had done revisions on the first version.

Revisions are SO important to the writing process. Personally, I like revisions. First draft writing is the hardest part for me because that’s when I’m trying to find the story and the characters. I need to just get the basic framework down so I can figure out what the story is really about. Revisions are when I can have fun, delving deeper into the characters and the plot. My first drafts are bad and if I judged my writing based only on them, I would never have tried to become a writer. But then comes revisions and that’s when the magic happens. That’s when I can make the mess into a real story.

Truthfully, I never really stop revising. When I do readings at events, such as at the festival last weekend, I find myself still making minor changes to the text as I read aloud. Just little words here and there that I would change in the book if I could, but since the book is done and out there already, I fulfill the urge by slightly altering the text as I read.

I’m in the middle of another round of revisions on a project that I’ve worked on for two years and which has already been through several rounds of revisions before now, including critique partner and agent feedback. This is a light revision stage though, just minor word or sentence changes as I read the book aloud, making sure that the cadence of the story is right in my ears. No matter how many times I revise a project, I can always find more changes to be made.

This entry was posted in Writing.

2 comments

  1. Claire says:

    Shana,
    I LOVE the book Troy High! I found it at my school libaray and it looked cool! It was better then i though it would be!(Thats a compliment!) Theres so much epicness and drama! Please Keeping writing books like that one! It was amazing!
    ~Claire!(:

    • Shana Norris says:

      Claire – Thank you! I’m very happy to hear that you liked Troy High! 🙂 I’m working on a sequel novella to Troy High, which I hope to have out in ebook format early next year!

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