Following on from the last post, here’s the specific method for revising!
Do I really have to revise? - the four-step revision method, part 1
2. Read like a reader.
To revise, you first have to read. But not just read. You have to read from the reader’s side.
We revise because saying what we meant, in a way that’s easy to take in, is hard to pull off.
So while revising, weigh two things: 1) did it come out the way you meant, 2) is it easy to understand.
Reading your own writing from the reader’s side is not easy.
Of course it isn’t.
The whole piece is already in our head. So when the content rambles or the order is backwards, we don’t feel it, because we’re filling the gaps with what’s in our head. When a claim has no support, we recall the support from memory, think “everyone knows this much,” and move on. A reader doesn’t. They start with none of it, so we and the reader are looking at the piece from different positions.
So before revising, wipe the piece out of your head. The stranger the writing feels to you, the better the revision. Reading it as an unfamiliar thing is what lets you feel where the reader is.
The first way to empty your head is a gap of time. Revising the day after you drafted is best. Take at least a thirty minute break before revising, or you won’t be able to read it as a reader.
The second way is changing the environment, and there are lots of environments. If you wrote on a computer, print it out or read it again on your phone. If you wrote in dark mode (black background), read it in light mode.
One note: while revising, I don’t recommend music that’s too upbeat or too intense. A cheerful track can carry you right past an error or a contradiction. Quiet, calm music works better. No music is fine too.
For the same reason, I don’t recommend good food while revising. Good food makes you generous, and a generous mood skips right over the parts a reader wouldn’t follow.
Music, food, whatever it is, a calm mood helps you read as a reader more than an excited one does.
And read it once carelessly, skimming. We write with full attention, but readers often skim. Plenty of them are distracted by their phone or the noise around them. Reading it half-attentively is how you understand where they are. It’s also how you catch phrasing that’s too hard and structure that’s too complicated. When you skim, read as if you’ve had a drink. Drivers on their phones are said to be about as impaired as drunk drivers, so that’s a usable benchmark. ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16884056/ )
So leave a gap of time, change your surroundings, and read from the reader’s side. As you read, check whether the piece lands the way you meant it to.
3. Find the reason to fix it.
As you read, you start wanting to change things. Usually it happens when the writing gets boring, when a passage doesn’t make sense, or when something doesn’t line up. Something feels off, and you want to fix it.
When that hits, two things come first.
First, which part is off.
Second, why that part is off.
It might be a single word. It might be a phrase, a clause, a whole sentence, or a whole paragraph. The reasons vary too. The order is wrong, the sentence is hard to follow, or the phrasing says something other than what you meant.
There’s no right or wrong reason for writing to feel off. If the person reading feels it’s off, that’s enough. Once you feel it, you have to find the reason. If the reason is hard to name, look back at “How to read a piece of writing,” which I wrote a while ago.
Once you’ve found the odd spot, it’s time to fix it. Stopping here and telling you to just fix it would be pretty irresponsible, wouldn’t it? So here’s how to fix it, in detail.
4. Swap and choose.
The last step is swapping pieces in and out.
You’ve picked the part to change and you know why. Now you just rewrite it. Clear? If that last bit wasn’t clear, that’s normal!
“Just rewrite it.” If it were that easy, this post wouldn’t need to exist. That’s an irresponsible way to explain it, so here it is step by step.
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Take the part of the sentence you want to change and write it a different way.
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Keep going, changing a little at a time, writing it different ways.
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Once you have several new sentences, pick the one you like best. It helps to pick with the reason you found earlier in mind.
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Repeat 1~3 until the sentence you picked is one you like.
When fixing a sentence, I recommend cutting the sentence in two, changing the subject, changing the phrasing, and reordering the words.
Small increments are the point. Start from the sentence you don’t like and improve it a bit at a time until you do like it. If you could fix it in one go, you’d have written it well the first time. Fixing is changing a little and comparing to see whether it got better, over and over.
5. And then stop.
Revising is combing your hair.
Skip the comb and you look a mess. Comb your hair before you go out. But no amount of combing turns you into a different person. Revising is the same. You do have to revise, and revising more doesn’t keep making the piece better. Usually it’s good to stop after about two passes, once you can’t see anything left to fix, or once you decide the whole thing has to be scrapped and rebuilt.
Conclusion
Revising is combing your hair. A comb alone makes a person look put together, and writing is the same. The same content reads better once the grain lies flat. A consistent argument, an interesting shape, the right length, and phrasing that lands all come together to make the grain of a piece.
Thinking leaves marks. Writing that was worked over and fixed reads differently.
So revise.
Books referenced
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기자의 글쓰기
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이토록 간결한 글쓰기
Worth remembering!
Change the environment: different device, a gap of time, different surroundings
Don’t read it when your mood is very good or very bad, since food or music can make you too forgiving
Order of revision
Does the whole piece run in line with its subject?
Does each paragraph do its job?
Does each sentence do its job?
Is each phrase the right one?
How to revise: make alternatives
Revise, let it sit, revise, let it sit.
Stop when it gets hard.