I'm currently in the throes of revising my first draft into middle draft on my 4th novel, and I have to say I agree with all the conventional wisdom reiterated in the Blackgate.com article linked below, namely: don't revise until the first draft is finished. I also have to say that, like the author, M Harold Page, I don't follow the conventional wisdom. As implied by the title of the article, the author feels it's acceptable to take a break up to the 33% mark, to go back and revise for reasons of solidifying descriptions and deepening the understanding of the world being created.
For me, there's no hard and fast rule about when to stop revising the first draft and push on to the end. Yes, the cons of revising-as-you-go might outweigh the pros for many people but - unlike newer authors - this isn't my first rodeo. I have confidence that even if I stop and fiddle and revise as I go, I will finish my novel and I will finish it, more or less, on the schedule I've set for myself. Is some of my revision nothing more than procrastination because writing new words is harder? Without a doubt. Is a lot of it wasted effort as those words get cut or changed in the middle and final drafts anyway? I think the answer to that isn't as black and white. Yes, a lot of it gets changed anyway; mostly the wordsmithing I fall into more than I should. No, it doesn't necessarily mean it was wasted effort.
I agree with the points made in the article that I learn more about my world when I revise during my first draft. Even if I'm piddling around wordsmithing (because as I re-read I just can't help myself) I'm exploring nuance of feeling and description that makes my characters and world more real to me and helps me to understand them at a deeper level. Another time I'll stop for revision is when I hit a road-block. When the writing gets hard and I can tell it's not just a motivation issue, I know I've usually gone off-track with the plot somewhere I shouldn't have. Stopping, figuring out where I went wrong, and doing the revision right then unsticks those writing cogs that were jammed up and gets the story flowing again. More than that, everything that comes after now works with the revisions I made.
Perhaps, in time, I'll be able to knock all that out of the park on the first pass. Perhaps, since I'm a pantser, I never will. For me, though, I find that revising when I need to (or want to) helps my forward momentum when I return to writing new words. I can walk about more comfortably in the skin of my characters and their world, and in a plot I feel sure is working. I feel it prevents missteps in future chapters that would then need heavier revision and, time-wise, would perhaps end up taking as long or longer to write than revising as I go. But, like everything about writing, there's no one right path - just the path that works.
For me, there's no hard and fast rule about when to stop revising the first draft and push on to the end. Yes, the cons of revising-as-you-go might outweigh the pros for many people but - unlike newer authors - this isn't my first rodeo. I have confidence that even if I stop and fiddle and revise as I go, I will finish my novel and I will finish it, more or less, on the schedule I've set for myself. Is some of my revision nothing more than procrastination because writing new words is harder? Without a doubt. Is a lot of it wasted effort as those words get cut or changed in the middle and final drafts anyway? I think the answer to that isn't as black and white. Yes, a lot of it gets changed anyway; mostly the wordsmithing I fall into more than I should. No, it doesn't necessarily mean it was wasted effort.
I agree with the points made in the article that I learn more about my world when I revise during my first draft. Even if I'm piddling around wordsmithing (because as I re-read I just can't help myself) I'm exploring nuance of feeling and description that makes my characters and world more real to me and helps me to understand them at a deeper level. Another time I'll stop for revision is when I hit a road-block. When the writing gets hard and I can tell it's not just a motivation issue, I know I've usually gone off-track with the plot somewhere I shouldn't have. Stopping, figuring out where I went wrong, and doing the revision right then unsticks those writing cogs that were jammed up and gets the story flowing again. More than that, everything that comes after now works with the revisions I made.
Perhaps, in time, I'll be able to knock all that out of the park on the first pass. Perhaps, since I'm a pantser, I never will. For me, though, I find that revising when I need to (or want to) helps my forward momentum when I return to writing new words. I can walk about more comfortably in the skin of my characters and their world, and in a plot I feel sure is working. I feel it prevents missteps in future chapters that would then need heavier revision and, time-wise, would perhaps end up taking as long or longer to write than revising as I go. But, like everything about writing, there's no one right path - just the path that works.
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