"Prose is like hair. It improves with a good combing."

At least, that's what Jasper Fforde says.

I think combing is a great analogy for editing and revising.  When you comb hair, you work out the kinks, smooth it, and make it beautiful.  Combing prose is the same idea.  When you comb your prose, you work out the kinks, smooth it, and make it beautiful.  And so, it's a necessary process.

To be honest, editing/revising is not one of my favorite processes in the writing realm.  When I've been working with a piece for a long time, I become connected to it, so editing can be difficult.  (How can I slash out an entire scene I spent so much time crafting?)  So I've had to create some methods to take some of the prickly out of editing and revising.

The first thing I do when I start editing something is to read it all the way through without making any changes.  That way I can refresh my memory of the story, and by reading it from beginning to end without interruption, I can get a better feeling for the flow of the story since I jump around a lot when I write.

The next thing I do is go through the piece again and only correct grammar/punctuation.  This is so I don't let superfluous apostrophes or improper tense slip me up when I'm reading for flow, character, and plot.

Finally, the third reading is for everything else.  Did I remember to change the character's name every time?  Does something sound awkward the way it's worded?  Should I add more detail in the setting description in this scene?  This is the time I take notes in the margins, cross things out, move things, and jot scene rewritings on the backs of the pages.

Once I've gone through the piece a third time I sit down at my computer and start making changes.  Even if I think a change isn't quite right, I go with my first instinct and change it.  This is an important step for me because there have been many times I've changed something and in the retyping I changed it again, only to change it back when I reread the piece.  Once the changes are made, I print a new copy and the process begins all over again.

Some people may think this process sounds quite tedious.  At times it is, but by separating the readings that way, I keep myself from having to think about everything all at once.  Instead, I can focus on one task at a time and put all my energy into that task.  That keeps me from feeling overwhelmed as I work through a piece.

What's your revision process?