The Joy of Revisions

Many thanks to Samantha and all the other Love Is An Exploding Cigar regulars for inviting me to come and blog with you today.

When Sam asked me to do this back in February, I'd just done a week-long online discussion on eharlequin about "building fictional worlds." I wasn't sure then what I was going to talk about. But as I've written 59 books in the past 23 years, it turns out that I haven't created "worlds" -- I've created a universe!

It's my own little alternative version of reality that bridges several different Harlequin and Silhouette lines in which all sorts of McAllister characters -- from cowboys to models to sandcastle builders to baseball players to muralists to CPAs -- coexist and try not to step on each others' toes while I'm trying to get them to their various happily ever afters.

And just when I think I've done it, along come revisions!

That's what I'm working on now -- and while it's always nice to have an editor buy a book and say, "No revisions needed," I'm almost (almost being the operative word) happier when she has a few things she'd like me to do because I get another shot at making it a better book.

So I thought talking about revisions might be an interesting way to spend our blog together.

Readers (and for years, of course, I was one) think that books just get written. You sit down and the story flows out of the end of your fingers through the keys and onto the screen. Um, no. Well, maybe every once in a while. But generally it doesn't happen that way.

Writers know this. They know that what makes sense in a synopsis, may not make sense when you actually go to write it down. It sounds like it should work, but however many times you try it, your story flounders almost lifelessly. You need to write it -- and then rewrite it -- and maybe rewrite it again twenty more times -- until it's right. Or as right as you can make it at the time.

When I send in a book, I send it in as right as I can make it at the time. Usually, because I'm almost always finishing at the last minute, it could be "righter" if I could put it away for a week or two and take it out and look at it again. Most times, though, I don't have that luxury.

So getting back a book for revisions allows me that space and that second look. It also gives me some editorial feedback. While I don't want commentary while I'm writing (I'm not a critique group sort of writer), I am always glad to have it once the whole story is on paper.

The editor's view gives me a measuring stick of how close I've come to making her see and feel the story I wanted to write. Sometimes I'm spot on. Sometimes I don't hit the mark.

But by this time I know what the story is -- I've made it to the end once, after all. And so revisions give me a chance to look at the whole thing all over again, to re-vision it, to see it again and see where I can do it better, shape it up, sharpen it up.

That's what I'm doing right now. I have a week to do it in. What I'm doing is basically cutting 15,000 words and adding 10,000 -- cutting the 15K that don't matter, finding the 10K that do and putting them in, using them to refine and revise and, ultimately (I hope) capture the vision of the story that I had in the first place.

That's why I like revisions -- they are the second chance we don't ordinarily get in real life to get things right in our fictional ones.

And I hope that I do it well enough that readers coming to my book will not stumble into the cracks between drafts. It should be a seamless whole. It should look exactly as if the story flowed effortlessly from my fingers to the keys to the screen.

Only you and I will know the real truth. You won't tell, will you?

What about you? If you're a writer, what do you think about revision letters and phone calls? Do you like critique groups to help you sort things out along the way or are you, like me, more of a go-it-alone writer most of the time? And if you're a reader, do you notice things that make you wonder if you're reading a patchwork quilt or a seamless story? Does it bug you or do you find the story so compelling that you really overlook the discrepancies?

I'm going to give away two prizes of TWO BOOKS apiece -- my two most recent books from Harlequin Presents, THE ANTONIDES MARRIAGE DEAL and THE SANTORINI BRIDE (which are linked books and a small part of my very own slightly off-beat universe).

So if you are a registered user and you post here, you will be entered in the drawing. And if, by chance, you win and have already read them, I'm pretty sure I can find a couple of my backlist titles you won't have read to send instead.

Keep an eye out for THE BOSS'S WIFE FOR A WEEK coming in late September. It will take up with Spence and Sadie's story -- where THE SANTORINI BRIDE leaves off.

Thanks, everyone, for the opportunity to visit! Come see me sometime at my blog!

Cheers,
Anne