The Revision Laboratory was created as a public venue to organize everything I've learned from my undergraduate research project. This project seeks to explore the art of revision by learning what readers look for, what editors look for, and what publishers look for. I sacrificed my fiction novel Riff to the case study of this laboratory to see what would bubble to the surface. Please explore these pages to learn revision techniques and tips.
My Research Methods
1. Read craft books
2. Read in my genre
3. Research publishing and the market
4. Get 10 full critiques on my novel
5. Hire an editor
Other things that have helped include interning at a publishing house, attending writers conferences, being part of a writers group.
Why revision?
Writers have easy access to advice on how to get started writing a novel. There are tons of books and websites on how to structure, make believable characters, find your voice. There are also tons of books and websites on how to publish your novel: query letters, agents, self-publishing, etc. But there is less information about the steps in between. They like to gloss over these steps by combining them into "and then: write your book." It isn't as easy as they make it sound.
Where can you see this presentation?
UW-La Crosse Celebration of Student Research and Creativity
April 3, 2009
11:05am
Port-o-call, Cartwright Center
free
National Conference for Undergraduate Research
April 16, 2009
2:45pm
118 Carl Wimberly Hall (UW-L campus)
ticketed
Your mission, should you choose to accept it...
Step 1: recognize the problem
Step 2: get fresh eyes
Step 3: revise
Step 4: publish
