So after posting my awful disappointing Story Exchange story, I sat down and did a post mortem of it. This made me start wondering: what process of revision do you guys go through? Do you revise? What amount of time do you wait before you revise? Do you send it to a beta reader for critique? If so, how many? Etc, etc. So I figured I'd share my revision process with you guys, and see how you all revise as well.
I typically wait a week before I touch my writing again. I am one of those people who rereads it later that night or the next day and hates it and wants to delete it. What I do is wait a minimum of one week before I open it again. This gives the story time to grow cold and gives me mental distance from it so I can approach it more analytically. If I've been thinking about the story in the meantime, I have to wait longer to get my mental distance.
Once my wait is over, I go over it with a sort of checklist. This checklist varies between my original and my fanfiction work. For original work, it involves things such as Is my worldbuilding sufficient and Are my characters acting consistent and Are my characters growing and Is my magic/technology/cultural/what have you systems self-consistent. For fanfiction, it involves questions like Am I staying true to the spirit of the universe and Are my characters sounding like their source and If I am diverging am I doing it believably. For both there's the checklist of How well am I portraying what i set out to portray. No matter what checklist I'm doing, I make sure to run it through.
Next I move on to the technical checklist. Terms, grammar, spelling, perspective, etc. This checklist usually takes the least amount of time because I'm pretty good (I think, anyways) at the technical things. It can take longer if I'm working in an unfamiliar style, though, such as first person.
The next step is beta reading. I try to get at least 2 betas for every project, a source beta and a strange beta. My source beta is someone who is familiar with the world I'm writing in. For fanfiction, such as KotOR, it's at the minimum someone who is familiar with Star Wars, but it's usually someone else who has played and loved the game. I have source betas for my original works as well, because one of my personal methods of world building is to talk out aspects of my world (be they cultural, rules for magic or technology, characters, whatever) with another person or two, because their feedback usually helps me deepen my world. The source betas know about the world I'm working in and can thus check me on how well I'm working with my source material. The strange beta, on the other hand, is a beta who is unfamiliar with either the canon (if it's fanfic), or with my world (if it's original). A strange beta doesn't know anything about the world I'm writing in, so they provide a perspective of how well the story can stand or fall on its own inherent merits. I refuse to publish a work unless it's been checked by both kinds of betas.
(Intriguingly enough, I don't know very many people who take this dual beta approach. In fanfic it's usually just one same-fandom source beta that you always use and is your bff. I find this method more rewarding because I love the input from the strange beta who knows nothing, but I realize it would probably drive others batshit.)
Anyways, after beta reading, I get back the copies with all their annotations. I then take these copies, go over the changes, and either incorporate them or call the beta back, talk about why I don't agree with the change, and try to come to a compromise ground with them about it. If two betas disagree, I try to corral all 3 of us to talk together and try to come up with something we all like.
Once it's been betaed and revised, it goes back to the betas for a final check. If it passes final check, it gets posted (fanfic), or I start looking for markets to shop it to (original work.)
This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about my revision proccess. So, what do YOU guys do?
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