The Lost Art of Waiting: The Benefits of Delayed Revisions
Why waiting before revising enhances your storytelling
There’s a rise in influencers suggesting that fast is the answer. Write and publish a novel in one month, they say. Faster if you can.
Write comics? Well, then, a week should do it.
You know what? Screw it. Use AI, it’s even faster.
Aside from trying to sell their get-rich-quick scheme (spoiler: there are easier ways to get rich than selling books), there’s another message hiding under all the hype: quality doesn’t matter.
If you market it well enough, it doesn’t matter if your books are good or not. And if you’re making money, who cares?
The sooner you publish your book, the sooner it can generate income. And the more books you’ve written, the better you look to potential readers, so churn ‘em out, baby!
It’s not just the influencers. Instant feedback from social media has taught us to chase that dopamine hit. We feel a sense of validation and accomplishment when we publish, so let’s do it more often, right?
Part of The Message is that you must keep producing content to maintain visibility and engagement with an audience. If you slow down, you’re forgotten!
And with digital editing tools helping us feel more confident about those early drafts and self-publishing platforms making it so easy to publish quickly, it’s an easy trap to fall into.
But it’s a trap just the same.
Quality does matter.
It matters to your readers.
And if you’re honest with yourself, it matters to you, too.
Let’s face it, if you’re reading an article by some dude calling himself The Fiction Coach, you want to produce quality work. You’re a writer. You want others to read your words, and you want those words to have an impact on them.
Want your work to shine? Want it to resonate with others? Slow down a little. After you’ve written that first draft, take a break from your story. Four to six weeks if you can resist the siren song for that long.
It might sound like outdated advice, but experienced writers and editors, myself included, still advocate for taking a break. This incubation period allows you to return with fresh eyes and new perspectives, leading to deeper and more refined revisions.
Stephen King typically waits about six weeks before revising his stories. In his memoir "On Writing," he mentions that waiting gives him a fresh perspective and allows him to approach his work with a more critical eye.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a short story, a single-issue comic, or a full novel, distancing yourself from your work before revising is a wise decision.
Here’s why:
Fresh Perspective — This distance helps you spot big things like inconsistencies and plot holes, and small things like awkward phrasing or repetition.
Enhanced Objectivity — When you step away from your work, you become less emotionally attached to your writing. This objectivity enables you to make more critical and effective revisions.
Improved Creativity — Stepping away can spark new ideas. When you return to your story, you might find new creative insights and solutions to problems.
Spotting Themes — When you read a story after a few weeks away, you might spot themes hiding under the surface. Developing these further or making them more pronounced can add depth and meaning to your story.
Re-evaluating Structure — You might discover structural issues or identify chapters and scenes that need reordering or reworking to enhance narrative coherence and engagement.
Reader's Experience — By waiting, you can replicate the experience a reader might have. This helps you gauge the story’s flow, pacing, and overall enjoyment from a reader's perspective.
When I feel pressure to hurry—and believe me, I’ve been there—I think of this quote, which is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin:
The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
Granted, I’m not talking about a low price here, but it does remind me that readers matter.
Weeks, months, or years from now, when someone new stumbles upon my stories, will they care that I published them quickly? No, they’ll only care about their reading experience.
Hell, even your current readers would rather have quality. When was the last time you heard someone say, “Yeah, this book sucks, but at least I didn’t have to wait an extra few weeks to read it!”
Yes, you can write quickly and still perform well. And not all quickly-written books are poorly written.
But if sitting on a story for a few weeks helps make your stories better, isn’t it worth it?
If you slow down, you’re forgotten! --- I feel this one very strongly. I hear it everywhere, and not just about writing. This is life in the 21st century. Nice to see someone pushing back on the idea.