Revision Challenege

I was planning on writing this post next week after we got back from camping on Tuesday but through an unfortunate series of events, we are not going camping, so here I am. And I am jumping from beginning a story to what happens after it is finished. Or rather, what happens when the first draft is done.

This is called revision. (I should mention that I have not ever gotten past this stage, meaning none of my stories have been published. But anyway.) 

So, I finished the first draft of a story a few weeks ago. I got around to printing it on Thursday, all 205 pages of it (in Microsoft word, 1.5. spacing and 12 point font). I talked about how pretty it was and thumbed through the pages, marveling at this thing that I created. I am sure I was obnoxious.

Then I sat down with a blue pen and started reading it and the marveling came to a screeching halt. It was my intention to go through and only mark large edits. That meant making sure the beginning matched the ending as far as world-building went and adding some scenes I realized I needed. 

One of the tricks to writing a story is to ignore the voice in your head that tells you that you're stupid, that all of your ideas are stupid and choosing to use 'said' for the umpteenth time is stupid. This is the voice that you have to listen to when you revise because it helps make it better. And my voice sounds like this:

Okay, well, you obviously have to take that whole paragraph out, it's just unnecessary. And the reader also doesn't need to know every time that character looks at someone. Get rid of that dialogue tag, there are only two characters talking, how dumb do you think your readers are? And please, please with the similes. That word doesn't need to be there. You should add a scene with these characters here. Oh and-WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT WAS ONLY ONE PAGE?

The kicker to this is that I am only 35 pages in and I have only marked what needs to be changed. I haven't actually changed anything yet. But I will, because once I do, that voice will be wrong. And I want so desperately for it to be wrong.