What's the best advice you can give for revising to a beginner?

I know some where down the line I will need to revise my work. I'm wondering what flaws I need to look for. Can you provide me with a step by step rundown of what I need to look for when revising my work? Please give me suggestions than the obvious which is: punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc. Thanks :)What's the best advice you can give for revising to a beginner?
You can go on a website like fictionpress.com and look for a beta reader if you don't know anyone who is willing to read for you.


Also, try reading your work outloud. Sometimes hearing it will help you decide if something needs to be changed. And if you get hung up in any spots because the writing is confusing, you will know to revise it. Good luck.What's the best advice you can give for revising to a beginner?
Details first: Why will nobody read the first drafts? Are they too close to you, maybe don't want to take the chance of hurting your feelings if they have negative (yet intended to be helpful) remarks? Can you find someone disconnected a bit, yet close enough so that their remarks mean something to you? By the way, I think that if your writing is *good* you know it already -- your question sounds like it's trying to say ';how do you know if your writing is sellable?'; (lol), and that's a fair question as well (speaking as someone who has every intention of making a living writing, that's crossed my mind many times -- the difference between ';good'; and ';sellable';). Disturbing question, no?





OK, back to the original question, that of finding flaws. I'm going to assume you refer to a novel, or fiction in any case. First thing: are your characters believable? If not, why not? Of course, superheroes (for example) can't be entirely *believable* but in the correct context, no problem. If your characters change in any way (and they probably should), is the transition easy to follow?





This is difficult for me -- I try to catch problems as I go -- maybe that's my biggest problem, lol. I admittedly don't do a lot of revising AFTER I've come to the end of the story . . . and my characters tend to do a lot of writing for me, if you know what I mean. I've had stories change direction b/c one of the characters wanted to do something other than I had planned.





If you're an outliner based on a plot outline, then you have to make your characters follow that plotline. AND they have to have a reason for that, to make them believable. If your characters make sense, so will the story.





I know, different writers do different things. I'm sure there are wildly successful writers who focus on plot or tone more than characters -- and I probably don't read their books . . .





Good luck!
The biggest flaws to look for would be holes in the plot. If the only way your story can resolve itself is for your previously brilliant protagonist to do something stupid, revisions are needed.





How about dialogue? Does it ring true for the setting and the character or does it seem forced and stilted? Do your characters babble on in long expository declamations, or do you reveal information to the reader through a compelling narrative?





Word choice. Do your descriptions create a real sense of person and place? There's a difference between a woman wearing a green gown and a woman wearing a moss-colored gown.
The best advice I have is on my website: www.bkedits.com





If you can find a writers' group, you may be able to get helpful criticism.





The single most common error is described in detail in Jack M. Bickham's book, Writing Novels That Sell. In brief (but Bickham put it better), you have to write things in the order they occur, and the stimulus has to be -immediately- before the response. You don't write, ';He ducked as she threw the pot,'; or, ';She threw the pot. Her biceps was like a boxer's. He ducked.'; You write, ';She threw the pot. He ducked.';





That's because you only have black marks on a white page with which to draw your picture, and the reader is very, very easily lost.





www.bkedits.com
Make multiple revisions to any work and wait at least a day before you go back and make a revision. After first writing something it's easy to gloss over glaring mistakes and shoddy writing, but after a little time away it's much easier to read it objectively, like it was someone elses work.
Well I know that from personal experience that I am the worst critic of my own work, but I wont have anyone read it other than me!!








Guess we'll never know..