Stop or Go: When Do You Go Back and Revise?

If you're anything like me, cool stuff just happens as you write. Your characters say or do something you weren't expecting, and you get that happy little buzz of excitement.

Until you realize that there's absolutely no groundwork for that cool thing.

This happened to me just recently in Shifter 3. I got to a super awesome scene moment in chapter two, and something happened that was perfect for Nya, but readers were so not gonna get it. It wouldn't have any meaning to them because I hadn't done any groundwork for it. It was one of those things that grew from what had happened in books one and two. My subconscious was stealth writing again.

Now, I had two choices. Go back and put in the groundwork for this scene to have its full impact, or keep going and worry about it during first draft revisions.

Since this moment was central to the core plot, I decided going back was the right choice. There will be a new chapter now that sets up this moment, and I really hope readers will be as excited about it as I am when they read it.

But it isn't always easy to know if going back is the right thing to do or not. It doesn't take much to get caught in a editing loop and never get anywhere with your story. When I have to decide to go forward or go back, I consider these things:

1. Is this critical to the core plot?
If knowing how this event unfolds will affect how the story unfolds going forward, I go back and edit. Especially if this event is going to motivate my protag to act later. If the event is more cosmetic, or will deepen something that's already there, I'll make notes where it should go and move on.

2. Do I know how the characters got here?
If the scene/moment is a cool way to use what I already wrote and just needs a tweak to make it fit better, then I make notes and move on. But if I'm not sure how the characters reached this point, but I know it happened "somewhere" between X and Y, then I go back and figure it out.


3. Do I even know what happened?
I've discovered many a "thing" in the story that I had no clue how it worked. It's cool, it's great for the story or character, but it's going to take some serious thinking and major layering to get it to fit in with what I already have. This is usually world building epiphanies or the like. These I make notes and go back, because they almost always require lots of work and surgical editing to add them in.

4. Will this kill my momentum?
When you're on a roll, you're on a roll. If stopping is going to make me stare at the screen when my fingers were ready to type another three hours, I keep moving. A few quick notes so I don't forget, then I get back and let the muse work. Once I'm done, I decide if I need to go back or not.

Moments of genius can be great ways to rev up your excitement about a project, so don't let the thought of "all that work" get your down. There's nothing that says you have to stop and fix it at that moment. As long as you make a note of it somewhere, you'll be good to go.