How does one go *back* to editing an older piece?

Question

I have a longer work that took me a lot of effort to get through, and the moment I finished it, my life went crazy. That was about 6 months ago, and in the intervening time I haven't been able to pick it back up.The story is complete, and if I may be so bold, the writing itself is solid. But it's still unpolished: I need to add a few scenes, develop a character or two more deeply than I initially did, maybe a bit more. But I can't focus on the story any more. My mind tells me "it's done," and refuses now to revisit it.Has anyone else been in this situation before? How do you make old material feel fresh enough to work on again?

Answer 1

It's hard to go back to an older piece. The key is honestly discipline. Place yourself in the shoes of an editor, and go in with a fine-tooth comb and write out every single mistake you see and change you would make; don't worry about correcting them just yet. These errors could be macro in scale (this character arc needs a little more fleshing out, this scene needs to be replaced) or small (this sentence is a run-on sentence, I should emphasize this particular item more as it becomes important later). When that's done, start making the "big" changes, and slowly work your way down to the smaller ones.

And then, once you've done that, do it again. And then again. And again.

To an extent, you'll never be completely satisfied; but once you start to feel like you're making changes primarily for the sake of making changes, stop, and then do something else. Maybe try to get it published. Maybe start another story. But don't dwell overly long on it after that point.