Rejected First Time Around: the Art of Revision

Rejection: the gut-punch every writer faces.  History is full of books dismissed before becoming literary classics.  Lord of the Flies was rejected multiple times, once dismissed as ‘an absurd and uninteresting fantasy’.  Remembrance of Things Past was ridiculed - one publisher scoffed, ‘I cannot understand why a man should take thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed.’ And Ulysses?  Banned and rejected for its experimental style until Sylvia Beach’s bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, took a chance on it.  

If even literary greats had to refine their work, why do so many students believe they’ll perfect an essay on the first attempt?  With revision season in full swing, now is the time to help your budding literary genius embrace the art of refining their ideas - because real thinking happens before they set foot in the exam hall.

Revision: Where the Real Thinking Happens

One of the biggest mistakes students make?  Assuming they’ll figure out their best ideas mid-exam.  That’s like expecting to write a bestseller in one sitting under fluorescent lights in a sports hall… with a ticking clock.  The exam isn’t for working out an argument - it’s for executing it.  The heavy lifting happens in revision: shaping nuanced interpretations, selecting the strongest evidence, and refining analysis.

How to Revise Like a Bestseller

‘Kill Their Darlings’

Fitzgerald slashed thousands of words from The Great Gatsby before it reached its final form.  This means cutting weak arguments - if it doesn’t directly answer the question, it needs to go.

Refine The Ideas Before the Exam

A student’s ideas about the text should be watertight before they even see the question - but the question must shape their response.  Exam essays are often framed around a statement or point of view, and it’s this that drives the argument (no one is ever asked to simply write everything they know about Blanche’s fragility; it must always be in relation to something else).  Encourage your student to practise essay plans, explore different angles, and develop the flexibility to adapt their argument to the focus of the question.

Push Them to Test Their Interpretations

T. S. Eliot once dismissed Animal Farm as ‘not convincing’ (ouch).  Now is the time for your child to stress-test their ideas - do they hold up?  Have they considered alternative readings?  The revision period is when these questions should be answered, not in the exam.

Support Clear Structure

The Night Circus was almost entirely rewritten (after it was sold to the publisher) to refine its structure in order that it echoed the dream-like reality of the story.  In the same way, an essay needs careful structure:  in this case, clear, logical progression - examiners aren’t mind-readers. 

The Exam: Time to Deliver

By the time they enter the exam hall, the real thinking should be done.  Their job now?  Execute a well-prepared response.  Whether writing a novel or an Othello crit, the process is the same: think, refine, practise, then write.

Now, edit mercilessly - and remember: the exam is the final, not the first, attempt.