If writing is an act of faith, then revising is an act of courage. You have to sit down with what you’ve written, look it in the eye, and admit it isn’t everything you hoped it would be. Worse than that, you can’t just walk quickly past your mistakes, holding your nose. You have to talk to them.

You buy them coffee and ask them how they’re doing, all the while cringing at their big, bulbous nose, their hunched shoulders, their crossed eyes. ‘What did I do wrong?’ you think to yourself, as they bather on about wanting a bigger part, asking ‘was there maybe a chance they could kiss the heroine at the end of the book?’, confessing how late at night, they lie in bed staring at the ceiling, knowing with a horrible certainty that there must be more to life than this.

And there is more to life. You know it. Your critique group knows it. Worst of all your characters know it. So what, Dear Author, are you going to do about it?

Here’s the scary part. Your story may not be perfect… but it could always be worse. If you reach in and touch up a character here, tweak a plot twist there, there’s no guarantee it won’t all collapse in on itself. You need an act of courage.

So you take a deep breath and get out the pliers. You take the kinks out of one character, you add them to another. You have to be completely honest with yourself here, not have any favorites. But most importantly, you have to believe that you are making it better.

But, when you open the door to honesty, in walks the creativity killer. The editor in your mind shows up uninvited, red pen in hand, eager to get started. It tells you that, while you’re being honest with yourself, you might as well admit that your story is crap and you are making it crappier. It tells you that you’ll never get this published. You’ll never be able to fix this mess.

But you can’t listen. Like a not-so-sweetly singing siren, this will drive you onto the rocks. Honesty works both ways. As you admit the flaws of your work, you must also admit its strengths.

That mistake you were talking to might look all wrong with a hunched back, but the enormous nose is actually perfect. Only by looking at what is working, accidentally or purposefully, in your story can you make more of it work.

So take courage. Get out that chisel. Even a jackhammer if you need to. But not the wrecking ball. Honestly, you are better than that.