Why is it so hard to revise your own writing?

Sometimes the hardest part of revising a novel is getting started. There will always be gaps between what you think you have written and what you have actually put on the page, but it is often difficult to see those gaps until you have found a way to make space for alternative perspectives besides your own. There are a few reasons why it can be hard to see what edits you need to make in your own writing, including confirmation bias, expertise, and top-down cognitive processing.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is stronger for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. When we read our own writing, we tend to see what we want to see. We focus on the parts that we think are good and we overlook the parts that need improvement.

Top-down processing is a cognitive process that occurs when our brains use our existing knowledge and expectations to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the world. When we write, our brains automatically fill in the blanks and correct errors.

As the author of your writing, you are intimately familiar with the content. You are likely the one and only expert on this story that you are trying to tell. Sometimes that level of expertise can lead to gaps in your story simply because your reader can’t possibly know everything you know about what you are writing. You know what you meant to say, and you can easily fill in the gaps in your logic when you reread what you have written. This can make it difficult to see where your writing is unclear or confusing to someone who is not as familiar with the topic as you are.

This sort of cognitive processing can be helpful when we are first drafting our work, but it can also make it difficult to see the errors when we go back to edit. These are just a few reasons why it is essential to obtain outside feedback during the evaluation step of the writing process. Writers who can craft clear, concise, and complete novels without obtaining outside feedback are the exception, not the rule.

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Now that Jack has been forced to reflect on everything he has to lose, he resolves to do better. He’s determined to spend more time at home with his family and repair the relationships that have suffered over the years while he’s been so focused on work. But as Callie’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, Jack realizes he has a lot more room to improve than he realized – and it might be too late to save his daughter after all.

For fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Push, and Baby Teeth.