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.
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Write on the World 