I finished my first “novel” when I was a sophomore in high school. I put “novel” in quotes because while I had written a book length work of fiction, it didn’t hang together as a coherent story – a problem that plagued most of my early attempts at novel-writing. (Thanks, Dad for reading it anyway!)
I had read enough issues of my dad’s Writer’s Digest magazines to understand that the next step was to get feedback and make revisions. I didn’t understand what revision really meant, or how to approach it.
I’m not alone in this. Many new writers get through the exciting milestone of finishing a draft and are left wondering, “Now what?”
Early in my writing career, I approached revision more like editing. I worked through my manuscripts chronologically, making any changes that seemed necessary as I went. I was simultaneously fixing all kinds of issues from word choice and syntax all the way up to making structural changes. This approach was frustrating and wildly inefficient. I might work my way through line edits on several chapters and then tackle a plot issue that involved cutting the chapters I’d just edited.
It was a life-changing moment the first time I learned that revision could be approached strategically.
What’s the difference between revising and editing?
While these two terms can be used interchangeably, there is a subtle and valuable differentiation. To me, “revision” is most useful as a term for major changes to a manuscript – the types of things that (confusingly) a developmental editor or beta reader gives feedback on – while “editing” better describes small adjustments at the sentence and word level – what your line editor, copy editor, and proofreader take care of.
In terms of approaching changes to your manuscript, it is most effective to do revisions first and then work your way down to the more granular editing.
In this post, I’ll quickly lay out the overall revision roadmap I use, and then in future posts, I’ll talk about each layer individually. As a rule of thumb, you will want to take breaks between each level of revision to give yourself distance from the manuscript, so you can effectively evaluate what you have on the page. You’ll also need external feedback along the way, so bringing in other people to read your manuscript while you take a break is a smart approach.
Layer 1: Story Level Revisions
The first pass (or several) of your manuscript should focus on global issues such as the plot and character arcs. This is when you think about scenes that should be added or subtracted, plot points that should be changed, or any other changes that will ripple out to affect the whole manuscript, or large sections of it.
Layer 2: Scene Level Revisions
Once you’re satisfied with the basic shape of the whole story, it’s time to make some tweaks at the scene level that will highlight themes, clarify motivations, timeline, worldbuilding, etc. This is when you might amp up or trim out subplots. If you are significantly over or under wordcount, fixing that might happen in this layer. (This layer is currently where I am in my work!)
Layer 3: Sentence and Word Level AKA Editing
Many inexperienced writers will start here, and while you certainly can tweak the words and sentences as you go (I do), it doesn’t make sense to put a ton of effort into polishing your prose until the story is sorted out. As KJ Dell’Antonia is fond of saying in the #AmWriting Podcast, “Good writing comes last.” She doesn’t worry about how well she describes a sunset until she knows for sure that sunset belongs there. This isn’t to say that word choice and syntax aren’t important. Of course they are! They’re the medium of your story. But, they can also be tweaked and honed at the very end. This is the layer where you can differentiate between the voices of characters, clarify things that are confusing, cut/add for word count expectations, and the like.
And that’s the basic battle plan! I’ll give each layer its own more detailed post in the coming weeks.