Revision isn’t punishment. It’s decision making time.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: You’ve written a first draft. It took weeks, months, years. You’ve struggled, you’ve cried, you’ve bled onto the page. But you did it, you found the story, and finally wrote the words The End.

Then you realized…finishing your first draft is most certainly not the end.  

Revisions can feel entirely overwhelming. Suddenly the story you’ve put so much into feels wrong in its very bones. Aside from the few moments that you love, you feel like there are too many things to change, too many rewrites, and you might as well give up and start selling feet pics on the internet.  

No! Don’t give up. We want your story not your feet!

Revisions, in essence, are decisions. Now that you have something to work with, everything you change, fix, or alter is simply a decision about how to make the story better. Organizing your decision making/revision process will make your subsequent drafts much more efficient and far less overwhelming. 

Maybe you are thinking, what if I don’t know what is best and I make the wrong decision. Just like there is no crying in baseball, there are no wrong decisions in writing. Some decisions might cause more work than others. But, ultimately, you will make the best decision for your story because your writing is your expression. You have to go with what feels right. Every decision you make is infusing the story with your own unique fingerprint.

In this newsletter, I’m going to share my guide for revisions, including the questions you need to ask yourself along the way.  

A note on wait time…

Give yourself a vacation between drafts. Stay away from your manuscript. It will help you get a cleaner perspective so you can do efficient and effective revisions. Here’s why: 

When we are deep in a draft, we lose focus on the big picture and how everything is connecting. Since our brain is actively involved in the draft, it tends to fill in gaps. In other words, we see our intentions and lose sight of what is really there on the page.

By taking a break, we allow our immediate knowledge of the story to shift into memory consolidation, which allows the brain to sort information, better see patterns, and (perhaps the most important for us writers) it helps us disconnect emotionally from the work.  

So how long of a break do you need? I always try for a month. But even a week will completely change your perspective.

Once you come back to your draft, you will have a fresh perspective, closer to what a new reader would have. In addition you’ll find that:

• The emotional attachment softens

• The story becomes a whole in your mind, not a tangle of scenes

• Your brain begins to see patterns instead of paragraphs

When you pick up your story again, you are primed for revisions.

Revision set up

Use a different part of your brain for revisions. You are shifting from creative brain to logical brain. Make the process feel different. Here are some recommendations:

1. Print your story. (If you don’t want to print, you can do a revision on the computer. I name versions or make a new file for each version. Utilize “suggesting” mode to help you make notes as you go.)

2. Write your guiding questions for each draft on the manuscript to remind yourself what you are focusing on.

3. Try to read the whole thing before you start rewriting (the whole point is to see the big picture)

4. Once you have read your draft, use your notes to start the revisions.

Note: I print and do this after every major draft. Once I get everything more or less under control in terms of structure and pacing, I usually stop printing. But when I am overwhelmed or feel like I’ve lost sight of my story, a physical change (like going from computer to paper) is really helpful. 

Note Note: Depending on how much feedback you like, you could even try for a beta reader between drafts too. I don’t like to have a beta reader until I have done as much as I can possibly do on my own. But I know lots of writers that like input earlier in the story. Decide when you want feedback, and make sure your beta reader knows where you are at in your process and what you’d like them to focus on. 

Start Big, go small!

Revision 1 → The Structural Draft

Focus: Big-picture story decisions

Working at the Level of: plot, chapter order, scene purpose, missing or redundant moments

Guiding Questions:

• Does the story make sense from beginning to end?

  • Delete or plan to add scenes for cohesiveness.

• Are the major plot turns in the right order?

  • Use the “Tetris Technique”** to see how moments feel in a different order. 

• Does every scene belong?

  • For every scene, decide if you should cut, keep, or combine with another scene.

At this level, you are still deciding what the story is. 

**This is my tip for next Monday! Print out scenes and move them around to give yourself a different perspective! 

Draft 2 → The Character & Motivation Draft

Focus: Why people do what they do

Working at the Level of: character goals, emotions, internal logic

Guiding Questions:

• What does my character want in each scene?

  • Are motivations clear?

• Is the character’s personality consistent?

  • We like moody characters, but only if it’s on purpose. 

• Are their choices emotionally logical?

  • Does what they do or say make sense in the moment?

• Where are their reactions unclear or flat?

  • Do you need to heighten anything?

You’re making the story coherent from the inside out.

Draft 3 → The Tension & Pacing Draft

Focus: Reader experience

Working at the Level of: scene endings, chapter flow, rhythm and momentum

Guiding Questions:

• Where does energy drop?

  • If you start to get bored, so will your reader.

• Where should things move faster or slower?

  • Adjust pace by replacing description with dialogue to speed up, or padding with description to slow down.

• Are scenes ending with momentum?

  • End on a moment of question or change to encourage your reader to keep going.

• Is there enough pressure on the character?

  • Do things need to get worse?

You’re shaping how the story feels to read.

Draft 4 → The Language Draft

Focus: Sentence-level craft

Working at the Level of: language

Only now do you polish:

• Word choice

• Dialogue

• Description

• Voice

• Flow

Now is the moment to make everything as beautiful, snarky, poetic, elevated, or humorous as you want it to be. 

The Final Word

This framework is geared towards helping you keep yourself on a productive path. (I cannot TELL YOU how many times I have perfected a paragraph or scene and then cut the entire thing in a fury later down the line.) This structure isn’t meant to say you can’t fix a sentence that is driving you nuts in the first revision, or that you won’t decide you need an additional scene when you are in a final revision. It also doesn’t mean that you will have exactly 4 revisions–it could be fewer or more, depending on your own style. But going into a revision with focus and guiding questions will help you make decisions without getting overwhelmed.

Again, these are decisions only you the author can make. Don’t worry, you’ll make the right ones. 

Your Turn

Where are you at with your revisions? If you are just starting, see how this format works for you. If you are already revising, incorporate any guiding questions that will help you are this point.

And, by the way, if you have a request for next month, let me know! I’d love to hear what writing topics you’d like to dive into. 

Keep writing!

Florence