MY (VERY SPECIFIC, MAYBE USELESS) REVISION PROCESS
Those of you that have been following me for a bit know that, just recently, I crawled out of what writers like to call the “revision cave.” And anyone who’s revised a book knows that this particular phrase is painfully accurate. My revision was a dark bedroom lit only by the computer screen, huddled in a blanket cocoon, a thousand empty cups arranged around me, my revision playlist on its 1,458,238th loop. We associate revision with pain, assuming the story will break us down to rock bottom while we try to fix it up.
Revision sucks.
This time around, I tried to come up with a concrete method for getting it done. And I’m pretty proud of what I came up with. It might not work for anyone but me, but if I can help even one writer make it through revisions in tact, I’ll sleep easy.
THE EDIT LETTER
LOOKING FROM ABOVE
So, this was my first time revising with edits from an outside source (in my case, my agents). For those of you that have a finished draft but haven’t started revising yet, I really recommend editing based on an edit letter. This letter doesn’t have to come from an agent - it can be from yourself! Once you finish the draft, give it a month to breathe, then put on your objective-outside-party hat and pretend you’re a publishing professional reading your book for the first time.
This isn’t the time for inline comments - just note the things that don’t make sense, the times you wanted more from a scene, the times the theme didn’t seem to add up. You’re a reader looking at your book as a whole. What is it missing?
For a real life example, here’s what my edit letter asked me to change (obviously summarized so as not to give away anything about the book):
Tighten up the lore and eliminate added pieces of world building that distract from the characters/emotions/plot. This point included a few key pieces of lore that my agents believed could go.
Change the nature of a key character relationship. My agents felt that the build-up to an important scene at the end of the story would feel more natural if one of my protagonist’s relationships was tweaked slightly.
Add more substance to the protagonist’s relationship with the setting. This meant adding dialogue and internal thought that better explained the way the setting interacted with the main character.
Make the protagonists’ reasons to work together more concrete. This doesn’t really require explanation.
Change the order of a handful of scenes in the beginning so the twist is more of a surprise. Again, pretty straightforward.
That may seem like a lot, but you know your story better than anyone else. The letter only needs to be 4-5 paragraphs just noting the key things that need to shift for the story to click into place. Once you have that letter or list put together, you’ll probably want to jump right into revising.
DON’T
If you’re like me, jumping right in without a game plan will burn you out. Instead, this is when I started with my weird new process that really worked for me.
EDIT LEVELS
BREAKING IT DOWN
Once I had my edit letter, I read my book again.
On this second reading, you’re reading your book as the author, not an objective reader. Read every page with your edit letter in hand, because this time you’re reading looking for what changes come to the surface of your brain. If you know you need to change a character’s motivations, read for moments of interiority. You’ll be keeping track of these moments in three tiers.
BOOK-LEVEL
The top tier of edits is book-level edits. These are the edits that require adjustments in several scenes. Often, these edits mean re-structuring. These are the things you highlighted in your edit letter, and they’re things you need to be looking for all throughout your reread.
SCENE-LEVEL
The second tier is scene-level edits. These are the edits that are contained within a single scene or chapter. They’re internal inconsistencies. Some of these can be trickle-down changes from your book-level edits (for example: if I know I need to change a specific dynamic throughout as a book-level edit, each of the instances I need to change would be scene-level). Others will be errors within a scene, like a character arriving at a location in their car and leaving on foot. These are targeted edits, always pertaining to a specific instance which makes them easier to tackle.
LINE-LEVEL
The last tier of edits is line-level edits. These are the easiest to complete, making them the most tempting to jump into right away. This isn’t typos - it’s more like straightening out the wrinkles in your book. For me, line-level edits are either single lines/paragraphs I wanted to add to give more context or lines I found that were inaccurate/out-of-character/too revealing.
As tempting as it is to revise as you go, holding off helped me so much. I started with a list of the book-level edits from my edit letter, then broke down a list of my scene-level edits so I knew exactly what I was changing in every chapter, then made a list of the lines I wanted to add/change/subtract.
In the end, I had 6 book-level edits, 52 scene-level edits, and 118 line-level edits.
KEEPING A SCHEDULE
MANAGING YOUR PROGRESS
Once I had a solid number of revisions to make, everything felt a million times more manageable.
I’m a person who loves lists and schedules, so once I had my number, I jumped in. I started with my scene-level edits, determined to do 4-5 edits a day. One thing I’ll say is that I think we often pride ourselves on being ahead of schedule. I constantly tried to push ahead on my edits, but this is a dangerous tendency. If you’ve made yourself a pace/schedule, I recommend stopping at the number/word count/goal you’ve set. Take notes for the next day if you have to, but burnout is real and we are constantly pushing ourselves right up to it.
Anyway, I didn’t tackle line-level edits until I’d finished all of my scene-level edits because there was no guarantee I was even keeping the passages the line-level edits were in. Once I’d finished my scene-level edits, I went through my list of book-level edits to make sure the changes covered them all.
And, surprise, they didn’t!
This happens, guys. Sometimes you think you’re doing enough revisions to totally cover all the changes you want, but you’re working with a massive, unruly things. Things get left out. Fortunately, because I’d just reread the book, I went through and added a few more things that I’d missed. With the scene-level edits already in place, it was so easy.
Finally, I got to the line-level edits, which would’ve been totally overwhelming if I was trying to tackle them at the same time as the big stuff. Because I’d already done all the heavy-lifting, line-level edits were fun. You wouldn’t believe how many times I whispered “oh man, this will mess ‘em up,” to myself. If book-level is knocking out the supports and scene-level is placing the furniture, line-level edits are the little decorations that tie the whole thing together.
THE READING NEVER ENDS
that’s right, do it again
Once all three tiers of your edits are in place, you get to read it again.
Be careful with this reread; the book is going to be so familiar at this point it’s hard to look at. At this point, you’re not looking for huge changes. You’re just reading to make sure it’s all smooth, typo-free, and coherent. You might have new ideas popping up left and right - what if this character was secretly the killer? what if I had a flashback where this character said this awesome line? - write those down, but don’t make anymore changes.
For me, this was the most important stage because it was the moment I finally thought “Hey, this book is pretty good.”
It’s so easy for us to hate our own writing. We constantly see the ways it can improve. No matter how many times we edit and revise and polish our books, we’re convinced it could be better. Maybe it could, maybe not, but taking the time to read your work and deeply appreciate how far it has come is so crucial. On my final reread of my book, I laughed and cried and gasped because I was reading a real, legitimate-by-all-definitions book. I imagined being a reader falling deeply in love with my own characters. Even as I type this, my heart feels so full because of all the work I’ve done.
It feels weird to say you have to love your work deliberately, but I mean it. Love your work like it’s your job, because it is.
And there it is - my revision process. There are ways to tweak this, and you can even throw the whole thing out the window. But I really hope this helps someone. It definitely helped me!