Revising vs Editing
I finished the first draft of my manuscript in November, and I thought I was prepared for what came next. I wasn’t.
Finishing was exhilarating and a little bit sad all at once. I’d followed the plot twists and turns where they led me, and while I knew there was still a lot of work to be done, the story at its core was complete.
Revising vs. editing
The revisions and editing processes are often spoken about together, and that threw me off. Since I hadn’t lived through either process yet when it came to writing fiction, I didn’t quite understand what set them apart, or why that distinction mattered so much. Turns out, it was one of those lessons I had to learn the hard way. Through failure.
I hate those kinds of lessons, but damn do they stick.
The first attempt
To start my "revisions and editing process” (note that I combined these into the same process), I created a spreadsheet with a focused plan to tackle specific things in each round. I thrive on organization, and when post-it notes and documents are scattered everywhere, my brain feels chaotic. So I pulled everything into one comprehensive spreadsheet, built from learnings I’d gathered through craft books and podcasts I’ve enjoyed, a few of my favorites listed below just in case you’re curious:
Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing by Tiffany Martin Yates
Fiction Writing Made Easy hosted by Savannah Gilbo
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing hosted by Bianca Marais, CeCe Lyra, Carly Watters
My spreadsheet had 10 steps to walk through, each with specific items to check off along the way:
Chapter structure & readthrough: merging my two timelines together and making sure they flow by reading my draft from beginning to end
Connections/themes: ensuring the intentional themes I planned are carried throughout the entire novel
Revisit and strengthen character descriptions and arcs
Address book coach and critique group feedback chapter by chapter
Active vs. passive writing
Verb swap: making weak verbs stronger (i.e., “she shut the door” → “she slammed the door”)
Show, don’t tell: focusing on words like felt and replacing them with more descriptive language
Ensure formatting (i.e. chapter titles, POV, datelines) is consistent for exporting
Beta readers
Sensitivity read/feedback
I had a plan! This process should be rather straightforward, I thought. Turns out, I needed more than a plan. I needed self control.
The failure
In hindsight, my plan wasn’t all bad. But the reason it didn’t work for me was because I simply couldn’t just stick to doing one thing at a time.
During Step 1, I found large gaps in my manuscript where I could add more context or interiority and there wasn’t a specific step in my plan to address that. I also couldn’t help but flag things I knew needed to be edited, fixed, changed, or done better. So, I was doing that work out of order.
During my read-through, there were times that I fell deeper in love with my story and found my writing to be so beautiful I wanted to pat myself on the back and pour a celebratory glass of wine. But more often than not, the amount of passive writing was cringeworthy and hard to overlook.
I quickly became overwhelmed by everything that needed attention, and I found it very hard to focus on one thing at a time and let the rest go. And this was only during Step 1! Because of that, my first read-through took forever. I knew the process I laid out wasn’t working for me, but I couldn’t stop myself midway through. So I pushed forward.
By the time I finished whatever I was doing, I knew I had done too much at once. My perfect process and spreadsheet were basically null and void. Some items were checked off the list, others were half-done, and the rest lingered untouched. I felt scattered, and I dreaded sitting down at my computer not knowing where to go next.
The second attempt
That’s when I decided I needed to scrap my spreadsheet for the time being and get back to the basics for my second round of revisions.
The story map I used to outline my novel scene by scene was out of date. I had planned my earliest timeline down to every scene before I even started writing, but when I wrote the more modern of the two timelines, I took a much more laid-back approach. With the second timeline, I outlined only the major events and flew by the seat of my pants in between (I wrote about this in my blog post about hiring a book coach). By the time I finished my first draft, my story map no longer reflected what I’d actually written, and I knew having an updated timeline of my story would make the revisions process far easier.
So I decided to read through my novel (again) but focus on creating a reverse outline. This would give me an up-to-date big-picture look at my entire draft. Honestly, this felt like taking two steps backward, but I knew it would speed up my process and give me clarity in the long-run.
I built another spreadsheet and, for each scene, I noted the surface action, narrative function, character motivations, subtext and themes, and whether the stakes are raised in a way that will keep readers turning the page. I also added a column where I could jot down revision ideas for each scene, so I could keep track of them without feeling like I needed to make those changes immediately, or risk forgetting them.
This reverse outline has been my saving grace.
I’m now more than halfway through this round of revisions, pacing myself at a minimum of one chapter per day. I’m focusing on the fundamental elements of my story and trying not to get caught up in the smaller, line-level edits outlined in my first spreadsheet.
My head feels clearer, and I have a big-picture plan with which to attack each chapter that will result in a more organized novel that I can line edit and copyedit later.
The aha moment
I finally understand why so many industry professionals and experienced authors insist that line-level edits (voice, word choice, clarity, pacing) and copy edits (grammar, misspellings) should only come after the story works from a big-picture standpoint. Whether a sentence is active or passive doesn’t matter much if I’m going to end up rewriting the entire scene to fix a plot hole. That’s the difference between revising and editing, and I was trying to cram both into the same process.
I’ve heard this advice over and over, but as a nitpicky writer, I struggle to let go and save the smaller details for later. I constantly fight the urge to edit as I write. But giving myself permission to let my manuscript be imperfect (for now) is the key. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the same advice that helped me to move forward and finish my first draft in the first place.
I rewrote Chapter 1 more times than I can count before several authors at the Historic Novel Society conference reminded me that a first draft isn’t about getting it right, it’s about getting it written. That’s why so many writers call it Draft Zero. Those writers don’t even count it as a real draft. It’s just their starting point.
Which leads me to what comes next… and that’s a whole other blog.
So consider this a teaser. My next blog will be about the investment I’ve made in the revisions process, and what that will look like for me over the next few months. Stay tuned!