Want to know how to take your novel from first draft to fabulous?
Read on for my step-by-step guide to revising a novel.
This month, I’m dwelling in the revisions cave, revising the murder mystery novel I wrote for Nanowrimo, last November.
Taking a book from first draft to polished manuscript ready for submission to agents or editors is a very different skill to writing it in the first place, something I’ve been reminded of time and again during this process!
The more complex the story, the more likely it is that it needs some serious revision. No book ever comes out of our heads exactly the way we pictured it. Thoroughly revising a novel is our chance to get it there.
As with all things writing related, there are as many different ways of revising a novel as there are authors. But I’ve always found it helpful to learn how others do things, before adapting the ideas that appeal to me into a system that works for my writing.
This blog series is written in that spirit: I hope you find some of it useful, and that you’ll try out the parts that resonate with you. But feel free to disregard anything that doesn’t!
Disclaimer given, this is how I approach revising a novel.
Read all the posts in the Revision 101 series
From Big Picture to the on the page details
In last week’s blog, I talked about finding your big picture vision for your book – figuring out what about the story you’ve written excited you, and how you wanted it to feel to readers.
This week, it’s time to get into the details. Starting with finding out exactly what book you wrote.
Scene By Scene Read through
No matter how many books I write, whenever I come to do my first read through after finishing my first draft, I’m surprised by something that’s in there. Sometimes it’s just a few lines, sometimes a scene, or a supporting character. Sometimes a whole subplot I’d written and forgotten about.
I think it’s because the part of my brain I use for writing isn’t quite the same as the one I use for revising and editing. I draft with my imaginative mind. I revise with my analytical one.
So, in order to find what sort of book you’ve written, we start with a read through. But this isn’t just a sit-back-and-enjoy-the-ride read (although I hope that you do!). This is a note taking exercise of epic proportions.
I do it scene by scene, because it helps to break the manuscript down into manageable pieces. Often I’ll print out the manuscript, and use sticky notes and page numbers to cross reference my notes, but I’m sure you could do this on the screen too.
Writing Exercise
For each scene, start by noting down the following as it exists right now:
- The conflict. This can be as simple as ‘Madeline vs Parker’ or ‘Madeline vs the earthquake.’ Just make sure there is some conflict in there.
- A one sentence description of the scene, detailing what changes, and the final twist that ends the scene. ‘Madeline tells Parker that she’s leaving, but when she tries to walk out he locks the door.’
- The setting and time of day where the scene takes place.
Then, as you read through the scene, add any notes on things that occur to you, such as:
- Plot holes
- Out of character behaviour
- Things that don’t fit with your big picture
- Threads you want to make sure are followed up on later in the story
- Basically anything that feels wrong – or very right – about the book you wrote
The New Outline
Even if you’re a pantser for first drafts, when it comes to revisions you need an outline. Good news, though – you’ve already written most of it! Probably…
By the time you’ve been through the full manuscript, you’ve probably got pages and pages of notes on the book you’ve got. Now it’s time to marry that up with your big picture dreaming and figure out how to turn that into the book you want.
Here’s how:
Writing Exercise
- Read through your big picture notes again
- Decide if your story starts in the right place. If it doesn’t, decide where it should start
- Start a bullet point list and, for the first item, write down a short sentence describing the opening scene as you want it to be
- What would logically happen next? Write that action or event down for your next bullet point – keep it short, just the basics
- Continue all the way to the end of the story
You can reference your original manuscript or the scene notes you made as you go if you need to, but as far as possible try to do this from memory – and don’t shy away from changing the order of events if you find a way that makes more sense or adds more drama or excitement to things.
You’re not going to be wedded to this list forever, it’s just a way of helping you bring that big picture down to earth. Follow the ‘this happened so then that happened because’ rule to make sure no events in your book occur just because that’s the way you wrote it the first time, or because it’s expedient.
There has to be a reason for everything.
(If you have several different storylines running concurrently, you could do one list for each plot. But probably you’ll find that they should tie up anyway before long – with something in Story A meaning that someone in Story B needs to take action.)
There’s an awful lot of work in this week’s blog post, I know. But getting this stuff straight from the outset – before you start making sweeping changes to the text itself – will save you a lot of time when it comes to doing the actual revision.
Next week: Putting it all together
P.S. Planning on taking part in Camp Nanowrimo this April? Check out my post on how to write 50,000 words in a month.
The scene-by-scene is fantastic! I was never good at making scene cards (when does a scene start? ends? Why does a scene have a subplot?!) but it’s like you said now that we have a full manuscript it’s much easier and helps put some things into perspective.
I’m so glad you found it helpful!