What to focus on when revising your novel draft

Up to this point, your novel manuscript is still in what we call the “rough draft” stage, which means that if you feel like your manuscript is still crap, you’re probably right (and that’s ok!) Once you have conducted a thorough evaluation of your first draft, it is time to get down to the work of revising it to address the issues you discovered during the evaluation stage of the writing process.

Revising a novel manuscript often requires the author to make significant changes to the content, structure, and style of the story to improve its overall quality and effectiveness. This stage of the writing process typically comes after the first draft of the novel has been completed and may involve multiple rounds of revisions.

During the revision process, the author may focus on several different areas, such as:

1. Plot and structure: Examining the overall structure of the story and making changes to ensure the plot is coherent, the pacing is effective, and the story flows logically from beginning to end.
2. Character development: Revising the characters in the story to make them more complex, interesting, and believable. This may include adding new traits or backstory, cutting unnecessary details, or clarifying the characters’ motivations and goals.
3. Point of view: Reviewing the point of view of the story and making changes to ensure that it is consistent and effective throughout the novel.
4. Dialogue and description: Reviewing the language and style of the story and making changes to ensure that the dialogue is natural, the descriptions are vivid and engaging, and the overall tone and style of the story is consistent and effective.

During the revision phase of the novel writing process, you will likely make many changes, such as adding new scenes and refining the dialogue until you are happy with your manuscript at the story level. It will probably take multiple rounds of revisions to reach that level of satisfaction with your story. There are many ways to approach this task. Some writers will try to fix every type of issue in one pass. I recommend choosing just a couple of elements to focus on during each round of revisions. For example, you might fill plot holes first before worrying about tightening dialog. It is usually best to tackle big-picture issues first, narrowing your focus with each round of revisions.

It can be tempting to look at all the work you did writing your first draft and just call it “done” without making any changes. But revising a novel manuscript is an essential task in the writing process that you simply cannot skip if you want your first-time readers to become repeat readers. Revising the novel manuscript allows the author to refine and polish their work to create a more compelling and engaging story that readers will want to tell their friends about. And that’s how we build a base of readers who can always be counted on to buy our next book.

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Now that Jack has been forced to reflect on everything he has to lose, he resolves to do better. He’s determined to spend more time at home with his family and repair the relationships that have suffered over the years while he’s been so focused on work. But as Callie’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, Jack realizes he has a lot more room to improve than he realized – and it might be too late to save his daughter after all.

For fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Push, and Baby Teeth.