How I Revise

Spoiler alert: Spreadsheets

Hello friends!

My first round of edits are finished and turned in. Yes, I slept in the next morning, and I took some much needed walks afterward. Also, I played an egregious amount of Stardew Valley. I’m learning to rest hard after working hard, and that’s not coming easy these days when I feel like I have to push myself harder than ever. But that’s another newsletter for another day.

Revision Process

Today, I wanted to share about my revision process. A few folks on Instagram suggested I share about the entire process of my debut year, and I will happily throw any and all information at people in case it makes their journey easier.

The Edit Letter

My edit letter was pretty tame in comparison to other edit letters I’ve received. Fortunately, my agent worked with me on several rounds to get this tricky plot where it needed to be. We jokingly refer to my urge to destroy the entire structure of the book for a revision as picking up the sledgehammer. Upon receiving feedback from my editor, my agent said NO SLEDGEHAMMERS. This meant that my revision was mostly about strengthening elements or clarifying confusing moments.

Every time I receive an edit letter, I read it once without marking it up. Then I read it again and respond with wild abandon, usually by annotating a printed copy. When I’m finished, I respond inside the document as if I’m having a dialogue with myself and whoever sent the letter. This lets me work through the ideas I have as well as address the little sparks of excitement I get from the possibilities the edit letter brings.

This is a stage of “what if” and play. Nothing is written in stone, and everything is malleable if it helps make a stronger story.

Then, I let the edit letter sit and come back the next day. If the edit letter requires a lot more overhaul, I let it sit for longer because Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling encourages you to avoid your first, second, and third thought. Rather than jump to the seemingly easiest fix, I let myself marinate in the ideas until I’m sure I have the best one.

The Spreadsheet

If you’re not familiar with my process, I live in a world of spreadsheets. Please check out the Seven Layer Plot Dip episode of Turning to Story to learn how I outline before I write a single word. Currently, it’s working for the draft of my next WIP, but I’ll provide a more detailed follow-up once I’m finished.

When it comes to revisions, I create categories for the areas I’ll be revising in my manuscript. This time, I focused on worldbuilding, pacing, a fierce competitor subplot, secrets, etc. Then, I created a chapter by chapter outline of the book, rewriting any that needed to change entirely.

Chapter one summary remained the same.

Then, across my categories, I add in any notes I want to change for the chapter.

A lot of this revision was on worldbuilding clarity, so this column was mostly filled for my opening chapters. I also needed to increase the danger throughout the novel, so my presence of city authority and danger column is filled in for every chapter because it wasn’t present at all in the previous version.

Once my spreadsheet is filled out for every single chapter, I let it sit again. If I come back to any uncertainty or questions, I reach out to my editor/agent/CPs to ensure I’m on the right path.

When I feel the all clear in my soul, I begin.

Revision

For this draft, I was worked in MS Word. Ugh. The endless scrolling, the back and forth, the weird functions that come with track changes. We hate it. Most edit letters in the past have required making big shifts in Scrivener, but my agent outlawed the sledgehammer soooooooooo MS Word was it.

Before changing a word, I reread the chapter and make my own notes inside of the document as well as heeding the in-line comments from my editor. If there’s anything major, I add it to the spreadsheet, ensure it addresses my edits rather than creating a new problem, and I begin. For this edit, I started at the beginning of each chapter and worked my way through. Rather than being bogged down by every little change I wanted to make, I kept a radar of the biggest alterations.

For example, I knew chapter one needed to clarify the worldbuilding as well as make the oppression of authority and the threat of the police vividly clear to the reader. I worked through the chapter with those ideas in mind, shifting a scene to include officers using undue force, reworking the body language of people in the market, even altering bits of dialogue to address the looming threat of brutality.

The chapter is far from perfect, but I was able to address the things I wanted to fix which ultimately pushed the book closer to the version I want it to be. It is a constant struggle to remind myself that there’s always next time. Also, I trust my editor and CPs to catch weaknesses in the book, and I have another round to make those changes work. Eventually, there won’t be a next time, but for now I have space and I will take up every inch of it.

When I’m finished with a chapter, I get to do my very favorite thing: STRIKEOUT! It’s so satisfying to click the row then strikeout all the text because it’s off my to-do list.

Final Read/Skim

I never leave myself enough time to do a final read. I’m always convinced I can critically skim my book in less than twelve hours. One day, I’ll learn, but that is not today… or tomorrow… or the next day… Fine, I will probably never learn.

What I did learn was to skim. Thanks to Lyssa Mia Smith, a genius who has been through this process before and shares her infinite wisdom with me, I learned to let go a little earlier. Therapy taught me I’m a perfectionist. GASP! Who knew?! I just had to create every lesson plan myself before I taught it to the students in case I missed something and confused them. I just had to retype every word of a chapter, even the ones I wanted to keep, just in case I felt like changing them or they felt wrong.

ANYWAY, I learned to skim which actually meant scanning for major issues that I might’ve missed, and those issues could only pertain to the changes I’d made. NOTHING ELSE. I didn’t allow myself to fiddle with paragraphs I hadn’t edited, and I didn’t try to make some wild connection to something that might take me a whole other day to fix. I put those reminders on a sticky note and moved on with my life.

Not sure if Mac has a sticky notes app, but Windows does, and it saves my already cluttered desk.

In Scrivener, I use the notes section, but this is my go to when working in Microsoft Word.

Send It

I don’t think the kids say “full send” anymore, but that’s the energy I embody as I type up the email and press that little arrow. There’s nothing I can’t fix in the next version, and I’m confident I addressed what I needed. My editor will come back with notes on how things that still aren’t hitting, and that’s part of the process. I can work on them later. For now, I let myself ruminate or distract myself with something new as I refill the well in preparation for whatever comes next.

What I’m Into

Crocuses are one of my favorite flowers simply because they mean spring is on the way. Thank goodness!

• Books: The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor dropped this past week, and I can’t begin to explain how good it is. Hidden identities, found family, slow burn romance, and so many secrets. My bedtime is precious, and few books get me to break curfew, but I absolutely stayed up until 2am for this. I’ve also started The Artist’s Way this week, and it’s already hurting my feelings in the best way possible. After morning pages, I sat down at my computer and wrote this substack without pausing once. That must mean something. More updates later.

• Shows: You, me, and everyone else are likely addicted to Severance, and I want to take anyone who hasn’t seen it gently by the hand and settle them onto a couch where I will force them to watch. It’s seriously the best show I’ve seen in a long time. For those of us who experienced the theory building frenzy of Lost, this show is for you. Also, I already trust it not to disappoint me like Lost did. I’m still recovering.

• Games: I’m on year two of my Stardew Valley farm, and I’m facing a moral dilemma of who to marry. I don’t want to take any of them away from their dreams (Emily deserves to be a fashion designer and Sebastian should ride away on his motorcycle) and some of them are still figuring themselves out (Abigail and Penny need to move away from home and become “roommates”). Anyway, it’s become my intentional leisure activity. Monster Hunter Wilds is the most ridiculous game I’ve played, and it’s totally against my monster loving code, but I like hitting things with my bow and arrow. Also, it’s just a fashion sim, and you can’t convince me otherwise.