Revising Tips for Beginners

I recently started writing my seventeenth novel. A bit mind-blowing, I know, but I’ve learned a lot over the years. Especially how to set myself up for success. To be honest, it mostly comes down to staying organized from Chapter One to The End…and throughout my various revisions. The more organized you are, the easier revising is going to be. Trust me. 

Revising starts with writing.

What do I mean by that? I mean, you are thinking about revising from page one. How are you going to keep your ideas organized? Do you have a checklist of elements you know you need to review? In what order are you going to tackle your changes? How are you making sure that your various revisions don’t get lost in file names like this: DraftOne, DraftThree, FinalDraft, FinalFINALdraft.

Every writer will have their own organizational method. The way I stay organized is by using Scrivener. I take advantage of their snapshot feature, which allows me to keep all my drafts in one place, organized by name and date. I also use the Binder to keep a folder for my book bible, which typically includes my world building, character notes, and research. I even like to divide my novel into three different folders: What I’ve already revised, what I’ve sent to critique partners, and what I’m drafting that hasn’t yet been seen. But again, that’s just what works for me. 

That said, there’s one more important rule I tell every newbie writer to seriously consider:  

Avoid revising as you go. 

This is easier said than done. Even I go back and revise a little to make sense of things before moving forward. But try to resist this urge as much as possible. Why? Because I’ve seen way too many writers get stuck in a revision-loop. They end up writing chapters 1-10 a dozen times before moving on to 10-20, only to go back and revise 1-10 again based on new information they learn later in the book. 

Write the whole book. Take notes as you go. (Keep those notes in order.) When you finish–and you have a list of everything you want to change–then you can start the revision process. 

This will prevent you from spending too much time on one project. Your momentum will keep moving forward. 

For more tips, join me on Tuesday, June 27 at 7 PM Eastern time for a free, virtual class on Revising Your Manuscript. I’ll be covering line-by-line edits, overall content, and how to handle conflicting feedback from your critique partners. You can register here. You do not have to have an Orange County Library card in order to attend. 

I hope to see you there!

~SAT