Navigating Writing Challenges: Tips for Revising Your Manuscript

I’ve been off of writing for a couple of weeks due to company visiting around the holidays. One reason I pushed to complete my NaNoWriMo well before the end of November was to give me the breathing room to prepare for guest. After taking a break, I’ve gone back into my work in progress and started to revise and polish.

It’s proving as much a challenge as writing the first draft!

My problem is I’ve lost that emotional high of hitting a word-count goal every day. Instead of knocking out two thousand words a day, I’m going through the manuscript scene-by-scene and editing. A day may see the total word count drop if I cut a scene.

I’m also using this first draft review to give myself notes which will result in added words, but it does not feel like I am progressing as fast as I did during the more rigorous writing of last month.

I’m focusing on some of my own advice from a prior post to “Start before you feel ready.  Stop before you feel done.” To help with this, I’ve blocked out time in my day to spend on these edits and additions. I still want to have the “real” first draft complete before the end of the year, so fingers crossed.

My current challenges & approachMissing character development details. My two main characters are thrown together early in the story, and develop a working relationship, but I gloss over too much of that relationship. This means I have to go back and add some scenes. I’m fine doing that work, but I have to make certain all of the details line up in the broader timeline of the story. This makes it slow work. To help with this, I’m reading through each chapter and adding in notes on the state of the relationship in each chapter. For example, if Finn and Elara are supposed develop trust by chapter ten, I need to show distrust earlier and what actions one or the other takes to build some rapport and trust before it becomes critical to the broader plot.Missing closures on story arcs. I’ve got a lot of threads weaving through the tale, and have found a few that are not effectively resolved. This will require additional scenes or chapters to give the reader a satisfying resolution to the story. Currently, I’m adding notes on missing elements or resolutions in the chapter I spot them in. I also have added notes on the “promises” I’ve made to the reader. For instance, the opening chapters and scenes set an expectation that the agents chasing Finn will catch him or somehow resolve their case against him. This is not as clear as I would like, so I have started adding notes along the way that will move them closer to catching him or revealing what he was doing well before the climax and resolution of that plot line.Needing additional characters. I am a discovery writer. I had the main characters identified during my initial ideation and early work, but needed to add minor characters to move things along. Several “lesser” characters hint at broader aspects of the world, making the narrative feel forced in certain areas. These issues, I think, will remain unresolved until I get some external feedback on the first draft.

If any of you readers have ideas on how to handle any of these challenges, please do share with a comment. In the meantime, I’ll get back to revising and editing.

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