I Published My NaNo-Novel: My 7-Step Revision Process

During January of our “Now What?” Months, we’re talking to Wrimos who’ve published their NaNoWriMo projects and asking them how they got there. Today, Angela Quarles, author of

Must Love Breeches , shares her 7-step revision process… and the need to revise from big to little:

I know what you’re thinking. It’s a mess, right?

You rode the heady wave that is NaNoWriMo, pounding your way across the keyboard and your story, set on reaching the goal of 50,000 words before the month of November ended. And you did it!

And after you took the advice to let it sit for the month of December you’re now looking at in the full glare of January, and… you’re cringing. Some of you might even think it’s just too much to tackle and are contemplating trunking it and chalking it up to a good (or bad) experience.

Don’t.

First. Remember that you did what many long to do: you finished a novel. Granted it’s rough, but that’s okay. You let your creative juices flow and you got the shape of your story you wanted to tell in written form.

Now comes the hard part.

Yeah, the initial drafting was hard, but trust me, revising is a whole other skill you need to master. My advice? Just like you didn’t worry about getting it right in your first draft, don’t worry about getting the whole story in shape in one go. Take your time. Do it in passes. I picture it as a block of stone I’m chipping away at until I get it in the right shape for the sculpture I’ve envisioned.

My debut novel, Must Love Breeches, was my NaNo-novel in 2010, and it was my second year participating (and winning). It also ended up being the one I snagged an agent with in 2012, turned down two small press offers for in 2014, and decided to self-publish later that year. And this past October, it made the USA Today bestseller list (for one week, but hey!).

I’m only telling you this so you’ll have some background as I share with you how I now go about revising. Mind you, this isn’t how I revised that novel, as I still hadn’t worked out my process. You’ll note it took me two years to get it into shape to snag an agent.

I participated in NaNo this past November to write book three in that series, Must Love Kilts, which became the sixth novel I’ve written. I’m currently applying what has now become my revision process:

1. Read it through in its entirety, but don’t get hung up on nitpick-y editing. At this stage I’m looking to see what the heck I’ve written and make notes of any changes I’d need to make. Some of these are big-picture thoughts I write in the Notes section for that scene in Scrivener, or it’s a footnote I’ve added to a word or sentence. 

At this point, I’m only concentrating on the big picture—the bones of the story. This is the Emergency Room stage—your story is bleeding, the plot has so many holes, or is missing an entire limb, and so you should only be figuring out what the massive wounds might be and how to fix them. Don’t worry about the small cuts. Not yet. Resist.

2. As I’m going through, I also write down a short summary of each scene in the Synopsis “card” in Scrivener.

3. Once done, I go back through each “card” and make sure that the scene has a goal, motivation, and conflict, or if it’s a sequel scene or transition scene, I make note of that and see what might need to be added. This is a final check to make sure I haven’t missed some important story bones.

4. I then take a deep breath and see if I can write down a 25-30 word or less “logline”. If I can’t succinctly capture the protagonist, their goal, and the conflict, while also getting across the tone and genre, I know my story could be in trouble. 

Some of you plotters might have already done this before you even started writing—make sure it still applies!

5. If I’m really having trouble seeing the “shape” of the story, I print out the scene synopses and make notes on there, marking and shifting things around. It’s essential to find some way of seeing your story as a whole, instead of getting mired down in the words. Believe me, that’s a quick way to feel like you’re drowning in revisions, unable to get a grasp of what needs to be done.

6. Once I’ve let all this marinate and plugged in all the notes where they could be tackled in Scrivener, I start revising. But, I don’t do it by starting from the beginning and editing and changing as I go. I only dip into the parts of the story that I marked during the read through. This keeps me focused on the big picture. It also has the added benefit of preventing story fatigue. 

I’ve found that the fewer times I have to read the story, the fresher it stays and the less of a chance I get sick of it by the time I’m ready to publish. The scene synopses help at this stage to keep me oriented so I don’t have to reread each scene.

7. Then I read it again, smoothing out the patches as I go, and hand it off to my Alpha reader.

After that, it goes through what I’d call edits, instead of revisions, and that’s a different tactic. But I do another revision pass after it comes back from the Alpha reader (again only dipping into the parts that need fixing). 

Next, it goes to the developmental editor I’ve hired in the past. Then I use a color-coding highlighting system to help me self-edit—this is basically my own line editing pass. Then it goes to my Beta readers, then to my line editor/copy editor. I incorporate changes, and then hand it off to two separate proofreaders before I’m ready to format and publish.

But, as I said earlier, I didn’t have all this in place when I first started. So if you don’t have a critique group or Alpha and Beta readers, don’t despair. For Breeches, I participated in several forums and used a ton of Beta readers until I found ones that were solid. I also found places like critiquecircle.com extremely helpful in learning and honing my craft. Many people read chapters (or the whole story) there and helped me get it into shape.

How you handle revisions will be depend on how you think and perhaps how you drafted—are you a plotter or a pantser?—so have patience as you learn what works for you. The important thing to keep in mind:

Take it in stages, working from big fixes down to small fixes.

There is no sense in fine-tuning the cadence of a sentence in the opening scene, getting it just perfect, and then realizing that the whole first scene needs to go because it doesn’t do what you need it to do for the sake of your story.

Big to little.

Remember that.

And good luck!

Angela Quarles is a USA Today bestselling author of time travel and steampunk romance. She has a B.A. in Anthropology and International Studies from Emory University, and a Masters in Heritage Preservation from Georgia State University. She resides in a historic house in Mobile, AL.