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So you’re finished writing the first draft of your novel. You already went through the editing process to fix grammatical errors and make other changes but you might be wondering what’s the next step towards becoming a fantasy author? Well, that would be revising a novel and it’s imperative that you understand what goes into how to revise a novel.
This step is perhaps one of the most crucial in the post-writing stage as well as becoming a published writer. Why would that be the case, you might ask? You have a complete draft done but it’s only the first version. Would you publish a novel if you didn’t make any revisions whatsoever to it? Revisions help you identify the weak spots in your novel so you can work on strengthening them, thereby making it better and more polished.
The first thing to understand about how to revise a novel is that it’s a multifaceted process. You’re doing a lot of things simultaneously which can get overwhelming at times which is why it’s best to do it many small steps. It’s why it’s best to put together a plan that will help ensure the revising process goes smoothly since you can easily break each step down into bite-sized pieces.
Your novel will undoubtedly go through multiple revisions, which is part and parcel of the writing process. After you’ve created your plan to tackle it, focus on the areas that require minor tweaking, i.e. the easiest parts. They’ll be the quickest to knock out since you don’t have to do a lot of work to make them better.
You’ll do the heavy lifting in regard to dealing with the hard stuff. Ideally, you want to save the toughest for last since they’ll be the most time-consuming due to how much work you’ll have to do. Saving them for last gives you more time to think about how best to deal with them as you can formulate different strategies to fix them.
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You’ve now officially in the revising stage. This stage is perhaps the most difficult part of being a writer since you’ll have to really scrutinize your work from an impersonal perspective which can be hard to do since it’s something you put your soul in. Yes, it will be painful to tear apart your work to see which parts stand up or fall apart upon scrutiny but you have no choice if you’re determined to publish your story.
What exactly goes into how to revise a novel? You have a whole range of things to look at such as character development or how the plot moves. Does the story move at the right pace at every point, not just the critical junctures? Do your scenes naturally fit and flow together? The list goes on and on and this article could wind up taking forever to write. For simplicity’s stake, we’ll put together a plan that enables you to do so in small steps.
How many revisions should you make? It depends on a wide bevy of things like how many characters and plot-lines you have. Basically, the longer your novel is, the more likely you’ll have to make more changes. You want to do more than one since each time you make revisions, you modify the fabric of your story to make it better but not too many after six or seven. You want to let a bit of time pass in-between revisions so you go in with a fresh set of eyes.
The first aspect of how to revise a novel is that when going through it for the first time, look at what areas you need to work on. You’re not actually making any revisions yet, this is just a preliminary step to identify these spots. As you re-read it, look at it from the perspective of someone reading it for the first time. Jot down everything that feels off, whether a scene feels weak or a character isn’t living up to your expectations, in a separate document or on paper.
No doubt the list will wind up being exhaustive. You might be surprised at how many things you’ll have to do but rest assured, it’s about to pay off. This is when you come up with a plan to deal with each one of them. No two plans are ever the same; you might opt to do them on a scene-by-scene basis in chronological order or you can jump around. Find one that works best for you.
The best plan in how to revise a novel is to categorize them by degree of difficulty. However you want to do it is up to you but it’s generally better to start with the easiest and save the hardest for the last. That way, you feel like you’re constantly making process as you check each item off on your list.
You’ve gone through your list with a fine-toothed comb and categorized them according to their difficulty. Now is the time for you to roll up your sleeve and get to work in how to revise a novel. You start on the ones that won’t give you too much trouble: the easiest parts.
What might the easiest parts be? They’re simply those that require minor tweaks and don’t take too much time. Some examples are cleaning up your scenes by switching out words such as run with more powerful versions like sprint or breaking run-on sentences into two or more complete sentences. When working with verbs in regard to key actions, use ‘show, don’t tell’ as a guiding principle.
Sometimes you might feel like a scene requires a bit of finessing to make it stronger, especially those that anchor critical junctures or other key moments in the story. You do so by fleshing it out. You’re only adding onto it and not changing its fundamental purpose in the plot. These take a bit more time to do than the ones in the previous paragraph since a small degree of thoughtfulness is needed to make these scenes better.
Another type of simple change in how to revise a novel is to condense a scene that runs a bit too long which is the polar opposite of the previous paragraph. Sometimes you put down unnecessary details that contribute pretty much little to it which ultimately bogs it down. The objective here is to eliminate these distractions so that what you want to convey comes out clearly.
One last easy part to do, and perhaps the most time-consuming to do, is to add new scenes. You might feel like you’re missing some scenes to add more context or serve as additional transition points between key scenes. Including new scenes help move the story along and bring a bit more clarity to what’s going on which your readers will always appreciate!
Essentially, the changes you make here don’t profoundly affect the plot as a whole. They’re akin to smoothing out the rough edges while keeping the interior intact.
You’ve worked on all the easy parts, now comes those that require a great deal of work to do. You saved the hard stuff for the last and for good reason. They have the potential to drastically affect the plot which means they’re not something you can simply tinker with and call it a day.
One such thing in how to revise a novel is changing a character’s role. At the outset, you gave all of your characters a role to play in the story and you might feel like some of them didn’t quite achieve their potential. In this case, you can merge them or take them out completely. That means you have to rework many scenes to reflect this major change and that can be considerably time-consuming.
Another example of the hard stuff is gutting or changing major plot-lines. Much like characters, you had an objective in mind when you came up with them and you might feel like the execution didn’t quite work out the way you thought they would. Sometimes it’s better to omit them or rework them to better fit in with the message of your book. Whichever way you go will change the fundamentals of the plot so it’s vital that you take as much time as you need to make it work.
There will be times when a scene, especially one important to the plot, doesn’t give off the effect you envisioned it would have. In that case, a rewrite is needed which means you’ll have to start from scratch. You’re not changing its core function in the story whatsoever, you’re just making it better. In some cases, you might even need to do multiple rewrites of one scene until you’re satisfied with it.
Part of how to revise a novel is looking at how your scenes flow into each other and the same applies to your chapters. The goal here is to see if they’re presented in a way that feels organic and logical from a reader’s point-of-view. If you feel like there are some that don’t do that successfully, you might need to either change them up or add more scenes or chapters in-between to ensure that they mesh better. This has the potential to take up quite a bit of time and can affect the plot in varying degrees so it’s better to proceed at a deliberate pace.
Regardless of however much hard stuff you have to do, you never want to rush working on them, for they can significantly affect the plot in many different ways. Instead, give yourself as much time as you need to knock them out and make your novel better.
Revising a novel isn’t easy, especially one you spent months, if not years, working on. It feels like you’re tearing your work apart which can be tough to put yourself through. Nevertheless, if you want to publish your novel, you have no choice but to do it.
When it comes to how to revise a novel, the best thing you can do is to come up with a plan to tackle it. You do so by making a list of things to work on as you re-read your story, this time from the perspective of someone reading it for the first time, looking at whatever issues it has. After that, you categorize it in terms of difficulty from the easiest to the toughest.
The easiest parts are those where you can make simple changes without impacting the plot as a whole. They could be cleaning up scenes or eliminating unneeded distractions. The beauty of doing the easy stuff first is that it gives you more time to think about how to deal with the tough stuff later on which you’ll definitely need!
There’s a reason why you saved the hard stuff for last. Some examples are changing a character’s role or eliminating a plot-line. While they can greatly affect the plot, working on them will be time-consuming.
Now that you understand the basics of how to revise a novel, will you revise yours to make it even better than before?
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Sunfire
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