How to revise a novel
“Writing is rewriting.” — Richard North Patterson
Is writing fiction a craft or an art?
We talk a lot about the elements of fiction as craft: plot, scene, character, setting, and dialogue, but why are they the elements fiction craft in the first place? Craft is what a stone mason does. Isn’t fiction art? Don’t all writer’s ideas fall out of the ripe ether, delivered by winged muses who stand ready for the sound of fingers tapping on the keyboard?
Yeah, sure, in a rough draft.
Your first attempt at writing a novel is exactly the time to sit dreamily at some grand picture window and watch the red flash of a cardinal flit through a gently falling snow while you ponder the next brilliant scene.
Unless you have kids. Or a job. Or floors that need mopping because the dog just romped through all that fresh powder outside and dragged in mud. If you can peck slowly away at a rough draft then bless your heart. The rest of us don’t have time for that shit.
Neither did writers who’ve come before. They had deadlines. Editors, publishers, readers expected their work. Writers of way back had some godawful prince ready to cut them off from their patronage at a moment’s notice. They needed to get good writing done and within a reasonable time frame. This is why the craft of fiction developed. Through trial, error, and artistic consensus the craft of fiction has evolved into the best practices to efficiently design fiction.
Hey, now, I can hear many of you telling me to stop right there. Writing is inspired, carried by intuition from the germ of an idea to full blooming expression. How dare I propose that we use formulas to create works of art.
Sure, a lot of fiction is purely intuitional. Not all of it. Here is one full proof truth about fiction: 100% of the short stories, novelettes, novellas, or novels you’ve read are designed. Just like our less pretentious counterparts making tables from blocks of wood, everything in a work of fiction is created from the elements of fiction in a purposefully recognizable form of construction. That design helps satisfy readers’ expectations.
When you encounter a bowl, you don’t wear it as a hat-unless you’re my kid-the same way that when you read an action-adventure novel you don’t expect scenes of tender romance between the butler and Lady of the house. That would be weird.
If you’re worried about craft cramping your style, recognize that even if there are a limited set of elements they can be recombined in an infinite number of surprising ways. Plus, craft saves you from the long road of constant mistakes and setbacks.
What’s the difference between a rough draft and a second draft?
I have several writer friends who’ve written full-length novel manuscripts, on the order of 85,000 to 100,000 words in less than 8 weeks. This is an achievement but when you’re hot, you’re hot.
The problem is, years later, they’re not far past that rough draft stage. The manuscript isn’t good enough for submission to Big 5 Publishers, querying agents, or independent publishing. This is mostly because-and I mean this with a lot of love-they aren’t applying craft.
What’s the huge difference between a rough draft and a second draft?
Rough drafts are often only the plot-the events of a narrative-while second drafts are your chance to work on the story-what those events mean, the emotional weight of a narrative.
If you can approach you rewrite (more on this soon) with that in mind, you will be a lot closer to your goal of a final draft and at a much quicker rate.
Revising or rewriting?
Most of the rewrite or revision advice you’re going to find online is actually a terrible splatter of loosely related concepts.
They’ll almost always tell you-like I will-to take a break from your manuscript without explaining in detail what you should be doing in the meantime (hint: it’s not always working on something else).
Inevitably, there is instruction to make sure the characterization is consistent, someone with green eyes suddenly popping up with blue eyes in the third act ( though that’s not really characterization). Everything points you toward consistency, brevity, and a certain type of unity in your novel.
Consistency, brevity, and unity are essential to create the vivid continuous dream of fiction, as John Gardner explained. But that’s not what a second draft is for. And it’s certainly not the place to iron out typos and clumsy prose.
A rewrite is a structural edit. This is the time to really home in on the uniting the plot-the events that happen-with the story-what those events mean.
Revising is the place for line editing and a final copy edit.
When you are working on your second draft you are rewriting. Reminding yourself of this, particularly when you’re completely fed up, is an important psychological shift to stick with it after you’ve cut nearly half of the book because it isn’t working.
How to rewrite a novel
Here’s another crucial psychological shift I need you to make: the process for writing a novel isn’t rough draft, followed by second draft, followed by final draft.
It’s more like rough draft, followed by second draft, followed by third draft, then fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, ad nauseum until the final draft is as far as you can take it.
And that’s okay. A craft-based system will help you through each one of those draft iterations so that they feel purposeful and progressively lead you to that anticipated day of typing THE END on a final draft.
First, you should take some time away from your rough draft. This means not reading the damn thing (not once, not ever) for a meaningful period of time. How long you go without reading your rough draft is situation dependent but it should be at least three weeks away.
There are a few reasons for this break. You’ve just completed the horrendously difficult task of putting tens of thousands of coherent words on paper. That deserves a vacation.
You’re also suffering from transference. In the case of fiction, transference is when you believe that the perfect novel you have in your head is actually what you wrote (lol!) in your word document.
This is not unique, everyone does it, but it’s the main reason we have honest readers who will tell us when that badass scene where the family gets it together and overcomes the persecution they’ve been facing from their whole town is entirely unbelievable.
You need to take a break from your rough draft so that transference can diminish, to stop yourself from reading what you want to be in a scene-yes, this really happens-rather than what’s there. A break will allow you a fresh set of eyes.
This break isn’t idle though. Depending how long you decide to rest, after some meaningful time away write a logline (we explain how to do this here) for the rough draft. Don’t read your manuscript, go completely off what you remember.
Next, visually depict your plot (Reedsy has some great resources) completely from memory. Like the loglines, do this freehand without checking back on the rough draft.
Finally, answer the 7 Elements of Complex Characters for your main character and opposition character. You can do this for every character but keep in mind that not everyone has to be round and the flat characters aren’t going to have solid answers for of these questions.
That’s a lot of work for a break! But it’s worth it.
When you feel you’ve taken enough time away, get your rough draft printed and bound by FEDEX, Staples, or your favorite local printer. This is another effective mind trick. Holding your work, in all it’s weight and thickness, gives it the seriousness it deserves that it will never have if it were to remain just glowing pixels on your screen. Yes, it will cost you some money, but it’s essential to work on a second draft.
Go back and write a second logline for the rough draft you just read. Re-plot it visually and-you guessed it-answer those 7 Elements of Complex Character questions again.
Now, read the damn thing. Ignore spelling, typos, grammar, or clunky prose. Ignore setting and dialogue. Don’t worry about descriptions. Instead, focus solely on the plot and the characters, paying close attention to how characters actions drive the events-set-ups, payoffs, turns, and reversals-forward and what these mean for the stakes of each character.
This should take a while, not as slow as a casual reader but you shouldn’t blow through it because of your familiarity either. Pens help, colored ones more so, to mark and notate these elements of craft.
How big are the gaps between the rough draft and the second draft? Do those gaps reflect places where you were inspired to do something different or are they mistakes of some sort? Keep the elements that work but makes notes on the lapses.
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Here’s the bad news: only after doing this type of high-level survey are you ready to get into the second draft and rewrite. The purpose of this exercise is to apply craft that breaks apart your work to identify the goals for your story. We recommend you focus the second draft on plot (which doesn’t mean ignoring character) by using the concept of Plot Math. On a third draft focus on a different element of fiction, like dialogue, and so on until you’ve done rewrites that polish each element as you understand them. This is a bullet-proof way to not only make consistent progress for each draft but also ensure you’re not missing anything critical.
You’re going to get another chance to stare out of that snowy window again in a soft reverie. But won’t it be so much better to do it while working on a second novel knowing that the first one is selling pretty damn well because of your solid rewrite? We certainly think so.
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Originally published at https://www.notmfa.com on February 7, 2022.
