How Writers Revise Books

When your writer friend/family member tells you they finished the first draft of their book, you immediately congratulate them. What an amazing accomplishment! But then they start talking about story-level revisions and line edits, and you’re in over your head. How many drafts are necessary? How many types of editing are out there? And will this be one of those books that gets worked on forever and never shared? This blog is for you, writers’ friends and family members, to help you understand how writers revise books. Every writer’s revision process looks different, and there’s no rigid road map to follow. However, I’m going to cover some broad categories of revision that are a smart idea for all writers.

Developmental Editing or Story-level Revision

At this stage, the writer revises their book by looking at it to assess big-picture strengths and weaknesses in terms of character arcs, plot, world-building, etc. For example, the writer evaluates if their main characters are flawed but relatable and whether they change over time. They check for plot holes and confusing backstory. They see if the story has tension and conflict throughout or if it gets boring in places. This is the stage where many writers will utilize a critique group for feedback. As a writer, my preference is to do one developmental edit based on my own assessment and then to do a second (and more if necessary) after my friends in the Hot Mess Writers Club give me feedback.

Detailed Editing or Scene-level Revision

After a writer is done revising their book at the story level, it’s time to move to the scene level. Here, the writer evaluates scenes for smaller-scale issues: does each scene have adequate (but not too much) description? Does each have a purpose and a goal? Does each scene’s ending compel the reader to read on? Writers can also fix problems that weren’t important to address at the story-level—dialogue that’s falling flat or small inconsistencies in world-building. For me, the detailed edit is the place to make the story more fun: punching up the humor and the romance, finding opportunities to tie the story details together in cool ways, and revising descriptions and dialogue so I fall in love with them.

Line Editing or Page-level Revision

This is the nitty-gritty stage. Here, writers upgrade their word choice (like changing “ran” to “bolted”), fix their grammar mistakes, and overall make sure everything is reading smoothly. For wordy writers, it’s also a great time to brutally assess what they’ve written and cut unnecessary words. When I was revising Knife and Shell, my YA Little Mermaid retelling, I deleted thirteen thousand words at this stage. Yes. Thirteen THOUSAND. Without changing the story at all.

Copyedit

At this final revision stage, the writer goes through their book, word by word, to catch typos and any other errors. Since writers are not typically professional copyeditors, it’s understandable that some errors may remain. At this point, the writer is ready to query agents or to self-publish (see my blog on how writers try to get published for more information).

The revision strategy I’ve outlined is heavily inspired by Jessica Brody’s Writing Mastery Academy: The Complete Revision Course, so feel free to check that course out if you (or your writer friend/family member) are interested in more details. If you enjoyed this article on how writers revise their books, click here to join my monthly newsletter to get fun emails about writing, books, and other magical things straight to your inbox.

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash