How do I revise thee? Let me count the ways….

How do I make the steaming pile of first draft I created during NaNoWriMo into something people will love as much as I loved the initial idea?

Revise, revise, revise. 

Everyone has their method. Here’s mine….

First Pass:
Load manuscript onto kindle, sit down and read straight through, only stopping to comment as a reader.

What do I need?

• Calibre to convert to .mobi
• Time for a dedicated read-through
• Notepad and pen for old school note taking
• Willpower to not fix typos or wordsmith

What am I looking for?

• Inconsistencies, plot gaps, things that make no sense.
• Goal-motivation-conflict of characters: is it in the story? Is what the hero/heroine want clear before the first major plot point?

Revise…… then:

Second Pass:
Change layout to two column format using Times New Roman. Reduce line spacing to 1.5 or single space. Bind along top.

What do I need?

• My local Quick Copy shop. (I could do it with my cranky old ink jet, but why torture it and myself?)
• Highlighters, sticky notes. Sometimes a blue pencil if I’m feeling feisty.
• Distance from work & patience with myself.

What am I looking for?

• Motivation of characters.
• Character journey/change through the story. Did the hero/heroine change by the end? How? Why?
• Review secondary characters: any who could be eliminated or merged with others? (Beware the cast of thousands)
• Find and follow the story threads—make sure all threads flow through and wrap up. Don’t drop a thread half way and leave it hanging.

Revise…… then:

Third Pass:

• Get a writer friend to read and comment. Usually a “high level” or “first pass” read – checking for continuity, plot holes, parts that make no sense, parts that make them want to close the book.
• Read all comments. Think through them and determine how they could make story stronger. Change as appropriate.

Revise….. then:

Fourth Pass:

• Get a writer friend (a different one at this point is a plus) to do a read for the story’s flow/emotion/language. Think of it as a voice check. Very important when you are learning, as sentence structure and flow aren’t natural skills for all writers.
• Read all comments. Think through them and determine how they could make story stronger. Change as appropriate.

Revise….. then:

Fifth Pass:

• Go through the story and really look for missing punctuation, wrong words, homonyms.
• Make sure all formatting is clean.
• Accept all changes (if tracking changes) and create clean copy without any old versions of track changes hanging around (check Word help for how to do this)

Fix myself a drink and call it a job well done.

Next up: the hard part. Submission