Episode Nine: The #1 Revision Mistake I See as a Developmental Editor
The biggest revision mistake writers make: not revising at all. I don’t mean people who are skipping revisions intentionally, I mean people who think they’re revising but aren’t. Confused about how that works? Listen in for the four ways writers accidentally skip revision and my best tips for making sure your revisions are efficient & effective.
You can listen to the full epsiode here. Or, watch here.
Here’s what you’ll hear in this episode:
Skipping revision is the biggest mistake I see writers making. They think they’re revising, but they aren’t making the big changes that will actually make their stories better and serve their future readers.
There are four ways that writers accidentally skip revisions: 1) they stick too closely to their original ideas and resist big changes even when the story isn’t yet working, 2) they skip straight to editing, addressing sentence level issues instead of plot level ones, 3) they make small tweaks and leave the bulk of the manuscript intact, and 4) they revise unstrategically, choosing revisions that address surface level issues, not the deeper root causes that need to be revised first
I recommend revising strategically by following four steps: prioritize, analyze, strategize, revise. You can learn about them in the free masterclass I have coming up on January 20th & 21st - https://my.demio.com/ref/FIuxckXO69ir6Cxh
Revision is hard work, but it’s so worth it. Just make sure you’re using a revision method that allows you to make the big changes that will serve your future readers.
Links Mentioned:
Transcript
Please Note: This is an automatically generated transcript that has not been edited.
Olivia Bedford (00:00)
The question is, what do I do about it? How do I make sure that I'm actually revising and not just tweaking or accidentally editing or skipping the revision process altogether? And the answer is that we have to get strategic. We need a process that allows us to dive deep in our novels, really see what's going on, and then make the decisions that are going to move your story forward in the most effective way.
Welcome to episode nine of the Better Writer podcast. In this episode, I wanted to talk about one of the biggest revision mistakes I see writers making, and that's not revising at all. And that might be strange because you're probably thinking, well, of course, if you don't do the thing you're supposed to do, then that's a mistake. But these writers think that they are revising.
So it's not that people are deliberately skipping revision thinking it doesn't matter. I'm sure that does happen, but that's actually not what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about the people who think that they are revising, but for one reason or another have actually skipped over that part in the process or just aren't doing it effectively because they have a misconception of what revision is and what revision should actually look like. I wanna make sure that you aren't making this mistake in your own writing. So I'm gonna share four ways that people accidentally skip revisions and how you can avoid those.
The number one way that people actually skip is simply holding too tightly to their original ideas. So they think that the purpose of revision is simply to adjust what is already on the page or to make sure that, you know, they've cleaned things up a little bit so there are no plot holes, things like that, but they aren't actually willing to reconsider what already written. So even when they're getting feedback from beta readers or from an editor that something isn't working or isn't serving readers, they are incredibly reluctant to actually make a change. Either they will make that change in a very cursory way or they will kind of argue with that feedback, try to avoid it, find a way around it, or try to kind of make minute adjustments thinking that that is going to be the same thing as fully revising their books. And sure, there is often a way to make something work. If there is something you're doing in your novel that you're really committed to and really want to explore, there is often a way to do it. However,
it's likely going to require bigger changes somewhere else. So if one part isn't working, maybe it's not emphasized enough, maybe you're not setting it up properly, you might have to cut something else in order to keep that thing that you're really attached to. So either way, if there is some fundamental big picture part of your novel that isn't working, you are going to have to make a big change in order to make your book work by either changing the thing that isn't working or changing something else to accommodate it. Either way, big rewrites are needed and if you're not willing to do that work, if you're not willing to let go of that original idea, the original thing that you thought was going to serve your readers, then that's going to be a problem. It's going to keep you from actually revising in an effective way and unfortunately trying to hold on to all of your original ideas could lead to you not making any of those ideas work. So instead of picking the ones that really were serving your readers, that were creating a great story, if you try to hold on to all of them, you end up with something that isn't working at all when you could have had something that worked really, really well and was an amazing book if you had been willing to let go of the things that weren't working or had been willing to change them so they do work.
The second way that people end up inadvertently skipping revision is by prioritizing the wrong things. So they think they're revising, but they're actually starting to jump into line editing or even copy editing because they are putting the line level edits, the sentence level edits first when they should be focusing on the big picture stuff first.
As a developmental editor, I sometimes get sample edit requests from people who have already had a professional copy edit their manuscripts. And it always breaks my heart a little bit because if you go straight from first draft to copy edit, there are almost certainly going to be developmental issues that were missed. And once you have gotten developmental feedback, you're most likely going to be rewriting or significantly changing a large portion of your book, especially if you are a first time author. Getting a copy edit before developmental editing is a waste of your money because one of two things is going to happen. One, you're either going to have to have that work redone when you have actually finished revising your book because things are going to have changed so significantly That first copy edit is no longer valid.
Or you are going to be so unwilling to make changes because you've already had a professional copy edit that your developmental edit is wasted because you're not going to actually make the changes that you need to make or listen to the developmental editors advice.
So if you are a first time author out there and you aren't sure when you should be having an editor work with your book, Please check out the blog post that I will link with this show. I walk you through the different types of editing and when you should work with each type of editor in your process. Not saying you need to hire multiple editors for your book. I also have a blog post talking about when you should hire an editor and whether you need an editor. But. If you are hiring editors, please make sure you're doing it in the right order so you can get the most for your money and not waste money on a round of editing that is going to have to be redone.
Alright, that was a bit of a tangent because even people who aren't working with professional editors can accidentally skip revision and go straight to editing. It can be really really tempting to start with that line level stuff because it's very apparent, it's very easy to spot typos, grammatical errors, sentences that are just plain awkward. Those things jump out at us
Especially if you sit down and try to read your first draft, like as a finished book. If you're trying to experience your draft like a novel, then those sentence level things are going to be what you notice because that's what's jumping out at you on the page. Then when you go to actually make revisions, rather than focusing on the big picture, The story level stuff that needs to be adjusted. you are more likely to fixate on the sentence level errors and start there. That editing part of the process often feels easier than the improvements are obvious and immediate. When you are revising a single paragraph, it is so easy to see your progress. When you are trying to rewrite your entire novel to address a structural issue, that progress is slow going.
it feels like you are moving backwards or like you're walking through molasses because it can be so slow and it can be so much harder than the drafting process. However, that step is essential. We have to get through that slow revision process so that we can go to editing, so that we can have a story that works and then start polishing it.
This is one of the reasons why I am such an advocate for reverse outlines because I think it is a really good way to make sure that you are actually evaluating your story at a high level before you start going into the editing process and looking at your sentences specifically. I've already touched on reverse outlining in a separate episode, so I'm not going to go into it here, but again, oftentimes when people are accidentally editing instead of revising, it's because they are trying to hold the entire story in their head. It's because they are trying to
read their draft straight through, trying to assess the structural errors that way, and instead all they really see are the surface level errors, the sentence level errors, and then they move past all of the structural stuff, the characterizations of the plot stuff, without meaning to, but just because they're not focusing on the right things and they're not looking at their draft in the right way.
The third way that people end up accidentally skipping revision is by making small tweaks rather than actually doing the hard work to rewrite their draft. This is one of the reasons why I am such a big fan of actually rewriting your story, not copying and pasting or working in the draft that you've already written. I got this idea originally from Matt Bell and his book Refuse to Be Done, which I'm sure I've mentioned on the show before,
But essentially he advocates for literally retyping your entire second draft. So nothing remains from the first draft unless you have explicitly decided to retype it the exact same way. And I know that sounds excessive, but you would be amazed at how easy it is to just gloss right over a passage that isn't actually working, that has no conflict, that doesn't make any logical sense to just let those things slide by and remain because they're already there in the draft. When you are working in a copy of the draft that you've already written, it's so easy to just let things remain. It's kind of that concept of an object in motion stays in motion, object rest stays at rest. If your draft is there, inert, you're moving things around a little bit, it's going to be much, much harder to make big changes because when you're working with that draft that already exists, to change an entire paragraph, you have to select the whole thing and then delete it. Poof, it disappears off the page. It feels like you're moving backwards versus if you retype your
It feels like you're moving forward because you are adding words to the page. Even though technically you are recreating something you already did, find it psychologically, you feel like you're creating something rather than destroying something. And I think that can be really helpful. for making some of those big changes, for really, really interrogating every scene that you wrote previously, every sentence that you wrote previously, and deciding does this deserve to stay in my draft, or is there something better that I can write right now in this new draft?
Alright, and then finally, the fourth way that writers inadvertently skip revision is by approaching the revision process unstrategically so that they end up only looking at surface level issues and not diving deeper into the root causes.
Essentially what I mean here is that someone is attempting to revise. They're looking for plot holes, they're looking for character issues, but because they don't have a systematic way to look at their story as a whole, they are only addressing the most obvious piece of the puzzle. They feel like their conflict isn't building up to anything, so they try to make things bigger and flashier and they add explosions,
But if they had gone deeper and looked at their story strategically, they may have realized that the problem they thought was happening at the end with their climax not feeling meaningful actually started at the very beginning when they didn't effectively establish the stakes or what the conflict means to the character in the first place. So just because an issue is appearing in one part of your draft doesn't mean that it's actually isolated to that one part of your draft. Novels are incredibly complex.
every part of your novel is interconnected. You cannot have conflict without characters, you can't have characters without a world, you can't have a world without the culture that your characters are building within it. They're all interrelated. So you need to have a strategic way to look at your novel that allows you to look at all of those pieces simultaneously without getting overwhelmed, without getting lost in the weeds.
We need a way to look at our story in its entirety so that we can make decisions that make the entire book better Instead of making changes that only address the most obvious surface level symptom of that issue versus the thing that is actually holding our story back altogether.
And sometimes I will say, sometimes the surface level thing is the thing that needs to be fixed, but we're not going to know that for sure unless we have done that work to fully evaluate the story as a whole.
so now that you know these different ways that people end up actually skipping the revision process, The question is, what do I do about it? How do I make sure that I'm actually revising and not just tweaking or accidentally editing or skipping the revision process altogether? And the answer is that we have to get strategic. We need a process that allows us to dive deep in our novels, really see what's going on, and then make the decisions that are going to move your story forward in the most effective way possible I like to do this with a four step process that I've been working on in the background to create for all of you. basically I took my process as an editor and I turned it into a framework that you can use for your revisions. I'm calling it the reader ready revision method
Because at the end of the day, your job as a writer and my job as an editor is to create a book that readers are going to love. We want your book to be ready for readers. So that is what this method is all about. That is what my work is all about.
There are four steps to the revision process that I want everyone to go through. First, you're going to prioritize. Figure out what it is that you want to create for your readers. You're going to set goals for your book that are specific to your genre, your ideal reader, the person that you want to enjoy your book in the future. We're going to start there, setting a vision For what you want your book to be. Step two.
you're going to analyze. We are going to get strategic and actually figure out what is going on in your draft. You are going to look at it holistically. I like to do that with a reverse outline. There are other ways to do it, of course, but that is what I recommend
The third step is where we strategize. after we know what's really going on in your draft, then and only then will we start determining solutions. We look at the big picture first, then we decide what we're actually going to do in revision to make the story better. Finally, step four. you actually revise. This is where you actually start
The key thing that I want you to notice is that the first three steps do not involve making any changes to your manuscript. The heavy lifting, the hard thinking, the decisions are all happening upfront.
Then we revise. We make a plan, we make it strategic, we make sure we have fully analyzed the manuscript, then we start rewriting. Too many people are jumping right in, they're reading their book on page one and just making changes along the way. That is not an effective or efficient way to revise your book because you have no idea what you actually need to do on a big picture level until you've analyzed the whole thing, thought about revisions that are going to make the entire story better. So we prioritize.
then we analyze, then we strategize, and then finally we revise by rewriting our drafts, actually making those big changes, especially when you're working with a first draft. But if you have a second draft that isn't really all that different from your first draft because you didn't follow these steps, didn't actually revise, then you might need to treat your second draft or third or fourth or even fifth or beyond, you might need to treat that draft like a first draft and really do this deep revision work so that you can create the best version of your story possible. All
if this episode has you feeling like you actually don't know what revision is and you have no idea how to actually revise your book strategically and efficiently and effectively, I am running a free masterclass this week and I'm going to go over all four of those steps in more depth. I will talk about some additional pitfalls that can trip people up in revision and how you can avoid them so you can finally
get your book done and ready for readers. So the link to that free masterclass is going to be in the show notes. If you find this months from now, weeks from now, after masterclass is over, it's okay. I'm also going to include a link to sign up for my newsletter and that is the best place to find out about all of these events when they happen. So if you are listening to this in real time, sign up for that masterclass.
I'm going to be teaching you all about that four step revision process so you can make sure you are actually revising your novel. And if you are listening to this in the future, Get on my newsletter so you can be the first to know when another one of these free classes is happening and you won't miss
Thank you so, so much for listening to another episode of the Better Writer Podcast. If you have a writer friend who needs to hear this message, please, please, please share the show with them. Post about it on social media.
I really appreciate all of your help getting the word out about this show. I've been having a lot of fun creating episodes and I hope that you are having just as much fun listening to them. again, if you want to make this the year that you finally finish revising your book, please join me for that free masterclass. The link is in the show notes and I would love to see you there live this week.
Thank you again for listening to the show. Have a wonderful day. Keep writing and keep getting better one word at a time. See ya.
