Revise Your Novel, Step by Step! Marissa's Revision Process

In this bonus craft episode, Marissa shares her steps and processes for revisions. Hint: they begin in the drafting process! Also discussed: celebrating milestones and accomplishments, the importance of letting a project simmer, how to know when to jump back in, making a plan to tackle revisions and the different methods, how many rounds of revisions are typical, things to watch for in each pass, crutch words and how to get rid of them, and so much more!  

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Transcript

[00:10] Marissa: Hello and welcome to the Happy writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers more books to enjoy and help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thank you for joining me. For today's craft episode, I am going to be digging into one of the most important parts of the writing process. Some might argue it is the most important part, although it does depend on your personal process. You've probably heard the phrase writing is rewriting, so today I'm going to be talking about revisions and taking you step by step through my personal revision process. I will aim to be as clear as possible. It is sometimes difficult to talk about these things in a really tangible way, so I'll do my best, and I hope it's clear and that you're able to kind of follow along, and I hope it's going to be helpful for those of you who maybe are just wrapping up a novel, finishing a first draft, or maybe you're already halfway through revisions and are feeling lost in the muck and are not really sure what you're doing. Hopefully I can give a little bit of guidance and help there. So why? Why revisions today? Because I finished the first draft of my Bluebeard book. I'm so excited. So of course, that means that revisions are at the forefront of my thoughts, and I am super eager to get started and to do my best to make this the best book that I can. I already have a list of things that need to be fixed, and I'm ready. I love this part. I love how, for me, I get really excited at this stage, and I'm just ready to, like, jump in and start making things better. So what is making me happy this week? It's obvious you don't have to ask. Finishing the first draft of a book always is just the most amazing feeling. So no surprise, that is my happy thing for this episode. Yay. Go me. Okay, let's jump into it. How do I go about revising a novel? 

So my revision process starts when I am actually still writing the first draft. So during the first draft, I like to keep a list of things that I know I want to change or things that aren't working or things that need to be fixed in the next round or added in the next round or altered. I will have a list of big things, subplots, big character development items. Maybe I need to add a character. Maybe I want to take out a character. So I'll keep that in kind of a separate file simultaneously while I'm writing that first draft. If there are smaller things that I know I want to fix in a particular chapter, then I will usually note that directly into the chapter as I'm working. So that could be like I'm typing along and writing a dialogue, and maybe I know this conversation between these characters isn't working, so I'll just write in all capitals, or maybe I'll bold the text, make this conversation funnier or make this moment more romantic or slow down this action scene or whatever it is that I know I could do better here, but I don't have the brain capacity for it right now. Or maybe I just. I'm really. I just want to get through this scene and move on with the story. I'll just leave those little notes for myself so that I know I can come back later and make it stronger later. Another thing that I do during the first draft is that when I'm writing, if I come to something that I, again, just don't have time for, or I can't figure it out in that moment, I'll put a note, something that I can easily find later. Usually I use all caps so that when I'm scanning the text, it just kind of jumps right out at me. And I'll use this for descriptions. Things like describe this room or describe the ball gown that the character is wearing or describe this building, things like that. That I will often want to go find an inspiration photo to use. Or maybe I need to do some research. What is the period clothing like? Things like that. I hate to stop when I'm in the flow of writing and the stories plowing along, I hate to stop and look those things up in the moment. So I'll just add in a little, you know, describe this, and I'll come back to it later. I use that for names. Also, if you come across a side character or maybe you need to name a city or a country in your fantasy world or something, I don't usually stop and figure that out in the moment. I'll just all caps country. And then after the fact, after the first draft is written, I will search out those things and spend sometimes a day or two, however much there is, just filling in those holes. So I like to make those notes for myself because it helps keep the draft moving along, and then it keeps me from kind of getting hung up on those little details. I can stay focused on the plot. I can stay focused on the story and the characterization. So for me, that is a very efficient way of keep moving through that first draft. Don't get hung up on those little details, and then come back and fill them in during the revision round. 

So those are some things that I'm doing during that first initial draft to kind of set myself up for revisions later. So, okay, the first draft is written. The end has been typed. What next? First of all, very important. You have to celebrate. Do not skip this step. It can be, you know, really tempting to, like, just jump right into more work. More work. Keep going because you've got this great momentum, and that's wonderful. But don't forget to celebrate. It is so important that we recognize when we hit these huge milestones. Take a moment to appreciate the work that you have put into this story so far, what you have already accomplished. I don't care if this is your first book or your 50th or your 500th. It is a big deal to finish that first draft. So give yourself a pedicure, watch a movie, take a bath. Like, spend an evening with your kids. You may have forgotten what they looked like during the rush to finish a draft. Whatever it is that would make the moment feel special for you. Do it. Take some time to appreciate what you've done. For me, I have a number of different rituals that I kind of bounce between, but one of my favorite ways to celebrate, and this is so nerdy, but, yeah, here we are. And what I did to celebrate the finishing of Bluebeard is that I had some champagne that I had been saving, and I drank it while cleaning my house. Yeah. I know it may not sound like a celebration, but I find it very therapeutic. And I just sip at my champagne, and I organize, and I take care of things that have kind of been forgotten about and gotten overlooked the last week slash months, and I always feel so good by the end of it. So that's one of my nerdy little celebration rituals. But do whatever works for you. 

All right, next, if you can. And it's not always feasible, depending on your schedule and whether or not you are under deadline. But when possible, I do think that it is beneficial if you can step back from the project and let it simmer for a period of time. How much time? Totally varies. Some books feel like they need weeks or months, even at times. Sometimes I feel ready to just jump in the next day. It really varies. Ideally for me, I if I can, and I can't always, because, again, deadlines. But when I can, I try to let the project sit for as long as it takes for me to get excited about it again. A lot of times, that first draft is exhausting. Sometimes by the end of it, we are just like, so sick of looking at this book and thinking about these characters, and we just want it to go away for a little while. So if you're in that mentality, if you're in that place with the story, if you can set it aside and don't look at it and don't even think about it for however long, days, weeks, months, it depends. It changes. But wait until you start to feel that little burbling of energy again, that the characters start talking to you. New ideas for scenes start coming to you. You start to get those little light bulb moments of how to fix certain things or make things better. For me, when that starts to happen, that's when I know, okay, I'm ready to get back into this project. So, ideally, that's kind of what we would do. And that isn't wasted time. It's never wasted time. A lot of times for me, as most of you know, I am constantly working on multiple projects at a time. So I will set something aside and use that time to jump into another project. Maybe I'll start drafting something else. Maybe I'll be working on an outline or researching something. But even if you're not actively working on another project, this is a great time to spend filling the well, read a bunch of books, go see some movies, go to museums, take a day trip, go on hikes, I mean, whatever. There's lots of ways that we take in new ideas and new information, and all of that gets, you know, churned up in our mind and turns into new ideas. And you might even find that you start getting new ideas for this project that is sitting on the back burner. So those are some ways to spend the time away from the project. Eventually, of course, though, it is time to get back to work. So what to do when you're ready to really launch into your revisions? A lot of writers like to go through the manuscript, read what they wrote, start to finish. Sometimes a lot of people like to print it out and read it on hard copy. Some writers like to make notes in the margin. They might even start editing, you know, crossing out paragraphs and writing things in the margins, etcetera, etcetera. I don't do this personally. The reason being that, as I mentioned before, I usually go into my revisions already having a list of things that I know I need to fix. I've started writing things from day one, things that I know are wrong with this book, things that can be stronger, better. So I don't feel the need, generally, to read through the manuscript to figure out what's wrong with it? I already have a lot of ideas for things that are wrong with it, so that's up to you. That's a matter of personal preference. So either way, whether you make notes for yourself while you're drafting, or if you read through the manuscript and make notes at that time, the result is pretty much the same. You will end up with a list of things that you know could be better. Once you know what you want to fix in the manuscript, the next step is to ask, okay, well, how do I fix these things? How do I make these things better? I kind of think of it like a checklist, and a lot of times I'll just start going down the line. For example, if one of my characters is feeling really flat, really boring, they're just not coming to life on the page. Their dialogue is stilted and inauthentic. Or I just don't like the character. Like, whatever the problem is, then I will spend some time doing character work on them. I will consider what personality traits I can give to make them more interesting or likable. I will consider what motives I can give them to either explain the way they're acting or might even change their behavior in some ways. What can I do to make this character more interesting? If there's a plot hole or some inconsistency with the book, something that isn't making sense, then I will sit with that for a while and throw out a bunch of ideas until I come up with a solution that I like. Maybe the romance just isn't that romantic. It's hard to nail it all in the first go, right? We usually don't. So then I'll spend some time brainstorming ways that I can increase that romantic tension. Or I'll have try to come up with some new scenes that I can add in the story that will show the characters falling in love. I'll ask, what situations can I put them in that maybe shows them being vulnerable toward each other or has one of them swooning over the other? I'll look for missed opportunities, scenes where they're together, but the sparks just aren't flying yet. And I'll see what can I do to get those sparks to fly. So just a lot of time spent looking at my list of things that I know I can make better and then really digging into each one and figuring out some ways that I can do that. How? What is my plan here? How can I make these things stronger? And what I love about doing revisions? Because I am. I am a revision writer. Some people love their first draft. Some people love editing. For me, revision is my favorite part of writing, and one of the reasons for that is that when you are tackling these issues, kind of going down your list and figuring it out and making a plan, you'll find that things start to happen where the solution to one problem magically carries over to another problem. You know, you'll determine. Maybe the way to make this character more interesting is to give him a motive to be secretly working against the protagonist, let's just say, okay, but then by giving him that motive, you resolve the big plot hole of, like, why all these random bad things are going wrong and why all these things are happening to the protagonist. And lo and behold, it turns out this character is trying to sabotage our main character. Well, now that you know that this character is sabotaging the main character, that gives you these really great opportunities for these romantic scenes in which the love interest can defend the protagonist or they can protect each other or yada, yada, yada, things just start to gel and work together. And it kind of, I don't know. To me, it's magic. It just feels like magic. It just starts to make the book feel really cohesive. It starts to kind of make these different elements feel like they are gears and they are aligning. And if you turn one, they all start to turn in unison. That was a decent analogy. It's a beautiful thing. I love it. It makes me really giddy when that starts to happen.

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[17:59] Marissa: okay, so next you have your list of things to fix. You've brainstormed and come up with some really great solutions for how you plan on fixing those things. Now it is time to make a concrete plan for how you're going to tackle them. There are. There's probably lots of different ways you can do this, but to my knowledge, there's two kind of primary methods that authors use. And again, here, every process is different. There's no right or wrong. And even saying that, like, there's these two methods that we use, there's a lot of overlap. There's gray areas. You do a little of this, you do a little of that. So, like, take everything here with a grain of salt. Right? But generally speaking, the two methods that I found that most of us use when we're doing revisions. Method one is to fix the manuscript one issue at a time. For example, say you've determined character a is really boring. It needs a new personality. Okay? So you've spent some. Some time considering how you're gonna fix it, and you know that you now want to give this character some secret motive that's gonna make them, like, really cagey and suspicious. So then you would go through the manuscript, and you would jump into every scene in which this character is present and work specifically on changing their personality. In that scene, you would look at their dialogue. You would look at their mannerisms, other facets of their behavior. Maybe you add a scene where their motives get revealed. Maybe you add some backstory, some exposition explaining why they're doing this. But you would do a pass through the manuscript in which that is the thing that you're focused on. You're looking at that one particular issue, and when you're done with that issue, you pick the next thing on your list, and you go through the manuscript, fixing that element. Normally, if you want to try this method, it is recommended that you start with the biggest changes first. The things that are going to have the largest impact on the story, things that are going to be adding scenes and removing scenes. You know, big changes to the plot, big changes to the characters, and then kind of work your way down from there so that you're not jumping in to fix, like, really detail oriented stuff. You're not spending your first round changing the settings and looking at, like, I'll this really great sensory detail, only to then later start changing plot stuff and realize like, oh, I'm not going to use that setting at all. You don't want to waste your time doing that. So kind of start with the bigger elements and work your way down to those more detail oriented things. So that's the first method. The benefit to that method, fixing it kind of one issue at a time, is that it allows you to stay really micro focused on every element that you're aiming to fix. So you can really make sure that you are bringing that specific thing to the surface. You are making that thing sparkle. And it's really great for consistency, too. You know, if you are spending an entire round looking at this character and their motives and their personality, their dialogue, etcetera, then you're probably going to be able to get it to where it's pretty consistent throughout. The drawback to that method is that chances are you will end up revising some scenes or chapters or paragraphs multiple times. Because in the first pass, you maybe you work on the sabotage subplot and you're inserting things and things are affecting the major plot points, etcetera. But in the next pass, you're working on the character's personality. So inevitably you end up going back through those scenes that you just wrote and making additional minor adjustments to them. So, pros and cons, no right or wrong, just some things to keep in mind. The second method for tackling your revisions is what I think of as the scene by scene method. And this is the one that I generally use at least for, especially for like my first big pass of revisions. In later passes, I might focus more on specific elements, but for that first big revision, I like this scene by scene method. So what I do is, again, I look at my list, the things that I want to fix, the solutions I have come up with, and I make a scene by scene or chapter by chapter breakdown in which I'm looking to see. I make a scene by scene breakdown in which I'm looking at every chapter and listing the things that are being affected in that chapter. Okay, that sounds really confusing and convoluted. An example, you look at chapter one of the book and you would have a list for that chapter. And the list might have things like, one, adjust character as personality to make him act really dodgy and suspicious. Two, at some point in this scene, show character a sneaking away. Three, hint at the backstory and childhood hatred between character a and the protagonist. Four, change the setting to the rooftop so that you can foreshadow the rooftop scene that happens in the climax five. Add in more sensory details throughout, like, or whatever. Right. Whatever your changes are, whatever the specific things are that you want to fix or bring to the surface. Everything from my list of revisions that I think might affect chapter one, I put it onto that list. So every chapter in the book is going to have a list of specific things that I want to tackle. That way, when I start digging into the manuscript, I know exactly what changes I want to make in each chapter, and I can tackle all the changes in one fell swoop and hopefully make them all feel really smooth and really cohesive, and I'll make my way through the manuscript that way, start to finish. And then once I get to the end, the process kind of starts over again. As I'm working my way through the manuscript, I'm usually creating a new list. Things that I'm still not happy with, things that I added in the climax. So now I need to go back and foreshadow them. Bits of dialogue that still aren't feeling authentic or, you know, whatever it is. 

As I'm going through that first round of revisions, I'm keeping yet another list for going back into the next round and continuing to make things stronger and stronger. How many rounds of revisions I do this way? It does vary by book, and of course, different authors do things differently. Usually I would say I am feeling pretty good about a book after three rounds of revision. Not always. There are always exceptions, but, yeah, usually after the third round of revision, I feel like I've created the book that I was trying to say. And at that point, I will do that full read through. That's the moment when I do it and read it all in its entirety and make sure I'm looking for things to feel really consistent. I'm making sure that things haven't kind of gotten missed or dropped during the revision process. I'm looking at the overall character arc. Does it feel logical? Is the character changing and having nice, smooth transitions in their character arc? I'm looking at things like suspense. Is the suspense building over the course of the book? Are there a mix of action scenes and reaction scenes? Is it all building up to the climax? Are the stakes being raised throughout things like that? I've been thinking about them the whole time, but when I do that read through, usually after round three is when I'm really kind of hyper focused on that big picture. Hopefully by then I am feeling pretty good about things, and I will usually send my work off to my editor and my critique partner after that third round and that full read through and then, of course, I get their notes, where they inevitably point out all the things I missed and all the things I hadn't thought of, and all the ways it could still be better. At which point I do another round of revisions and move on to polishing it up as much as possible. One of the very last things that I do as a part of my typical revision process. Once I've gotten feedback from my editor and my critique partner and the book is pretty close to final, I do a round of search and replaces for crutch words, and this is generally followed by a pass in which I will do an entire read through. And my number one goal in that final read through is to cut out as many unnecessary words as possible. All right, so let's break that down a little bit more. If you're not familiar, crutch words are words that we rely on too much. We all have them. Half the time you don't even know you're using them and they change. You have one crutch word or phrase for one book, and then you become really aware of it and so you kind of fix that one. But then the next book you write, there's something new and it just happens. A lot of times, crutch words are things that characters do when you need a beat in the dialogue and you can't think of anything more interesting. You know, things like the characters smile. They roll their eyes, they quirked an eyebrow. They nod, snort, smirk, sigh, stare, blink. Right? None of these are bad until you realize that you've used them like 20 giant 20 times in a chapter. Then it's like, okay, I should probably try to come up with something more original there. So I do a search for my worst offenders and I highlight them. And then I go through the manuscript attempting to eliminate as many as possible. And a lot of times they can just be deleted. A lot of times it doesn't change anything about the story to just take them out. Other times, you might look for a more interesting way that you can express that emotion or more interesting mannerisms that they can be doing. And sometimes you think, nope, I really do just want the character to blink here, and that's okay, but at least it's a conscious decision rather than the default. Okay, so I do a pass in which I'm searching for and replacing as many crutch words as I can. And then the last thing that I do is that final read through of the manuscript in which my primary goal, as I said before, is to cut out all those unnecessary words, unnecessary exposition, unnecessary dialogue tags, boring descriptions, anything that feels like it is slowing the story down and not adding anything in terms of world building or characterization or plot development. Cut it out. Trim it down as much as possible if you have the time. It is great to conduct this pass while reading the words out loud. You will be amazed how different things sound when you actually speak them. You catch way more mistakes. You pick up on all sorts of awkward phrasing that your eye just kind of glances over when you're reading it in text. It does take longer, so it's a bit of a commitment to read the novel out loud. I admit I don't do it every time, but when I can manage it, it definitely helps a lot. So, recommended if you can. Whew. Okay, I think that's it. I think I broke down my revision process as much as I could. I hope that was clear. I really do. I hope it wasn't too, I don't know, convoluted, too difficult to follow. It's hard sometimes to put these processes into words and to explain things that we do that we've been doing for so long. For me, for going on 20 books now that it just kind of starts to feel second nature. And so then to really have to break it down step by step, you know, it's an interesting mental challenge. So I know that was a lot, but I hope it was helpful and I hope that you will save this episode to refer back to the next time you are getting ready to start on your own revisions. One last thing I want to say before wrapping this episode up is that most of this information, maybe all of this information, actually might have to go back and look. It is going to be available in the happy writer book that is coming out this January, January 2025. So if you feel like you were listening along and should have been taking notes, but you don't really want to go back and take notes, I don't blame you. I hope that you will consider pre ordering the book and then the information will be there ready for you when you need it. As a bonus, the book is also going to include my revision checklist. This is the checklist that I refer to every time I'm beginning my revisions, so I can be sure I'm not forgetting anything, any of those big story elements, because it can be a lot to try to balance and a lot to try to think about at any one pass, any one time. So those are things, like I mentioned, having a balance of action and reaction scenes, upping the stakes throughout, upping the suspense throughout making sure the climax is the biggest, most suspenseful scene of the book. Taking a look at your big plot twists and have you adequately foreshadowed them beforehand? Is the protagonist relatable? Things like that, just things to kind of make you pause and think about and ask yourself, okay, can I make this better? Is this something that I need to work on in this revision round? So that will be in the happy writer and I hope that that will be a really handy resource. Okay, that's that. Thank you for listening. Hope it was helpful. What is next? Okay, let's see. So next week I am going to be chatting with debut author Ar Vishny about her paranormal vampire Jewish folklore novel Night Owls. Please leave us a review and follow us on Instagram happywriterpodcast and dont forget to check out our merchandise on etsy. Until next time, stay inspired, keep writing, and whatever life throws you today, I hope that now youre feeling a little bit happier.