Revising a novel

If you've been here at the café long, you know that I'm revising my first novel, Water Magic, a young adult fantasy. Because this is the longest story I've ever written—the rough draft was over 100,000 words—the revision process has been different from anything I've worked on before. With short stories or essays, my revision process is pretty simple: read through it a couple of times to make sure it makes sense, maybe read it aloud to check how it flows, tweaking a few things here and there as I go. Done.

But, novels? They are much more complex creatures. Especially those that, like mine, have many intersecting plotlines to keep track of, most of which are happening in a made-up world with its own set of rules. Sometimes I feel like half the battle is just forcing this thing to make sense as a cohesive whole.

Which is why, for the first time in my writing career, I've been following a revision strategy. It has four main points:

First thing's first: New outline

Once I finished the rough draft, I had a good idea of what I needed to go back and change at the beginning of the book. So the first thing I did after letting the draft sit for a month was write out a new outline. I have a special green notebook that I use for all of my novel notes and outlines—actual writing I do on my laptop, but for note-taking I have to be able to scribble and sketch and cross out and add things in the margins and draw lots of arrows and highlight things. I outlined the whole novel in my notebook, making note of the major events that needed to happen in each chapter. This outline isn't set in stone—in fact I've had to change it already when I recently decided to rewrite most of the first half of the book—but it acts as a trail to guide me through the thick jungle of plot and characters, and it helps me to remember what is supposed to happen where. Breaking the story down into chunks like this also makes it seem much more managable, which is important for the aspiring author's morale and/or sanity.

Major rewrites

Once I had my shiny new outline, I felt prepared to dive into the major changes I needed to make. At this stage I was able to work quickly, and I began to feel pretty positive about how the novel was shaping up. And then I hit a snag—I realized I needed to rewrite a lot of my rewrites—about 20,000 words. And so, reluctantly, I took a step back and returned to the "new outline" stage. After a couple of weeks, I feel I'm finally getting back on track with the newest version of my outline. At this stage, my main priority is making sure the plot makes sense—weeding out weak points and internal contradictions—in other words, creating a story that works in a world that works.

Quick revisions

As I'm going through the manuscript, I do a quick read-through of each chapter I've written or revised, to make sure there are no glaring contradictions or awkward phrases. The key is working quickly, and not getting bogged down in going back to endlessly edit.

Focus on one section at a time
My book has three parts, and I've been focusing on each part individually. Having smaller chunks to work with makes an enormous job seem less daunting, and more managable.

So, that's what I've been working on lately. It feels frustrating sometimes, going over ground that I feel like I've covered a million times before, but it also feels good to see the story slowly improve week by week.

What about you, writer friends? Do you have your own special stratagies for revision, or, like me, are you still finding out what works best for you?