Before you send your piece to a pro, take the time to clean up your work a bit. This ends up saving you loads of money, giving you more control over your piece, and making the realization of your original vision more feasible. Get the Self-Revision Fundamentals ebook.
How to Do Self-Revisions
Everyone has their own methods for executing their self-revisions, but here is a method that you can start with and tweak as you learn more about what works for you as an author.
Step 1: Rest
We talked about breaks during the planning phase of book development. This another instance in which taking breaks is helpful. Step away from your manuscript for at least a week. Set a reminder on your phone / wall calendar / planner to come back to it. You’ve already carved out your writing time, so use that time, if necessary.
Stepping away from your manuscript helps to build your objectivity about it. Some authors even opt to walk away for multiple weeks or months, some even go a year. If you can handle waiting that long without completely forgetting about the book by getting swept up into your other everyday responsibilities, then go for it. But I think stepping away for a week is a solid minimum.
Step 2: Review
On the date you chose to come back to the manuscript, start from page one and read all the way through to the end at your normal reading speed. DO NOT STOP to make any adjustments or edits. If you find something you want to change, make a note to do so:
- What the hell does this even mean?!
- She can’t be in prison and stalking her boyfriend on the same day. Find a solution!
- Add them sneaking off to make out.
- This would cause severe burns, add that.
Remember: Stick and move! Don’t spend time trying to make these adjustments or fill these plot holes right now. Just make the note and keep reading. If you do this, you should be finished with your mark up in a week or two, depending on how fast you read and how long your manuscript is.
If you’re wondering what to look for, here are some things you could focus on with each self-revision pass you do (yes, I recommend doing more than one!).
- Scene organization. Are there any scenes missing, out of order, or that need to be removed?
- Character development. Is the character arc (from Pain to Promise) playing out appropriately? Is there a noticeable change in the character’s behavior and mindset?
- Setting. Does the world you have built function properly? Seem organic?
- Clarity. Are the concepts and skills you’re trying to convey coming across clearly to the reader? Would a child be able to understand the content? Are there enough examples (real-world or otherwise)?
- Authenticity. Did you dig deep and give the reader the good, bad, and ugly of your experiences? Are there events or emotions that you glossed over or avoided mentioning at all?
I don’t recommend trying to review all of these things on your first pass. Pick one or two to focus on during each round of revisions.
Step 3: Revise
Start from page one again. You may have sighed just reading that line. But this is the work of writing!
This time, you’re not reading through the piece at all, you’re just hopping from note to note and making the adjustments you marked. So, if you have a note on page five and another note on page 7, you won’t be looking at pages 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 at all. Go where the trouble is. Head directly to your red ink, sticky notes, flags, highlights, or whatever you used to mark major problems.
That’s it.
Once you’ve followed the instructions in your notes, you have completed a single self-revision pass.
Now it’s time to do it all over again!
You can do self-revisions as often as you like. But, for many new authors, after about the third round, your abilities become ineffective enough to warrant moving on to the next step in the process. I encourage you to complete three or more rounds of self-revisions, but it’s helpful to set a goal number and stick with it. Otherwise, you can end up stuck in a cycle of self-revising your work that goes on indefinitely, which only serves to stall your progress toward publication.
Once you’ve completed your first few rounds of self-revisions, recruiting alpha readers and getting feedback from them can help you make more quality adjustments to your book.