Once you’ve written several drafts of your book and you’ve received feedback from beta readers and/or a manuscript appraiser, you’ll need to know how to revise a novel because your feedback will most likely indicate the necessity for some revision. This is the last hurdle, the bit that might take a bit of effort, but if you pull it off, you're on the home straight, and it's easy sailing from here to the finish line. Yeah, I love analogies! How much work is required depends on many factors and how much direction you’ve got from your beta readers, but often they will point out something that doesn’t work without knowing exactly why. Your task is to find out why it doesn’t work and fix it. You may need only a few changes, but you may also need a complete rewrite, depending on the feedback you received. Regardless of how much revision is required, a checklist of the most important story elements comes in handy at this stage because you can use it as a diagnostic tool. I've made a … [Read more...]
The Second Draft: Novel-writing Tips
Here's some novel-writing tips for the second draft stage of your project. No matter how much of a mess your first draft is - and the first draft of my first book was truly terrible - simply completing it is a big accomplishment - I had a cocktail to celebrate! But the first draft is only the beginning of the journey to publication. It's what you do in the second draft and later drafts that show your craftspersonship or lack of it. The second draft stage where you revise your work is a very important point in the process of writing a book. Engage your critical thinking When writing your first draft, you use your creative mind to get your ideas down and leave your critical mind out of it. It's the fun part where you immerse yourself in the world of your story and it doesn't matter how terrible it is. At the second draft stage, however, you need to engage your critical mind to evaluate what you’ve written and then revise it. Though creativity is still important, of course, and … [Read more...]
