Somehow, the most discouraging part of writing your first book can actually be finishing the first draft. Of course, we want to celebrate that we have finished this manuscript, but at the same time, most new authors have no idea what they’re supposed to do next.
You have probably heard me say that it is really, really important that you revise before you start editing. But for most authors, the space between writing the manuscript and fixing the prose—making sure the lines read the way you want and that you’ve chosen the best words—is a cavern of unknown.
We don’t know how to get the manuscript through this process of making our high-level changes: revising our structure, making sure our message and topic are dialed in, really developing our ideas, sharing things that were interior to us as opposed to only telling what happened. All of these things can be really challenging, especially when you’re trying to go it alone.
So I want to break down the steps I recommend you take between finishing your draft and bringing in an editor for a developmental edit. We call that a manuscript review here at Page & Podium. There are some steps it’s good to take on your own, to the point that you’re able, before you hire that editorial support. The stronger you can get that manuscript, the more beneficial and valuable that manuscript review will be.
You Can Bring in an Editor Before You Start Revising
At the same time, there is nothing wrong with wanting to get an editor’s eyes on your draft the second you’re done. In fact, Page & Podium’s policy is that we would love to see your manuscript if you feel it is 90% done. Sometimes that means the drafting isn’t even fully finished, but the author is stuck and really needs outside guidance to move forward.
As a professional writer and editor of many, many years, I still sometimes get a second set of eyes on my work from editor friends or folks I hire within my company. They help me make sure it’s coming along the way I want it to, brainstorm, and strategize ways out of problems I hadn’t anticipated. There is no shame at any point in bringing in editorial support. But I know folks want to take a stab at what they’re trying to do with their book before they hand it over to an editor, and that’s a good idea too.
Part of the reason I wanted to talk about this right now is that here we are, solidly in the fall. Y’all, where did this come from? We’re in the final stretch of the year, and as things start to get busy, it can be a natural point for our progress to taper off. There’s a lot going on, and what’s happening in our personal lives inevitably affects our ability to keep moving forward on our manuscript.
If that sounds like you, if you’re at least 90% of the way through, especially if you’ve been poking around with revisions, it can be an excellent choice to get a manuscript review at this point in the year. By the time we’ve processed that review, returned your feedback, and booked your coaching call, you can set yourself up to launch into the new year with a fresh set of goals. And y’all, that feels so good.
One of the great things about our manuscript review process is that it gives you very clear steps. This is my core philosophy: when we know the steps to the process, we’re able to move ourselves forward in a much more impactful way than when we’re feeling forward in the dark. A manuscript review gives you a set of steps customized to your manuscript and goals. You can enroll and submit your manuscript that same day.
With that, let’s talk about the steps I recommend in this liminal area between drafting and having that editorial guidance. This is not necessarily a difficult process, but you will need some discernment and confidence to try these things. They can feel a little shaky, a little scary. That’s one reason many people get editorial support before launching into them.
Step 1: Read Your Manuscript and Make a Reverse Outline
The first step is weirdly scary, and it is for me too, so no shame or judgment. You just need to read the manuscript.
I don’t know from a psychological perspective why this is so hard, but there are few things that feel as tedious as rereading a draft manuscript you have just finished. It’s been true for me of every single book I’ve written. It’s true for most of my clients. It is a hard hump to get over, but we gotta do it.
You know me, I always have ways in for things that feel challenging, and I have a way in here. It’s called a reverse outline. Because it can be so difficult to move through reading your manuscript, I’m going to give you some tasks to do as you read. Having a little something to distract and focus your brain can help you get over that hurdle. As you read, you’re going to keep notes on three things.
Write a Short Summary of Each Chapter
As you finish each chapter, write a couple of sentences on what that chapter did. What happened? Did you make a particular argument? How can you briefly summarize it? What is that chapter about? You might think about this as a simple chapter summary. That really is all I’m asking for here.
List the Stories and Main Points
The second thing I want you to look for is the specific points you make in that chapter. This gives us a map so that, as you go back to revise, you can say, “Where was that story about Uncle Harry and the wagon? Oh, it’s in chapter four. Got it.” This is going to be so helpful, and again, it tricks our brain into continuing to engage in this pretty tedious activity.
You will likely have at least a few stories per chapter. Make bullet points underneath your summary: one for every story and every main point. If you’re incorporating something like philosophy or scientific training, make a bullet point for each of those things too. You’ll end up with a little paragraph summary and a bulleted list of exactly what is in that chapter underneath it.
Note the Higher-Level Changes You Want to Make
The third thing you’re looking for as you reread your manuscript is things you want to change. This one is tough, and I really am doing a little psychological jujitsu here.
When we’re going through our manuscript, the natural tendency is to read it on the computer and, as we see things we don’t like, start changing them. Well, y’all, not only is this not the most efficient way to do things, it often blows up in your face. You can spend half an hour on a sentence that reads weird, only to realize the next sentence already did what you were trying to do with this one. The reason is that you didn’t have a 10,000-foot view. You weren’t able to see how the whole thing worked together.
But the real reason I don’t want you editing as you read is that we have to make some higher-level changes before we’re ready to mess with sentences. One of the most common changes I recommend in manuscript reviews is something called interiority. Most first-time memoir authors tend to focus a lot more on showing us the things that happened. This comes from that kind of misguided advice to “show, don’t tell.”
While they’re showing us all these beautiful things, we’re getting very little of how it felt for them, what those experiences meant, what they learned, or what they want the reader to learn. There’s a division between what happens that a camera can capture and what happens that is interior to us. That interior experience is super important for memoir and other types of nonfiction.
So many authors need to spend time dialing up the interiority. If you’ve already cleaned up the flow of all your sentences, you’re not going to want to add it. Every place you try to insert something, it’s going to feel like you’re messing things up.
There are lots of changes like that. Sometimes we have to reorder chapters, add entire chapters or sections, or take something early in the manuscript and move it to the end as a flashback. There are lots of moving parts when you’re first revising. The more you’re focused on sentences and grammar, the less able you’ll be to see those 10,000-foot things you need to change.
So I don’t want you to write, “The third sentence of the fourth paragraph reads awkwardly.” Probably it does. There’s probably a lot of awkward sentences, actually. Instead, think about these questions:
- Does the pacing feel slow? Does it feel too fast? Did you rush through something?
- Have you really let the reader in to what your experience was?
- Is your message clear and consistent? Does it get lost?
- Are there chapters that feel like they belong to a different book?
It’s hard to identify some of this in your own work, but if you look for it, you can often find a place or two where you want to dial something up. I’m not asking you to do a full analysis yet. For now, make a list of the things that jump out. If we don’t put them on paper, our brain wants to keep reminding us, and that makes it difficult to move forward.
You’ve already got your summary paragraph and your bulleted list of everything happening in that chapter. Simply add below that the things you’d like to change. This first step will take a significant amount of time, so make sure you have time to focus. I generally recommend that you don’t try to do a full-length manuscript in one sitting. Breaking this up into four, five, or six sittings will be more effective and a lot less likely to burn you out.
Step 2: Do a Structure Audit
The second step is what I call a structure audit. This is something Page & Podium does in our manuscript review, but authors can also do a version on their own. There are two pathways here.
If you started by putting together an outline, particularly through something like our Seven-Step Structure Sequence, you already have a roadmap of how you wanted your structure to work. The same is true if you used a different program, the hero’s journey, or Save the Cat. If you had a plan for your structure from the beginning, you can now compare your reverse outline to that plan.
Did you stick to what you were trying to do? Were there parts you thought would go quickly that took a lot longer? Were there parts you thought would take a whole chapter, but that chapter ended up being about something else? You’re making notes on whether the chapter structure you planned matches what you have on paper. For most people, that match is a little iffy, and that’s really good information.
On the other side, I’m going to be honest with you: this is going to be way harder if you didn’t have an outline. If you set out to write the book without planning or structuring in advance, you don’t have anything to compare that reverse outline to. Does that mean you can’t do a structure audit? Nope. Instead, look at whether the pacing, flow, and rhythm felt engaging to you.
Of course, you’re making a bit of a guess, and it’s sometimes worth getting a professional in at this point to do the structure audit with you or for you. After that initial read, we need to identify things that need to move around, expand, or condense, because those changes come first. For now, though, add that information to your reverse outline instead of making the changes.
What might these notes sound like?
- “Chapter three really drags. Do I need it? Could I incorporate this story into another chapter?”
- “I was supposed to hit my misguided step at 50%, but it doesn’t come until 65%. Can I shorten some earlier chapters to move it forward?”
- “What I thought was my climax is not actually my climax. How do I need to reformat this so the climax lands in the appropriate spot?”
Depending on your manuscript, it can be a lot of things. Typically, you’re looking for whether something moves too fast or too slowly, or whether things need to be reorganized in service to the narrative arc, pacing, and flow. Add those notes to your list.
Step 3: Put Your Revision List in Order
Next, compile all those notes: everything you wanted to change from your reverse outline and your structure audit. Put them on one revision list. The challenge here is in the order. We want to move from general to specific.
Anything at the story or book level—structure, pacing, cohesiveness of message—needs to come before particular explanations or scenes. You’re figuring out the best order to make your revisions in. This is also something Page & Podium does for you through our manuscript review service.
Start With Structural Changes
Anything you’re going to move around, shrink, or expand goes first. We don’t want to work through a book that’s going to be restructured, only to find that a lot of our work was for nothing.
Then List Changes That Affect the Whole Manuscript
These are things like, “My message shifted a little bit, and I want to change it,” “My topic isn’t clear,” or “I want to make sure these themes come through throughout the book and that readers can really sense them.” These changes require you to weave something through the entire manuscript. Put those in your next tier.
Save Specific Changes for Last
Last, and certainly not least, are the specific changes you want to make. I suggest keeping line- or word-level editing as a separate process. I typically call that editing versus revising, because it can be a distraction, especially on your first or second book.
At this last stage of revisions, focus on how you can make specific scenes work a little better. We’re cleaning up scenes and making sure the message is clear. We might add definitions for unusual words or citations to other research or books. These are more specific changes, but hear me say: you’re still too early to be going in for line editing.
Before You Revise, Check Your Confidence
Before we move on, I need you to do a reality check. No shame, blame, or judgment, but some authors have an easier time with this than others. That may be your signal that you need support.
Look at your revision list and be honest with yourself. On a scale of one to ten, how confident are you that you caught all the major issues? Typically, you’ll have caught issues as you read, and you’ll have a lot more specific issues than general ones.
If you found structural things you want to play with and changes to make throughout the manuscript, and you feel confident those are good steps forward, do that. But if you look at your revision list and think, “I probably didn’t identify a lot of what needs to change. I don’t know what I’m doing,” I want you to seriously consider whether it’s time to work with an editor. If you’re at maybe one to five on that confidence scale, this can be really useful.
An editor can help you dial in what needs to change, validate whether the things you selected need changing, identify additional issues, and help you prioritize and focus. From there, whether you work with an editor or not, the next thing in the process is to make those revisions.
Step 4: Make One Revision at a Time
The reason I had you make your list from general to specific is that this is exactly how we’re going to tackle things. You should have a group of structural changes. Pick one and do it. Trying to make a bunch of structural changes at the same time can get overwhelming, and you’ll have trouble remembering what you were doing and staying focused.
Choose one structural change, make it, and then, y’all, cross it off. Extra bonus points if you put a checkbox so you can put your tidy little check. Either way, we’re going to celebrate with each round. Do your structural rounds, check each off, celebrate each one, and then move to the changes where you’ll go through the whole manuscript. Again, one point at a time.
If your message changed from the beginning of the book to the end and you want to make it more cohesive, do just that. Make a whole pass on message cohesion. Your next pass can be on making the interiority clearer, and your next can focus on something else.
Trying to make all those changes at once—going into chapter one and doing one thing, then another, then another, and then moving to chapter two—typically won’t give you as good a result. It’s very likely to overwhelm you. Go one thing at a time.
When you get to your list of specific changes, that’s the most fun time of all. Now you can pick from your list, go in, make those targeted changes, and feel really solid in the work you’re doing.
Bring Other People Into the Process
Once you’ve moved through these steps, you’re ready for the next step, which will bring other people into your process. At this point, you can get a manuscript review to make sure the remaining revisions are captured and that your book is as strong as it can be. If you’ve already gotten outside editorial support and have a book contract, you’ll be moving through these revisions so you can move into the production pipeline: copy editing, proofreading, and so on.
That’s when you get to those line-level changes. You’ll have confidence that you’ve made the larger changes so that the editing is as effective as it can be.
Getting help at this stage is normal. Authors have long used editors to make their work stronger. Books are communal. Yes, there’s an author, but there are also readers, critics, and booksellers. It’s going to be a communal process at some point, and the best authors pull in editorial support when they need it. Whether that’s immediately after finishing the draft, after an attempt at a revision pass, or after revising many times, you’ll need a professional’s eyes on that book if you want it to be as excellent as I know you do.
If you’re feeling stuck and wish someone would tell you what to do next, our free Book Strategy Quiz is for you. Answer the same ten questions I ask folks on our one-on-one calls, and I’ll tell you via email how to move forward. I’ll also send you a custom podcast playlist, along with free and low-cost resources to help you unstick your manuscript and move toward publication.
