Revisions Begin

 Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!

I spend my personally holiday break attempting to revise my book and came down with covid, which made the former rather difficult. Even though it wasn't the easiest, I was still able to make a lot of progress. So far I've cut 5k words and written another 7k. This is NORMAL for this phase. Let's talk about those phases.

You must work Big to Small. This will help you capture the feel before you are doing the grueling work of debating over specific words. If you went the other way, you may spend weeks working through the scene to find the right words, and then you end up cutting it because it isn't necessary to the story. 

Phase 1 - BIG

This is about the story as a whole:

This is the phase I am currently in. It is the phase in which you do the most cutting and the most writing. It is also where you make sure that after your gut read you are addressing any issues that arose. For me, this looks like adding more back story and meat to the characters. Although they are likable, they can be more flushed out. I "know" them and therefore when putting down what's in my mind, it's likely I left parts of them out. This is my chance to fix that. 

It's also a perfect time to work on your story arc. I can do this by addressing the opening of the book, the pacing, the tone. etc.

Phase 2 - Medium

This is about each scene: 

This phase is after you've made major story changes. This is where you will be addressing specific scenes. Such as, do I need to zoom in or zoom out? Does anything feel disconnected? Are there confusing parts? ETC

Phase 3 - Small

This is about each sentence:

You must read your book out loud in order to hear if it is sounding right. This is the best tip for making sure the sentences are actually easily digested by a reader. 

This is also likely the place you were spend most of your editing time.