Revise in Passes, Not All at Once
By Dondi M. Day ·
Opening a rough manuscript and trying to fix everything at once is a reliable way to spend an hour changing commas in a scene you may later remove. Revision works better when the question for the current pass is clear.
Begin with the story’s shape. Write a one-sentence summary of each scene. Look for repeated information, missing decisions, and long stretches in which the central problem does not change. The summary is a tool, not a second manuscript.
Move from large questions to small ones
On a later pass, follow each important character’s knowledge and motivation. Does someone act on information they have not received? Does a difficult decision arrive without preparation? Check these connections before smoothing the dialogue.
Only after the larger changes settle should you spend much time on sentence-level polish. Otherwise, carefully edited paragraphs can become a reason to resist a necessary cut. Good sentences deserve a useful place in the book, not immunity from revision.
Keep a short change list
Separate observations from immediate edits. If you notice a continuity problem while checking pacing, record it and return to the task at hand. A small list with concrete fixes is more useful than a note that says “make the middle better.”
For your next session, choose one pass and one manageable section. Save a copy before substantial changes. At the end, note what you checked and what remains. That record makes tomorrow’s work easier to enter without rereading the whole book just to remember where you stopped.