The Last Mile: Ideas for Finalizing Your Novel Manuscript
By Emilie-Noelle Provost | April 24, 2024 |
I’ve been working on a new novel for a while now. After two years of steady work, I completed the first draft of the manuscript in January. Since then, I’ve been spending nearly every minute of my writing time revising all three-hundred-plus pages of it line by line. I’m currently working on my fourth round of these revisions, after which I might* be happy enough with the book to send it out to beta readers. It’s been a long process, so time consuming and, at times, tedious that I began to wonder whether other writers also scrutinize each of their sentences multiple times when trying to finalize their work, or if I’m alone in my OCD-like obsession with synonyms, syntax, and eliminating modifiers.
Hoping to discover more efficient revision techniques, I asked four other authors what they do to get their manuscripts into shape both before and after readers, agents, and editors have put in their two cents.**
Liz Michalski, author of Evenfall and Darling Girl, told me she sets aside a week or two to take care of final edits before anyone else sees her work. This includes running grammar and spelling checks in two different programs and pasting each chapter into text-to-speech software and listening to it. She also reads chapters out of order, which she says is a great way to catch continuity errors.
When it comes to recommendations from readers and editors, Michalski says the suggestions she initially disagrees with most are usually the ones she circles back to at the end. “I re-read them a few weeks later with a clear head. Getting my ego out of the process often reveals their true value,” she says.
Author of Chasing Alaska, Small Animals Caught in Traps, and Ordinary Bear, which was released this month, C.B. Bernard says his revisions mirror his writing process. “Because I don’t work front-to-back, it’s difficult to talk—or even think—about drafts,” he says. “A manuscript is dynamic, and I’m always monkeying. Occasionally, I’ll print it out and read it aloud and find all sorts of new issues. When I think it’s done done, I print and read it aloud again—and, of course, it’s not even close. Back to work, rinse, and repeat.”
Bernard says he often “triangulates” when deciding which advice from readers and editors to follow. “Say you let three people read a draft. If just one person gives you a note on something, hear them out but do it with a grain of salt. If all three give you the same note, you’ve found a speedbump that needs to be addressed,” he says. Bernard also says if he fundamentally disagrees with feedback, he’ll stand his ground. “If you make edits you can’t live with because you second-guessed yourself, it will haunt you, I promise,” he says.
Roz Morris, author of Ever Rest, Lifeform Three, Memories of a Future Life, and Not Quite Lost, says it’s difficult for her to tell at what point revising becomes final editing. “Ever Rest went through twenty-one drafts,” she says. “I revise a lot, noticing nuances and making refinements all the time, so my final edits are as significant as the early changes. I just keep working, doing what the book needs as I understand it more.” Morris credits her early career experience ghost writing thrillers for her organizational and research skills, which she says help keep her plot and continuity in line while she’s writing.
When contemplating critiques from readers and editors, Morris says, “There are many I might not agree with but I always consider the reason they were made, which is because something isn’t working the way it should.”
The author of three novels and five short story collections, Annalisa Crawford’s latest novel, One Tuesday, Early, will be published in May. Crawford says when a manuscript she’s working on is in its final stage, she transfers it to her Kindle and looks at it from a reader’s perspective. She says this helps her find any typos or inconsistencies she missed on her computer. “I make notes on the Kindle and go through them in my manuscript afterward,” she says. “If there are no major changes, it takes roughly a week. If there are big changes to make, it’s no longer my final draft.”
When considering editing suggestions from readers and editors, Crawford says a lot of her decisions come down to instinct. “Small things I agree with are changed immediately; those I disagree with get deleted. For bigger suggestions, I mull them over. . . I might try two or three ways of making those changes to see which work best,” she says.
I also asked these authors how they know when a manuscript is actually finished—a difficult determination for any writer. Liz Michalski says when her agents think a book is in good shape, she trusts their judgement. Roz Morris knows a manuscript is done when she can read through the whole thing without having anxiety. When it comes to my own work, I fall into the same camp as Annalisa Crawford and C.B. Bernard.
Crawford says a novel is finished when she “literally cannot bear to read it through one more time.” While Bernard says, “Somebody smarter than I once told me that you have to come to hate a book to finish it. That’s a pretty good mile-marker. When I’m sick of it, it must be done.”
*Probably not
**Authors’ replies have been edited for length and clarity.
What is your final editing process like?
When considering suggestions from beta readers and/or editors how do you decide which to incorporate into your work and which to disregard?
How do you know when your manuscript is really, truly finished?
Emilie-Noelle Provost is a writer, editor, and author who lives in a northeastern Massachusetts mill town with her husband, daughter, and three crazy rescue cats. She is an avid hiker and a fan of European crime dramas.
Emilie-Noelle has worked as an editor for four magazine titles and has written and published hundreds of articles. She is the author of two novels. The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters, was published by North Country Press in 2018. Her second novel, The River Is Everywhere, the coming-of-age story of a Franco-American teenager, was a finalist for a 2023 National Indie Excellence Award, a 2023 American Fiction Award, and a 2024 American Legacy Book Award. The novel was published in March 2023 by Vine Leaves Press.
She is currently working on a series of novels set in Île d’Orléans, a historic island in the Saint Lawrence River near Québec City.
[coffee]
Nice!
Speaking from experience, after doing all the things you have mentioned, you will pick up the finished product months or years later and read it.
“Damn,” you’ll say. “I should have said it another way, and left out the part about…”
Emilie, what a great post for me. I’m at the finale stage of writing a historical fiction sequel. I have written sections based on events of the 1960s era, researched heavily, and edited heavily. The story flow is considered. The MS goes to the editor in another month. Also to a sensitivity reader to review the inclusion of an American-Black character, an important secondary character. The editor will give me straight feedback and I will consider and most likely accept her comments. With the first book, a different editor changed some of the real history to an imaginary one that worked perfectly. I don’t have beta readers. The sensitivity black reader will make suggestions, which I will most likely agree with. Writing any genre in this day and age needs to follow specific guidelines. I’ve read author’s Hannah & Trigiani books and understand their inclusion of history in other eras. That helped to adjust the events to my book’s time line. 📚🎶 Christine
Excellent questions!
1. What is your final editing process like?
My final editing process is the finishing and editing of the final scene.
Because I write from a very detailed outline, and each scene is completed, polished, edited, and cast in concrete before I move on to the next one – and I go back to previous scenes in only a handful if necessary to strengthen foreshadowing in a late one.
2. When considering suggestions from beta readers and/or editors how do you decide which to incorporate into your work and which to disregard?
Only ones which caught something not being clearly written – and it is a very rare occasion when she catches an error. Her feedback is infinitely valuable in planning and being sure I’ve created the right effect; I aim to elicit the reaction from her: “Alicia, you evil woman!” and to chat back and forth about the how.
3. How do you know when your manuscript is really, truly finished?
See 1. – I have long lists of things to check and fix and connect – but they all get done scene by scene, so the final chapter and scene are no harder or easier than each of the others.
I have to break it down into pieces I can handle – a sentence, a paragraph, a beat in a scene – and trust the process, because I have no capacity to deal with the ms. as a whole (except to check names or spelling I’ve figured out were incorrect AS I went through previous scenes). Connections were made in the structure, before the writing gets serious.
I have found that taking too long to write something is actually worse–for me–than drafting quickly. Revision is an ongoing process because I go back to review the previous day’s work and add/revise to get my head into that day’s work. If I take too long to draft a book, it bogs down and my internal editor becomes more negative. Pushing on helps me avoid that negativity from the internal editor–something I learned from the one and only time I participated in Nanowrimo.
After 20+ self-published books (preceded by years of rejections reading “love your voice, love your work…can’t sell it” due to my rather niche-ish combining of genres), I’ve learned that fast drafting is best for me. I write around 2000 words a day, not counting drafting changes from the previous day. Once a first draft is finished, I let it sit for several weeks while I work on something else. I’ll often print it out and look at it in hard copy. Then I’ll revise and send it out to trusted betas. While it’s out with betas I’ll go back and poke at the MS because I’ll have something come up that I realize should be in the story.
Once beta feedback is incorporated, then I do a detailed edit in my formatting program (Vellum). Vellum allows me to see what the final product looks like in various ebook formats as well as print, in addition to the editing screen. It’s amazing what that simple change in layout reveals. Oh, and I draft chapter-by chapter in Word, then paste it into Scrivener because it’s easier to review in Scriv for continuity than to scroll back through Word. Moving across three platforms shows a LOT.
I know a work is done when it feels right during a read-through. I’ve been told by a NYT bestselling author who I workshopped with that I write well enough to be traditionally published–however, given the state of traditional publishing today and my age, I lack faith and trust in either agents or editors to have any interest in my work. I’m a solid midlist-type of writer, and New York isn’t interested in writers like me. Period (and yes, I know whereof I speak–many of my writing friends are former midlist writers of similar ethnic and gender profiles who are now self-publishing because they’ve been pushed out of tradpub. Plus I have heard enough top New York editors talk about what they want to buy to know they aren’t interested in me. I have no desire to keep hearing that “love your voice, love your work, can’t sell it” refrain).
What is “finished”, as defined here, does not necessarily mean that a manuscript is the best novel that it could possibly be. Every writer has barriers that can be broken through. One way to do that is to set a challenge at the outset: something that will stretch you in a way that you haven’t stretched before. The goal isn’t only to get to done, it’s also to grow.
Oh, definitely so. I set craft goals for each book–and they may be an extension from the previous book. Right now I’m working on an explicit mix of science fiction and fantasy, but I’m also refining a continuity process across a trilogy which is, essentially, one book in three chunks. I also often set up concept goals–for this trilogy, The Cost of Power, it’s an exploration of mind control technology, power interfaces, and the compromises involved (with a heavy dose of woo, as my character Ruby Barkley, who works with nanobots and agricultural interfaces, characterizes it). There’s also a centuries-old battle between families descended from European nobility and their tutelary spirits, who don’t explain a darn thing because they’re Fae.
Now is my work going to be a perfect examination of these concepts? Absolutely not, because the characters in question need to be authentic. In my experience, forcing characters into ideological concepts leads to a very stiff and stilted story. I’m also taking a character previously identified as a villain in previous, related books, and turning him into a more sympathetic person. That’s been an interesting exercise (and I’m looking at this work as primarily an exercise in craft more than anything else. Marketable? Who knows? I’m self publishing so if it works, great. If not…well, that’s the way things go).
I appreciate your insights and those of the authors quoted in this post. I don’t show my manuscript to anyone until I have gone through at least four drafts. The purpose of the first draft is to get the story down on paper, knowing it will be badly flawed. In the second draft, I focus on the story and the characters. Does the story hold together? Are there gaps or issues with the story? Are the characters relatable and consistent? What do I need to change to make it work? By the time I complete the third draft, some of those questions may still not be answered. That’s where the hard decisions come in. Does the story need some tweaks or is it not salvageable? By the end of the fourth draft, I am either ready to show it to a beta reader or to discard it. Inexperienced writers are often in too much of a rush to get their work out there, especially if they plan to self-publish. This is a big mistake. When am I finished editing? When I can’t stand to look at ther manuscript. Thanks again!
For me, after a first draft, which is always exactly as Hemingway described first drafts, I start with story: Is the story question big enough to support this novel? Is it or can I get it to be a satisfying experience for my reader?
If I believe the answer is yes, which parts/beats/scenes/arcs/characters don’t work as well as they should or could? I try to ask myself questions like Donald Maas offers in his posts about taking it further, increasing the challenge, stakes, or conflict.
Next, the writing: clarity, rhythm, pace, tempo, etc.–is it pleasant to read? Is the voice something, I’d be willing to spend seventy-five thousand words with, and if not, can I fix it?
Then, for me comes the nit: Grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. Although American English is my first language, the niceties of grammar, etc. are not among my strengths.
When I don’t know what else to do, I go to beta readers. When I get feedback, that I question, I ask myself, does this well-meaning person understand what I’m trying to do with this book? Or is it me that’s missing something important? Guess what the answer usually is.
I’ve never counted the number of passes I make through the MS, but I suspect it’s three digits. When my beta readers have given their all, and I don’t know what else to do, I put it away for as long as I can stand to. When I come back to it, I ask if it’s ready for evaluation by a professional editor. The question: Is this MS worth additional investment of time, effort, and dollars?
I hope all that helps someone.
__I began to wonder whether other writers also scrutinize each of their sentences multiple times when trying to finalize their work__
Me! (raising hand)
I’m often revising a sentence before I even finish it. I continually fiddle with word choice, syntax, sentence order, paragraphing, micro-tension, all while I’m writing the story.
I do the same thing exactly. I’m happy to know I’m not the only one. :)