Editing my manuscript, feeling like it's all fallen apart

I second the ideas of writing a new document and of writing a synopsis.

OP, you've kinda touched on the answer yourself. Not everything you write is going to require such an intensive rewrite. You will learn lessons with this book that will stick with you during the next. That book will have a whole new slew of issues that you will learn about before you write the third one, and so on.

I think it can be a mistake to write early works with publishing in mind. Like everything worth doing well, it takes practice. An artist who paints a first picture might redo the entire thing to incorporate the lessons they learned, but they are more likely to paint a new picture, and then another, and another. They will have years of work stacked up before they think about having a gallery show.

Me, I wrote three novel length stories, several novellas, and a whole slew of short stories before I wrote something with the aim of getting it published. The editing on the first publishable one is nothing like the editing that would have to happen to my first novel length story ever. Nor do I have any desire to go back to those early works and do the sort of intense and complete rewrite it would take to get that first story up to snuff.

By all means, edit your story as you wish. Just remember that it isn't always going to be this hard!

I completely relate to this post right now. I had a manuscript that I was overwhelmingly excited for as I was writing it. Now that the first draft is done I was faced with the nightmarish question: wait....does it even have a plot?

My advice to you is to have someone read it. Despite not being fully confident in it I shoved it in a friend's hands and told them to go to town. While I'm not saying they'll hand it back and tell you it's perfect, the change in perspective can make some problems seem immediately simple.

First of all, you should congratulate yourself for having spotted these difficulties. That is huge, and it says good things about you as a writer and storyteller.

Second, revising is not a pain! Or it shouldn't be. There is enormous satisfaction to be found in improving a story. It's something to be excited about, not dread. You're going to turn something rough and dysfunctional into a potentially publishable story. That is an extraordinarily rewarding process.

When I edit books (which I have done for a living), I read through the ms and make notes as I go. I don't work with chapters, I work with scenes: so I'll write things like, "scene 3 chapter 2 doesn't fit here", or "scene x needs to explain things more fully", and so on. I end up with a list of things which need addressing: some large, and some small.

Once I'm done I look at all my notes, and decide what the most significant change is, and I go and make it.

I work through the list, making sure that as I make changes I deal with all the implications of that change too: so when two or more characters are merged into one, for example, I make sure that I check every scene in which they appear or are referred to, so that I can be sure it's all taken care of. And then I can cross another item off my list.

It's daunting at first, as the changes are so big. But the more I do, the quicker it goes, because the changes become easier and easier.

I prefer to work with a paper copy at this stage: and then when I'm done I leave the original computer file untouched, and work with a copy of it so I always have that to revert to if needed. As I type up my many, many changes I always find more things to change.

When it's all typed up I leave it alone for a few days, then read it through again and produce another list of issues, and so it goes until it's done.

This works for me. It might not work for you. But yes, it does feel daunting and yes, you can do it if you don't sabotage yourself by worrying about it. Good luck.

I'm in a similar situation. I finished my first novel length story and realized I needed to completely redo the first three of four chapters. I got started but a few thousand words in I felt I was just rewriting for the sake of rewriting, I had no more understanding of the story than when I first started writing. I haven't touched the story in probably a month but you know what, my story isn't any closer to getting finished and I haven't learned anything new by not rewriting. If it helps, prepare a reward for yourself that you can only claim after you've finished this edit. It's good to know that other authors are having this problem too.

I totally relate to this thread. As others have said, the hard part is understanding what needs to be fixed. You've done that!

My MS is 96K and I'm doing pretty much the same thing. I've killed off entire sub plots and minor characters, made a bad guy a good guy in disguise and deleted an entire venue, all told I deleted nearly as many words as I originally wrote then wrote all new ones. I did canabalize a lot of the old MS, but most was new. And I know when I'm done this will be a we first draft and I'll ha e to go back and edit it. So yeah I understand the frustration.

Just keep going, it gets better.

HeavyAirship said:

I'm in a similar situation. I finished my first novel length story and realized I needed to completely redo the first three of four chapters. I got started but a few thousand words in I felt I was just rewriting for the sake of rewriting, I had no more understanding of the story than when I first started writing. I haven't touched the story in probably a month but you know what, my story isn't any closer to getting finished and I haven't learned anything new by not rewriting. If it helps, prepare a reward for yourself that you can only claim after you've finished this edit. It's good to know that other authors are having this problem too.

Click to expand...

This is one reason I like using Scrivener or similar programs for editing/revising. For me, the complete rewrite works for scenes but not for the whole story because I get caught up in rewriting the scene itself rather than addressing the issues.

By working with a scene management program I can work on the problems within the story without getting caught up in the rewriting. It helps me address specific issues and breaks the work up into manageable chunks - I'm not rewriting an entire novel, I'm fixing this scene.

Hope this helps.

Let me say, completely understand the frustration. Similar situation for me as well. And it is new to me as well. I'm learning more each time I work on a project. I'm rewriting and revising a large chunk of my novel. However, there are some good points in the suggestions. First, if you didn't put it away for a while, do so after you edit. You may find your ideas change when you've gotten some distance. I don't know if you did it but it helps me. What I am doing is much the same but I plan to rewrite several scenes, adding in and cutting while also changing the direction of the story somewhat. I'm keeping my changes in a new document, cut scenes all by themselves so I can add them back in as needed later. I like using the side by side function in word as I'm rewriting, let's me check my changes. I also plan to put together an outline so I can keep my scenes in order and keep track of the direction the novel is headed in. It sounds like you have some good clues as to what you need to do. Good luck!

The only thing I have to say is that I'm about 2/3 of the way through my first draft and I know I won't have a story anyone can read until the 3rd draft.

It's just the way it goes, I think. The editing is just as important as the writing. The first draft is the mining of a gemstone. But it's just an unappealing hunk of rock, pretty dull and caked with dirt. The subsequent drafts, edits and rewrites cut and polish that thing into something worth reading, or setting into a ring or something. It's a metaphor.

I keep lists of stuff to focus on. I read the list before I start working and go through the manuscript in order. As I work, I'll make notes for other changes I see I'll need. For example, ways to strengthen a characters individual story arc. I'll glance at that whenever the name comes up as I go.

I do make some changes throughout. If I cut a character, I'll use the search function to find all of the times the name is referenced and rewrite those scenes.

I always have beta reader look the manuscript over after I do, and I always read it again before sending the first query. No matter ho thorough I think I've been, I'll miss something the first couple of times through.

As my tag line indicates, I am on the same boat!

BethS, I see what you mean, but you are a confident writer, so I can imagine perfecting your already great style might be pleasant for you. When it means editing the long list of 'beginner's' errors I have made, it is less so.

Three ideas:
1- if you need to remove a character or place, do a word search in Words and see where the names you want to eradicate are, it might help.
2- I would second writing a synopsis (reputedly a nightmare to write), or at least a timeline/ skeleton of your story so that you know exactly where you are in the story and where you are going with it. I had a shuffle some of my scenes, and it really helped. It also mean you can hop along to the scenes you want to work on rather than have to edit linearly.
3- save each reworked version with the date of the last change, so that you keep all the versions of your work, this way, were you ever to change your mind, you have the previous versions to fall back on. It makes for large folders, but I believe it is well worth it. (but then, I am a bit of a hoarder in real life, so take that advice with the proverbial pinch of salt!)

All the best, may we all stay sane through the editing and redrafting swamp!

If you've got the brains and the persistence to write a draft you can do the editing. Yes, it's a different skill, but you learn by doing. Anything to do with writing a novel feels big and unwieldy at first, but you break it down into smaller chunks and chip away until it's done. You didn't write your 65k draft in a day, you did 1000 words a day, or whatever, but kept at it and got to the end. You'll do the same with the editing.

Taking the book to bits and putting it back together is intimidating at first. I've done some major restructuring before and there'll be points where you feel like you're holding a hundred loose threads in your hand and somehow have to make a tapestry of them. It's scary and you'll have to break the story even more than it's broken at the moment before it works again. But that's okay. It's part of the process.

If I've got that kind of editing to do I stick with the big picture view of it before I start marking up and line editing. I make an editing outline that I can rearrange, and make notes about what changes I have to make to scenes once they are moved, or to take account of another scene that's moved. Then I rearrange the manuscript, write any new scenes, add notes to or even do some rough editing of scenes that will have big changes. After that I choose (or re-choose) where chapters start and end. Only then do I finally start line editing and actually making the changes that will make this rearranged draft make sense, using my notes on my outline and draft as a guide to what to do.

Breaking it down that way makes it less intimidating and avoids going around in circles too much! But there is definitely a phase in the middle when I have a very broken story that probably has dead people coming back to life with no explanation and people making journeys in a minus number of hours and stuff.

I think it's great that you've actually figured out how to improve it and have that clarity. after that, the doing should be easy! good luck!!

I'd second (third fourth?) writing up a mock synopsis or even a query letter, just so you know the story inside out in its most condensed form. I did this recently when I was stuck, and what do you know? I didn't have an ending that was even remotely satisfying, and the query letter really highlighted it!

I'm in the midst of a second draft and first of all, I took a break so I could look at it with fresh eyes, though I already knew what needed fixing.

Then I started a new document and copy-pasted the first chapter. Worked on that until I was satisfied, then the next ... always with a mind to three things - is each one moving the story towards where I want it to go, is there enough conflict in each scene and is there enough of a hint of something more to come. In later scenes the latter changes to making sure it connects well to the earlier scenes.

Well, GS, I hope this method works for you!

My first thought was, yeesh, he's trying to do all that on a hard copy? Big re-arrangements and rewrites are hard to do that way, in my experience. (I've had experience--I've restructured and/or rewritten my one WIP so many times I may actually hate it at this point.) Two things I learned to do: though use a new document in Word to make the actual changes, I used sticky notes with short scene tags to arrange and rearrange the structure. I call it my plot wall. It's hard to see the story and its pattern when it's a hunk of text, but sticking the scenes to a wall and shuffling them around makes it much, much easier, at least for me. Second, multiple passes. I usually come to the end of a draft knowing x, y, and z need work. I go in, change them, and then do a read-through with the intent of smoothing things out (continuity-wise). The more times I read through the ms as a whole, the better; flow (pacing, etc) is very important after you've been making big changes to the plot.

I had a similar problem with my book. I wrote the first draft in a third person narrative, but something wasn't sitting right with that. After a great deal of thought, I realized I had to make a major change - to first person.

As it's my first complete novel, I was really feeling myself through the whole process of plotting and writing and how it all worked. It was and is a huge learning process. I know that my next novel will be a lot easier from the planning and execution side, because I've learned so much this time around.

Anyway, I ended up also having three major scene rewrites to do with the change of perspective. In the end though, it felt right. Making those changes were the right thing to do, and I think that sometimes you just have to go with your gut on these things.

Feedback from my beta readers is helping me making a few more changes for what will hopefully be my last round of edits, so that could be a good decision for you?

My notes have grown and evolved through the process, but something that has helped me with the pacing and character interactions is a timeline. It's a great way to keep track of everyone.