Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft

Foundations of Fiction #3

by Janice Hardy

Get all three Fixing Your Revision Problems books in one omnibus! This book contains Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems, Fixing Your Plot & Story Structure Problems, and Fixing Your Setting & Description Problems--PLUS a BONUS How to Salvage Half-Finished Manuscripts. A strong story has many parts, and when one breaks down, the whole book can fail. Make sure your story is the best it can be to keep your readers hooked. Janice Hardy takes you step-by-step through the novel revision process, from character issues, to plot problems, to description issues. She'll show you how to analyze your draft, spot any problems or weak areas, and fix problems hurting your manuscript. With clear and easy-to-understand examples, Revising Your First Draft to Finished Draft offers eleven self-guided workshops that target the common issues that make readers stop reading. It will help Flesh out weak characters and build strong character arcs Find the right amount of backstory to enhance, not bog down, your story Create unpredictable plots that keep readers guessing Develop compelling hooks to build tension in every scene Determine the right way to include information without infodumping Fix awkward stage direction and unclear character actions Revising Your First Draft to Finished Draft starts every workshop with an analysis and offers multiple revision options in each area. You choose the options that best fit your writing process. Learn how Develop a strong and effective revision plan Analyze your manuscript to find its strengths and weaknesses Spot common red flag words for problem areas (such as told prose) Determine the best way to revise a scene, plot, character, or novel Fix problems holding your novel back Revising Your First Draft to Finished Draft is an easy-to-follow guide to revising your manuscript and crafting a strong finished draft that will keep readers hooked.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Reference

382 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2016

About the author

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins.

She also writes the Grace Harper series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.

When she's not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series.

Reviews

[Stephanie Bibb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Janice Hardy's Planning Your Novel book and found it to be absolutely helpful (to the point that I'm often recommending it to other writers). I've read that one multiple times as I've worked on writing and revising various stories. I was thrilled when Revising Your Novel finally came out. It has a lot of useful information. (Though, as one of the other reviewers have stated, it can feel a bit dense. You may want to read it in chunks, or focus on one or two specific issues at a time. I would argue, though, that you'll want to read the whole thing to start with, because many issues can loosely tie into another, and this shows how everything affects each other).

I was in the middle of working on my most recent novel and having issues with some of the scenes, and this book was one of the things that helped me get the story where I wanted it to be. Some of the information did feel a bit redundant at times, but usually tied a new way into the topic or was made easier to understand. Revising Your Novel allows you to really focus in on what issues might be plaguing your story, and what steps can be taken to focus on those issues.

I highly recommend this book, and the first book in this series, if you are having issues with your book just not feeling right.

[Debbie Lukas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential when you're learning to edit your books

[Don Gerstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a How-can-I-fix-my-novel book, and author Janice Hardy does a great job at working to cover all the bases. "Revising your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft" is actually a compilation of three of Ms. Hardy's novels. This is not a book to read from cover to cover (although I did :) ).

If you are prepared to dive in and begin to fix whatever is causing you nightmares, I recommend you read the first three chapters (about 34 pages long) to introduce you to this revision book. The remaining chapters are used as workshops (character, plot and structure, point of view, and so on). Once you are in a chapter, you can pick through the chapter subheadings to find your problem. Potential solutions are offered, and if the proposed quick fix doesn't help you, their are revision options that may offer the help you need.

No matter where you are stuck in your novel, or your character seems weak, or whatever issue you is causing you to bang your head on the table, this book will offer specific solutions for what ails your book. Five stars.

[Lisa]

A good, workshop-by-workshop method for revising your novel. You can skip around to what you need. My biggest takeaways from the book were creating an "editorial map" of my book and a character arc map. She also had a nice section on emotions.

[CL · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a mega-dense book but I don't think it's meant to (nor should be) read from start to finish. I began it highlighting bits that I felt I needed to pay attention to, and then ended up dipping in and out. I think it's an amazing resource that will be used when I find I'm struggling with particular issues during the editing stage in the future, and I'm most grateful for Janice's suggestion about creating an editorial map. This is overflowing with how-tos for fixing various problems. If an agent or editor or critique partner flags up an area that needs work, this should be your go-to source for diving into that!

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good checklist at the end

Revising Your Novel is a thorough overview of what to look for so that your story conveys your meaning.

Fiction has so many moving parts that some of us need checklists. We may not get in all the fixes that we’d like, but we’ll be farther ahead in our goal by using the items recommended by Ms. Hardy.

[Mary Tippett · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, this book is more like a text book than a "how to revise" strategy. I will definitely keep this on my shelf for when I have a specific issue I'm working on (overused words, character development, dialogue, etc.), but I am not sure the book will necessarily help even then, given its tendency to ask more questions that it answers. I am more likely to use the book for ideas on how to make my novels longer (mine are more novella sized), because Hardy has a specific section on that issue.

When I looked up what the author has written (other than craft books), I noticed she has written
YA fantasy. That explains why her brief section on word count by genre omits sub-genre books like romance, cozy mystery, etc. and why the book feels over-wieldy. My hope in reading this book was to get Hardy's specific methods for editing a manuscript from start to finish. In fact, it is more a book about getting a first draft through revision, with no mention (that I recall) of whether a professional editor would be necessary.

The checklist in the Appendix is a good digest of all the points the author makes on revising in general. If I consult the book again, I would start there. (Again, it's mostly questions though.)

My overall problem with the book is it felt too elementary at times, and yet overwhelming overall. A new novel writer might feel the need to overanalyze everything they wrote when their story might have been mostly good to begin with.

That said, it is well organized, unlike some books on editing that describe an author's process in a narrative structure. In conclusion, I would recommend skimming this book and keeping it as a reference tool for specific issues. Maybe. Whether I look at this book again remains to be seen.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of very good helps in this book, both for those setting out on the writing of a first draft to those who've completed a reasonable draft and want to do some more thinking about the overall thing.
Hardy even gives help to actually starting on a book without having any idea of what it's going to be about. For me, asking questions about characters I don't yet 'know' isn't greatly helpful. I'm one of those who have to do at least a chapter or two of a draft - or more - before I can begin to think I know who these characters and why they might be doing what they're doing. Giving them histories and quirks and dressing them etc at the beginning doesn't mean anything for me. Personally I think it tends to stereotyped characters who don't have a real life, but...

[Ronel Janse van Vuuren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this. It’s the way I usually revise, but with the permission to do so and some tips to make it even better. I know, needing permission to revise in a specific way sounds odd, but I’ve listened to how others do it and it made it sound like I was adding unnecessary work after the novel is done – but Janice encourages my note-taking, highlighters and flags, which makes me excited for my next revision project. And I’ll consult this book whenever I need advice.

A must-have in every author’s library.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this!
Fantastic reference book! A Bible on all things to cover in any state that your first (or tenth...) draft may be in. Janice's work on this is phenomenal. This book is thorough and well covered. All points have enough supporting examples and explanations to understand what needs to be done in any eventuality.

In hope that the next novel will have less things to fix after reading this...

I couldn't recommend it enough! Thank you, Janice!

[Kati · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not really a "read it through" book. It's more of a troubleshooting guide. Unfortunately, the table of contents, at least on the Kindle version, is useless for that. It lists each area as "workshop one", "workshop two" and so on, with no indication of the topic. If it had an index and a detailed table of contents, I'd bump it up to 4 stars.

[Yuling · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good! tons of food for thought and given in a pretty self-directed workshop format, getting in particular at a lot of aspects i consider personal weaknesses. will definitely be referring back to this as i keep revising

[Nadya De Angelis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Endless lists of useless questions.

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book and found it very informative and helpful.

[B.J. Sikes · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great ideas and a fantastic guide

[Kamryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you know how grateful I am that I'm finally reading this book? I've owned it for years, but it's the first time I've actually had a 100% complete first draft in my hands.

I love Hardy's "Planning Your Novel" book, and "Revising Your Novel" is an equally powerful tool.

The one downfall is that it speaks to many different types of writers and drafts that it's difficult to discern what information actually applies to your work. This is more of a skip-around reference guide than a read-through type of book. I'll definitely keep it on hand.

I'm still not sure what exact steps I need to take to revise my novel, but Hardy's book provided a decent amount of clarification.

I recommend this for anyone with a rough draft, particularly those who have major problems to fix.

[Dave Tindall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. Some good ideas that I will use in my novels.

[Suzanne Hess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful in ways that are not easy to identify. Recommended. Read more than once. Once for the information, and second to put the work into your own novel.