Tackling Book Revisions? Here’s My Novel Editing Strategy
- Sterling MZ
- Jun 4
- 7 min read
How I’m Handling Editing My Novel after Beta Reading
I have been through beta reading before. It was my husband (then boyfriend) and two friends of his that, over the course of three years (2017–2020), read different iterations of my book. Some were full reads, some partial. Each time, my view of my series-starter book was rocked, most all my characters disliked, and my plot picked and pulled apart. Each time, I would agonize over revisions, spending days up to weeks on a single chapter.
But they challenged me, and that’s what beta readers should do. I will also say that, in those years, I was not reading as much, nor was I challenging myself as a writer. So, to their credit, I was not the writer I am today. And thank goodness I’ve grown, because I love where my skills and my book are at now.
My Most Recent Beta Reading Experience, and My Fears Going In
I sent my book to my seven beta readers (six women, one man) to evaluate it as it stands at this stage. As the date crept closer to review, my nerves grew. What if they hated the character dynamics, or worse, found the ones that aren’t supposed to be annoying, annoying? What if the plot isn’t engaging, or the dialogue feels unnatural? Maybe they hate Astra? Maybe they’ll hate my writing style? These major things that I’ve spent years working on, sunk time into growing, evolving, reading for . . . what if it’s not enough?
I hosted a book club lunch. After our bellies were full of risotto, artichoke dip, and spiked lemonade, we went to my living room. They had already dropped hints before lunch, the energy palpable from the moment they walked into my apartment. I crisscross sat in my reading chair, having already heard a bit of their thoughts over lunch, making fun of melodramatic lines and them spinning theories about alternative motives and fighting alligators. The overall vibe? They had fun. They liked my book.
“I appreciated that anytime Black-Paw showed up, I always knew what he was about. Both him and Astra hating each other.”
“You said this wasn’t going to have romance?” It doesn’t, not really, just a budding of it. Your girl likes a slow burn.
“I really appreciated that I could read it out loud and not get confused, and just sit there and read. Everything flowed so well.”
“You cannot convince me that Siren’s not a robot.”
“I flew through Part II. It was so cute.”
My heart fluttered. Their words were near-instant relief.
After hearing their thoughts and asking my own discussion questions, what I gathered from the beta readers is that my fears—about characters, about plot, about the book just being overall a good, engaging read—were what they liked the most. In fact all these areas I used to be insecure in were the strongest part of my book. That makes sense. If you’re insecure about certain parts of your writing, I believe authors tend to work twice as hard to get them right, especially if they’re major story components.
Now, this doesn’t mean my beta readers thought by book was 100 percent ready for the presses, and I knew that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have asked them to be beta readers to begin with.
“The worldbuilding in this chapter was confusing. I couldn’t follow along.”
“We’re not in a fantasy world the entire time?” Actually, we weren’t in a fantasy world to begin with.
“The bonus chapter was confusing, to the point that I felt almost talked down to.”
“I think you’re overcomplicating this element, which is adding a lot of words.”
“There’s a small line that’s inconsistent from this chapter to this chapter. A quick fix, but it jarred me out of reading for a second.”
What I didn’t land was the factual background elements, the information that makes sense to me no matter if it’s in my head, in an outline, or written in text. I needed beta readers to see that. I needed them to say things needed to be established more, possibly presented in a different way, so that readers can understand the information the way I do. I need them to point out when I’m rushing through, spending too much time, or overcomplicating the situation. They noted other smaller elements too—grammar, abundant use of metaphors, and some specific lines—to smooth out.
As I was getting their notes, I couldn’t help but smile. I was excited. Scratch that, I am excited. These problems, they’re fixable. They’re revisable. And they don’t make me sacrifice or overhaul the story I love.
How I’m Handling Editing My Novel after Beta Reading
Are you tackling book revisions? Here’s my novel editing strategy I've created based off of the problems that my beta readers had.
I’ve never done anything like this before, but knowing myself better as a writer now and the current problems in my manuscript, I believe this will be the best way for me to handle them, keep my energy up, and look at the story with a fresher perspective every time.
I’m breaking up my editorial process into three phases: major, medium, and minor/line-level edits. As the names imply, revisions will be grouped together based on their order of importance and size of editing.
Phase 1: Major Edits
While many edits your beta readers gave are important, some are more important than others. The issues and feedback they gave you on the biggest part of your story, or those that cause a ripple effect in your book, are the ones you should be the most concerned about revising. These can be whole chapters, character inconsistencies that need to be chased down through many chapters, or elements of world building. Pacing and plot are also included in this. Anything that can confuse or push your reader away should be a major edit.
I have about ten of these. Two are flags on whole chapters, one an alternative POV (which will become a bonus chapter) and the other the very critical world-building/lore info-dump chapter. These were the chapters that not just one, but five of my beta readers said they struggled through. Instant major edit flag.
Major items should be handled first. It’s right after you get feedback back that: (1) your mind is the freshest, (2) you’re the most willing to work on your book, and (3) have the most energy to give. Energy is a critical resource when it comes to writing, revising, and thinking creatively again: Writers don’t have an infinite amount, so it should go to the parts that demand the most energy and make the biggest overall impact.
As writers, it’s typical for us to get burnt out the longer we work on our novel. Sentences or scenes that we used to spend hours finessing now get glazed over after months of work. So don’t put your energy and fresh perspective into the little edits because they’re easy and comfortable. Your copy editor can’t rewrite your scenes or character arcs, can’t fix your world. Only you can do that. Only your energy, dedication, creativity, and perspective can make that happen. Of course, you should look at these and make as clean a read as possible, but not now. Not when there’s bigger fish to fry. Your copy editor’s job is to catch any small spelling errors that slip by.
By handling major edits first, you also open up opportunities to reading and working on them again through the medium and minor-level editing stages. This will help you see twice how well they work in the revised book and if you can write them better.
Phase 2: Medium Edits
It’s time for those paragraph-level edits. These medium edits are still important to your reader’s overall experience and for your novel’s success, but don’t require as much energy, time, or attention as a major edit does.
For my medium edits, most of what I have listed include character interactions (both physical and dialogue), specific scenes, or adding/revising lines to increase emotion or clarity. A couple other medium edits are front and back matter: acknowledgments, creating a pronunciation guide for names, author bio, and thinking of a series title.
One of the medium edits that I’ve listed as a medium over a minor edit is changing an organization’s name. While I will be doing some CNTRL + F to replace the old name with the new, I want to have this change made so that, when I go through the minor editing stage, I can catch them all and make sure it sounds the way it does in my head.
As you work on your medium edits, you will also get to “try on” the major edits you did and revise those, should they need extra attention.
Phase 3: Minor/Line-Level Edits
After you do your medium edits, I suggest to step away from your book for at least three days (a week if you can afford it.) Try to read someone else’s work, do a different activity—whatever gets your mind off of your book so that, when you jump back in, you have a keener eye. You’ve also just done two revisions and deserve the break!
By this point, the major items that confused your beta readers as well as the medium edits that pulled them out of your book should be revised. When you do your minor edits and see moments where you’re not completely happy with them, you are free to revise previous major and medium edits. However, the goal here is to consider small, line-level items, focusing on polishing and, in my case, slashing down word count. Items I have on my own list of minor edits are: cutting extraneous lines, reducing metaphors (keeping only the best), repetitive description, checking spelling, and undoing italics where no longer needed.
Some tips to catch those spelling and grammar items are to either read the book out loud to yourself or turn on your MS Word’s “Read Aloud” function. This slows you down and helps you hear instead of just see the way your words work together.
There are tons of ways you can handle revisions given the feedback you’ve gotten from beta readers. Some people find it helpful to go chapter by chapter, whether forward or backward (backward so you give more attention to your ending, where writers tend to lose steam), or you can go part by part. Some people like to break it down by tackling revisions by characters. Find the way that works best for you and the feedback you got. I’ll provide updates on how this method works for me when I’m done. Now, on to Phase 1!
Write on,
Sterling M.Z.
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