The Unskippable Process to Create Unputdownable Books

It’s unpopular, but essential if you’re aiming to craft your best work.

Picture this: one year from now, you’re holding your book in your hands. You see the gorgeous cover art, feel the slight resistance when you open the cover for the first time, run your hands over the soft, smooth paper, flip the pages and smell that delicious new book smell.

Does that sound amazing? Holding your book in your hands just one year from now?

Being done soon is so tempting. But just being done soon won’t lead to a book you’re proud of, a book you love, a book that accomplishes everything you know it can be.

Does it sound amazing to imagine holding your book in your hands six months from now . . . and still not feel creatively fulfilled?

To flip the pages and know that there’s more you could still fix?

To skim the lines and cringe just a little?

To picture the glorious story vivid in your imagination and wonder what your readers will miss because you couldn’t quite capture it on the page?

No, that doesn’t sound delightful? I didn’t think so.

The book world is filled with services promising to help you finish your book fast. If your dream is to hold your book in your hands this year, there are tons of people out there who can help you make that happen.

But after years of helping writers who seek to craft their very best books, the ones they’re truly proud of, I’ve found that speed is not what you need to get there.

In this episode, I’ll show you:

• What the true work of revising a novel really is,
• Why trying to speed through it will actually hold you back,
• And what to do instead—so that when you finish, the book you share with the world is one you’re immeasurably proud of.

It’s not the popular path. But it’s the only path I know to craft the books you’re truly capable of writing.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Edit your novel with me: alicesudlow.com/contact
• See if I’m the right editor for your book: alicesudlow.com/waitlist

Transcript

Alice Shure MV7: 0:00

Picture this. One year from now, you're holding your book in your hands. You see the gorgeous cover art feel the slight resistance when you open the cover for the first time. Run your hands over the soft, smooth paper, flip the pages and smell that delicious new book smell. Or better yet. You're holding your book. But it's just six months from now. Or three months. Or six weeks. Does that sound amazing? Holding your book in your hands, six months from now. Being done soon is so tempting. But honestly, I think you'll find that it won't actually satisfy you. Just being done soon. Won't lead to a book that you're proud of. A book you love. A book that accomplishes everything, you know, it can be. Does it sound amazing to imagine holding your book in your hands six months from now? And still not feeling creatively fulfilled. To flip the pages. And know that there's more, you could still fix. To skim the lines and cringe just a little To picture the glorious story vivid in your imagination. And wonder what your readers will miss, because you couldn't quite capture it on the page. No, that doesn't sound delightful. I didn't think so. Finishing books fast is popular. Speed sells The book world is filled with services promising to help you finish your book fast. If your dream is to hold your book in your hands. This year, there are tons of people out there who can help you make it happen. But after years of helping writers who seek to craft their very best books, the ones they're truly proud of. I found that speed is not what you need to get there. In this episode, I'll show you what the true work of revising a novel really is. Why trying to speed through it will actually hold you back and what to do instead. So that when you finish. The book you share with the world is one your immeasurably proud of. Welcome back to your next draft. I am so excited to be back here with you on the podcast. I have a lot in store for you in 2025. While the podcast was on hiatus. I was making a ton of changes behind the scenes, some big, some small, some things that you'll notice and some that you might never see, but that make a big difference to me. I refined everything from the structure of each episode, to the topics you'll hear on the podcast to my recording setup. If my audio sounds a little different it's because I have a new podcast studio setup, which is going to allow me to do the thing I'm most excited about. Bring guests onto the podcast. I have a great lineup of guests this year. But I'll share more about that in the next episode. The new feature. I want to point out to you today. Is this segment right here, Going forward. I'm going to use the first couple of minutes or so after the intro music and before the main content to give you a brief update on what's going on in my editing work, this is where I'll share things like other places you can hear me speak freebies, you can download and openings to work with me. I'll keep it short. I love listening to podcasts and I know how annoying it is to listen to a really long ad break. I. Yeah, I have thoughts on that, but the way that I keep this podcast running is by working with writers and actually editing novels. So it's important for me to tell you how you can do that. So here's your little crash course, intro into my work. The place that I start with new clients is in story clarity. It's my first step to revise second drafts and beyond. In story clarity, you and I will dig in deep to figure out exactly what your story is about. What its biggest strengths and weaknesses are and the essential arts of plot and character at the heart of your story. Together, we'll build a miniature outline that will guide your entire revision process and get you crystal clarity about the story you're telling. If that sounds exciting to you, you can go to Alice Cielo. low.com/contact and fill out the form there to tell me about your story and join the waiting list. I also recommend that you check out. Alice said though.com/wishlist, to see the kinds of stories I edit. And get a sense of whether I'm the right fit for your book. And if you're not yet ready to work with an editor, well, that's what this podcast is for. So let's wrap up this update on my world and let's dive into the episode. This is one I am really excited about. I am expecting that it will not be my most popular content, But I am really excited to share it with you. It's part of the core philosophy of how I'm editing novels in 2025. So let's dive in. The book creation world is saturated with promises of speed. Write a book in six months or three months or one month. Edit that book in six months or six weeks or six minutes with the power of AI. I have lost count of how many times I've spoken with writers and they tell me they want to publish this book by the end of the year. We could be talking in January or November, they could be on their 17th draft or their second. It doesn't matter. Their goal is by the end of the year, regardless of what that might mean for their creative process or the book they produce. And there are so many organizations offering writer services whose primary sales pitch is all about helping writers meet those speed goals. If you really want to publish a book by the end of the year, there's no shortage of services that will help you do that. When the book world makes grandiose promises like write and publish your book in 90 days. And when writers tell me their goal is to be published by the end of the year. The pain points they're pointing to is the same. Time. The time you spend on this project as if the one and only challenge with your book, the one thing keeping you from your novelist dreams is time. And the fact that books take a lot of it. I think there are a few reasons why we're all seduced by speed. Maybe we think of a year as a really dang long time. And we imagine surely I will be finished with this project by the end of a really dang long time. Or maybe the writer seeking speed are working on their first books And they don't yet know what it takes to go from first draft to published book. That journey from first draft to publish booked is a total mystery to anyone who hasn't gone through it. These writers simply haven't experienced the creative process all the way through, and they don't know how long it really takes. Or maybe it's because we're just so inundated with messages about how fast you can create a book. And those get translated into pressure that we put on ourselves about how soon we should be done. Whatever the cause the result is the same. We are eager to finish our books soon. And what did you like that to be done soon? The thing is when you pin your hopes here, you're imagining a future where you have a published book soon. And because of that alone, you were happy. More than that. You're satisfied. Proud. You feel creatively fulfilled, like you've accomplished the staggeringly difficult goal that you set yourself. And that simply isn't true. That's not how this works. Getting your published book in your hands faster. Won't lead to the fulfillment. You're seeking. And that's because all of these solutions focused on speed are solving the wrong problem. Worse. When you follow the lure of speed, not only do you get caught up solving the wrong problem, that speed actually takes you further away from solving the true problem. The true problem is not that your book isn't published yet. The true problem. Is that there is a gap between what your manuscript is and what, you know, it could be. The true problem is that when you read your pages as they are right now, They don't match what you envision. Your story could be something isn't quite translating from your imagination to the page, the rich and beautiful story world, the irresistible plot, the unforgettable characters you see in your mind's eye. Well on the page, they're dull forgettable. Extremely resistible. And if you're honest with yourself, If you were to rush to print right now, you wouldn't feel creative fulfillment. You'd actually feel disappointment, dissatisfaction. Like in some way, you'd let yourself and your story down. That is the true pain points. The gap between what your book is and what you want it to be between the impact that it has and the impact, you know, it could have between how much you cringe when you reread your pages now and how proud you want to be of every single word. It is really, really tempting to try to solve this problem with speed. After all we're used to two day shipping and instant streaming and fast food. In short, we are accustomed to solving problems quickly. Our expectations for speed in every other area of our lives bleed over into the creative realm to nevermind that crafting a novel is not like optimizing a shipping route. If we could get ourselves out of the discomfort of creating and into the comfort of having created in just two days. We absolutely would. And it's not just that we're used to solving problems quickly. The great thing about addressing a problem by going faster is that it doesn't require you to do anything different. It asks you to do all the same things you were already doing just with a quicker pace. No need to stretch yourself by learning something new, just do old familiar things faster. Plus if you're like me, the act of going faster is itself familiar because you're used to hustling. Just do more work, work longer hours set, tighter deadlines, sprint faster to meet them. There are so many areas of my life, where I have bull. Headedly tried to solve problems simply by hustling harder. And sometimes more hustle is exactly what the problem required. But when it comes to closing the gap between what your manuscript is and what it could become, hear me say this. Hustle doesn't help. The creative gap is not a problem that can be solved with more hustle. Because here's the thing, the factor that both tempts us to speed and makes that very speed work against us. When we speed up, we move out of the realm of deep thought and creative exploration and we move into rapid execution. Rapid execution is the doing of the thing. It's where you're literally making changes on the page, crossing out old words and writing a new ones. Deep thought and creative exploration or the strategizing of the thing. This is where you're examining the problems in your story that needs solving, and then imagining a dozen possible solutions and evaluating them to select the right ones. It's the thinking that comes before the doing. And it tends to be a lot more difficult and a lot less tangible than execution execution looks and feels productive. Deep thought and creative exploration often don't look or feel productive. So it's super tempting to skip over them in favor of speed. But this temptation is a false relief. Speed is the opposite of what this problem needs. The reality is to close the gap between good and great between what is and what could be. You must slow down. And here we come to the crux of the matter. when I've seen proven over and over again in manuscript, after manuscript. Great revision takes time. It's simply requires you to move slowly. Now, if that statement makes you uncomfortable, if you're feeling some resistance here, I get it. I promise I get it. I've heard the pushback from writers many times, and I felt it myself, my own unwillingness to embrace the truth that I have suspected for a really long time. We're all swimming in the same waters here. The same pull towards speed. I'm not exempt. For years, I have avoided saying on my website, how long a client can expect to work with me to revise their novel. I felt so much pressure to set short timelines for quick turnarounds, because if I didn't then writers wouldn't want to work with me. And then I would feel pressure to deliver outcomes that simply do not fit within those timelines. I felt like my options were either to race against the clock and constantly feel like I was disappointing myself and my clients or to state plainly how long the real work will take and then have no clients at all. Fighting the inherent slowness of great revision stressed me out so much. So I'm not doing that anymore. I'm choosing option three, embracing it as a feature, not a bug and inviting you into this mindset shift with me. And so I'll tell you right now how long it takes when a writer decides to work with me and we revise their book together. Here's what that process looks like. It begins with my story clarity package. In this space, the writer brings me their manuscripts and an outline that reflects it. We examine the story. The writer has built so far and we dig deep, deep into questions of why they're writing that story. What it really means, how the characters progress through an arc of change, how the plot is structured. We get crystal clarity on what the story is truly about. And we build a miniature outline. That will be the core scaffolding of the entire story. This process takes two months. Once we have clarity about what the story is. We move into the story refinery. Here we expand that miniature outline into a full scene by scene map of the entire story. That can take another one to two months. And then we shift from planning to execution. The writer revises their manuscripts to match that new outline as they do each week, we workshop one scene together, exploring all the hidden nuanced ways to make that scene. Truly unputdownable. When I work like this through an entire draft of the writer, the process takes nine to 12 months. If you were doing the math that's 16 months, total From the beginning of planning, one round of deep provision to the end of revising that draft. And this is all in addition to the months or years, the writer has spent working on multiple drafts of their manuscript before working with me. The results of all of this work and especially all this time to let that work breathe. Is an excellent manuscript. The result is a draft. The writer is incredibly proud of when that finally matches their vision of the story in their head. The result is a rich and beautiful story world. An irresistible plot, unforgettable characters. The result is closing the gap between what their manuscript is and what it can be. The result is the creative fulfillment that comes with accomplishing a staggeringly difficult goal. The result is solving the true problem. And it can only be accomplished when we dedicate the time that revision truly takes. If you're like most writers I talk with, you're probably still not convinced and that's okay. Like I said, I get it. This is not popular. So, I'm not asking you to believe me. So wholeheartedly adopt every word that I say right now, but I hope you'll listen to why I hold so strongly to an approach that scares so many writers. Let's talk about what's slowing down really means. What does it actually look like to slow down? What happens in that space with all that extra time? In my experience, writers are really afraid to slow down. They're afraid that slowing down means they're not making progress. That they're stagnating. That they're stuck sitting on the same problem for weeks or months without any idea of how to move forward. That they're spinning their wheels, editing the same scene over and over because it keeps them busy. But they can't tell whether their changes are really improving it. They're afraid that slowing down means they're stopping that progress means executing changes on the page. And if they're not doing that, they're not doing anything worthwhile. None of this is what I'm talking about. When I say revision requires you to slow down. You're right. Stagnation getting stuck, spinning your wheels, stopping. None of that will help you make progress. None of that is the true work of provision. So, what is the true work of revision? I mentioned earlier that speeding up, moves you out of deep exploration and into execution. That deep exploration that gets lost with speed. That is the true work of revision. Because at the heart of story are the biggest questions that we grapple with as the human race questions. Like how do you process grief? How do you find meaning in life after devastating loss? How do you navigate society and the face of tyranny? How do you stay true to yourself when your community pressures you to change? When you look at when you really see the most awful things you've ever done, how do you love yourself? What is justice? How do you repair the broken things of this world? The relationships, the systems, the people who are hurt. What do you do when something cannot be repaired? These questions are enormous. They were at the heart of who we are as individuals. They were at the heart of who we are as a species. We have been grappling with them collectively for millennia, and we have never yet found answers so simple and satisfactory that we can stop asking the questions. When you revise a story at its deepest level, what you are doing is seeking out that enormous unanswerable question that underpins your entire story. And then you, the writer. Or exploring your own answer to it. How do you answer the question of grief? Of tyranny of justice. Of broken things. Simply finding the question is a Herculean feat. And finding your answer. Philosophers have debated these questions for as long as we've had language to express them. Of course you can't possibly find your answer in the span of an hour or a day. You to need time and space to process and explore ideas to name a thousand unsatisfactory answers before you land on the one that rings true to you. This is the work. Of revision. The true work of revision lies in this deep thinking. It's not about fixing words here or there. It's about finding the questions at the heart of your story and sitting with them long enough to allow your conscious and unconscious mind to piece together your own answers. And make no mistake at the deepest level of revision. This work is happening in every part of your story. It's easiest to see in the big picture when we're, replotting the story and revising the outline, finding the question and the answer are the most important things that I do with clients in story clarity. But this is also at the heart of every scene at it. I do throughout the story refinery. When a writer brings me just three pages of story and asks for my help and revising them. I take us here to this level of deep exploration, every single time. My hope is that you too are starting to see what I've witnessed again and again, and again. That the way to craft excellent books is to give yourself time, to allow the deep thinking to happen in the revision process. I do not know. I have another way to craft excellent books. If you're still feeling resistance though. Well, I'm not surprised. Like I said, I have heard from writers and felt in myself so much pushback against this reality, the truth of what revision requires. And I can think of a couple of really valid reasons why that resistance is still there. First, maybe you're feeling resistance because this kind of revision is not, what's important to you. My goal is to help writers, craft excellent novels. I love to work with writers who treat a single book as a work of art that they want to nurture and develop until it represents their very best work. I love telling stories that explore what it means to be human and that help us understand ourselves and our world a little bit better. I love supporting writers who want their books, not simply to be read, but to be beloved by their readers. For writers like that, working on books like that, this kind of slow revision is imperative. It's essential. Unskippable that sort of book simply doesn't happen without this. But maybe you're not working on a book like that. Maybe you're measuring success differently. For instance, there's a huge community of rapid release authors who published two or three or six books a year for those writers. Success is a numbers game. They're very aware of how their revenue increases with each release and how it dips. If the gap between books stretches too long. And they figured out how to make a financially lucrative career as a writer. For rapid release writers. Speed is the core problem to solve and figuring out how to infuse deep meaning into their books is not. And that's okay. The beauty of writing is that we all get to choose what values are most important to each of us. And we all get to define success on our own terms. It is absolutely. Okay. If your values are different from mine. If you're a rapid release writer, you'll probably really enjoy this podcast because it is chock full of editing strategies that you can apply at your own pace. And you probably really won't enjoy working with me. One-on-one because I'll move too slowly for your release schedule. But maybe you're not a rapid release writer. Maybe when I listed out my values. A book as a work of art, striving to create your very best work, exploring what it means to be human crafting a story that will be beloved by readers. You were nodding along thinking, yes, that's me. And yet you too are feeling resistance. Because honestly you have already been at this for what feels like forever. You have edited your way through so many drafts. You're losing count. You have poured everything you've got into your story and you can't see how to level it up in any meaningful way. And yet the gap is still there and you're wondering. I will more work, more time, more drafts, really close it. Is it really worth it to slow down and revise yet? Again? Well, more investment in your book really be worth it. Will it really make a difference or will it be a waste? Well, you ended up with a book that still just works and nothing more, no matter how much more you pour into it. If that's you. Then I am here with good news. The highlight of my year, the best thing I've learned this year about editing novels. Yes, you absolutely can take your good manuscript and transform it into an irresistible book. The investment you make to do that will not be a waste. It will be the thing that closes the gap between cringe and proud. This is worth it. And if closing that gap matters deeply to you and you can't see how to do it, it's time to slow down and call in support. Because when you go slowly with intentionality and the right support, you will level up your manuscripts and to something beyond what you ever knew, you were capable of. So in 2025, I'm embracing slow revision as a feature, not a bug. I'm building this intentional slowness into every way. I work with writers and I'm sharing that transparently. So you know what to expect and why. If you decide to join me in story clarity and invite me into your story, know that I will never rush you. I'll never put pressure on you to speed through any step. I'll hold you accountable to making progress. Yes. But it's more likely that I'll invite you to create more space and time for your revision. Not less. And I encourage you to do the same. Give yourself the gift of slowness. Carve out time to wrestle with the deep questions at the heart of your story. Create wide open space, free of pressure or demands to allow the ideas closest to your heart to bubble up. This is the path to excellent stories. It's not fast. And it's not popular, but it is. Oh, so beautiful and rewarding. I hope you'll join me on it. Happy editing.