Your Next Draft
Supporting fiction writers doing the hard work of revising unputdownable novels. The novel editing process is the creative crucible where you discover the story you truly want to tell—and it can present some of the most challenging moments on your writing journey.
Developmental editor and book coach Alice Sudlow will be your companion through the mess and magic of revision. You’ll get inspired by interviews with authors, editors, and coaches sharing their revision processes; gain practical tips from Alice’s editing practice; and hear what real revision truly requires as Alice workshops scenes-in-progress with writers.
It’s all a quest to discover: How do you figure out what your story is truly about? How do you determine what form that story should take? And once you do, how do you shape the hundreds of thousands of words you've written into the story’s most refined and powerful form?
If you’ve written a draft—or three—but are still searching for your story’s untapped potential, this is the podcast for you. Together, let’s dig into the difficult and delightful work of editing your next draft.
Your Next Draft
How Multiple Layers of Editing Combine to Perfect Your Story (with Cathryn deVries and Kim Kessler)
The best novels combine rock-solid story structure with scenes that are unputdownable on every page. Here’s how one writer and two editors polished a story at every level.
If you want to move your reader in every moment, keep them hooked on every page, you need to refine your scenes until each one is unputdownable.
And that refinement? It’s SUCH a joy. It’s my favorite thing to do and it will transform your entire story.
But in order to make every scene matter, you first need to make sure you have all the right scenes in all the right places.
The big-picture story structure can’t be kinda-sorta-maybe working. It needs to be locked in, watertight.
Otherwise, all those beautiful scenes won’t build to anything. They might be pretty on their own. But they won’t create compelling narrative drive, an irresistible build to the cathartic payoff your readers can’t get enough of.
So how do you do it? How do you get your macro storytelling crystal clear and refine every scene into its most powerful form?
In this episode, I want to share with you the story of how one writer did just that. You’ll hear how Cathryn leveraged multiple revision passes to transform her manuscript from a massive pile of words that made her cringe to a story she’s immeasurably proud of.
It’s also a tale of two editors—because Cathryn worked with both me and my colleague Kim to make her story shine on every level.
Most of all, it’s a story of mastering two storytelling skills—the micro and the macro—and all the story magic you can unlock when you do.
Links mentioned in the episode:
Further listening:
- Ep. 76: Scene Workshop: Hook Your Readers in Chapter One with Cathryn deVries
- Ep. 42: The 6 Essential Elements of Every Novel, Act, and Scene
- Ep. 60: The Most Joyful Editing Feedback I Ever Give
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