If you’re planning on publishing your work, the first draft is usually not ready for print. Revisions can save costs in editing and design—and ensure your book is as strong as you can make it.

Here we’ll explore the benefits of three key revision steps and how to move through them effectively.

Step 1: Reflect

Reflection requires time and distance. Put your manuscript aside for at least two weeks. While you’re letting the work “settle,” think about it without looking at what’s actually on the page. What kind of story are you trying to tell? What are your key messages or themes? What kind of readers do you hope to attract? Why do you want to publish it?

These are all important factors for your eventual marketing plans, but they also establish a crucial foundation you need to understand before beginning to make any changes. For example, if your book is intended for teen readers, the solution to a vocabulary problem is going to be quite different than if your intended audience is high-powered businesspeople.

If you created a Book Proposal, the reflection phase is a good time to revisit it. If you didn’t, here are some important questions to ask yourself during the reflection phase:

• What genre is your book?

• What age categorizations (Adult, Young Adult, Juvenile) does your book fit into?

• How long should books typically be in this genre/categorization?

• Who is the main readership for this type of book?

• What are the main themes/messages?

• What is your authorial tone or point of view?

• What are the main plot lines (fiction) or talking points (nonfiction)?

• Who are your main characters (fiction) or sources (nonfiction)?

• What do your characters/readers want? What do they need? (These often aren’t the same answer!)

• How should your characters/readers change over the course of the book?

You may have already established answers to these questions while writing the book, but sometimes goals change in the course of the writing. Whether you had a plan before writing or are just establishing that plan now, it’s time to do some research. If you can’t decide between multiple answers to a question (like if your book might appeal to both children and their parents), you’ll need to flag these items for comparison when you hit the next phase.

You can use this foundation to check whether what’s on the page is actually serving your goals. If not, you’ll have a clearer idea of how to correct these gaps. Or, you may realize that what you’ve written is a different book than what you initially thought. This is okay, too.

Step 2: Review

Now that you’ve thought about what you want your book to be, and you’ve taken enough time away from the pages to have a fresh perspective, it’s time to open up your manuscript again— but don’t start changing things yet! Just read.

For the best results, try to read through the full text in as few sittings as possible (this timeframe may vary depending on your manuscript’s length, external obligations, and reading speed). By reading through swiftly, you’re able to see how the pacing of your book is working, pick up on repetition more easily, and identify any passages where you felt disconnected, confused, or sidetracked.

First, you’ll be conducting a “blind” read-through, where you make notes about anything that doesn’t seem to fit with the goals you outlined during the reflection phase. If you’re working from a hand-written or printed copy, you can use different coloured sticky notes to flag different issues. If working digitally, you can use the Comments tool for easy reference and/or highlight text in different colours to flag issues. You can also use a notebook and refer back to specific chapters and sections; if using this method, be sure to jot down some key phrasing, as page numbers will change as you start making revisions in the next phase.

You may find you need to do multiple reviews, looking for different types of issues in each pass. For example, a pass for chapter length consistency, another pass for transitions, another for consistency of voice. Don’t worry about mechanical issues like typos yet, just focus on the big picture.

Another technique that can help is going through each chapter and jotting down a sentence or two of what happens in that chapter. This creates a reverse outline, which can give you an easy overview of the full project, can show where any gaps might lie, and can reveal your story structure.

Identify the major issues you found and consider ways you can address them. Compare with your goals. Is your content supporting the kind of book you want to write? Does anything need to change; if so, do you want to revise your goals or revise your text?

Once you’ve completed your read-throughs, make notes on your proposed solutions. Review your reverse outline and see if reorganizing any sections might improve the flow of ideas or make a stronger cause and effect. If you’re not able to find solutions, consider getting outside feedback from a critique partner, beta reader, or professional editor.

Step 3: Revise

Don’t delete anything! Make a copy of your manuscript so that you can revise as needed without fear of losing something you particularly liked. This way, if you decide that a previous version was stronger, you can copy it from the previous draft. This should free you up to be bold in your revisions. Using your review notes and reflection goals, it’s time to start making improvements. Depending on your working style, your revisions may not go from start to finish. If your reviews identified your biggest problems in chapter 3, you may need to solve those problems first before trying to fix the segues from the previous chapter and into the following chapter. Allow yourself to focus on the big issues first. Here are some key things to look for during your revisions (ideally in this order):

1. Consistent formatting

2. Consistency of spelling for author/narrator, character, and place names

3. Consistency of timelines/book structure

4. Character arcs (fiction) or chapter patterns (nonfiction)

5. Conflict and agency (fiction) or resolution for all talking points (nonfiction)

6. Balance for pacing, exposition, dialogue

7. Opening Hook and/or introduction (for the whole book, and for each section or chapter)

8. Denouement and/or conclusion (for the whole book: does it all wrap up cohesively?)

9. Citations and/or footnotes or endnotes (if applicable)

10. References (nonfiction), acknowledgements, dedication

You may also choose to clean up your writing during your revisions. Run your spellcheck and grammar features in your writing software. Consider running your text through Hemingway, especially if you’re writing for plain language audiences, or through Grammarly. While these programs are not a replacement for a professional editor, they can help you clean up common errors and potentially lessen the amount of editing attention your manuscript needs. Be careful though: they may make incorrect suggestions that change your meaning or introduce new errors.

By working through these revision steps, you will be able to clean up some of the most common issues in first drafts. This ensures that you have a stronger understanding of your story and your goals. That way, when you start working with your editor or market testing, you’ll have a better sense of how to use their feedback. By having cleaned up the issues you found in your own sweeps, you can focus your attention on items you might have missed, making the most of any consulting or editing time you might seek. And best of all, you’ll have a much stronger product to begin polishing for publication.