So you finished a draft. Congratulations!
Pause here for a second. Really pause. This thing you’ve done puts you in a small, determined club. Most people never get this far.
Now comes the part that can feel both clarifying and destabilizing all at once. You’re looking at the pages thinking:
What stays?
What goes?
And how do I make these decisions without spiraling?
More than anything, writing is rewriting, because editing is where the real work happens. It’s also where self-doubt loves to slip back in, wearing a very reasonable disguise. If you don’t approach this stage with some structure and self-trust, it can start to feel endless.
It doesn’t have to.
Reconnect With the Center of the Story
Before you change a single sentence, take a step back.
What is this story really about?
Not the events. Not the clever lines or surprising turns. But the deeper current beneath it all – the need, the tension, the change that must happen.
Revision isn’t about polishing every page. Not yet.
It’s about sensing the shape of the whole.
Where is it strongest? Where does it falter? What’s missing?
When I start in on revisions, I find the following fill-in-the-blank sentence useful:
It’s the story of [protagonist’s name], who must learn [deep life lessons].
This deep life lesson usually isn’t the A story (the main plot). For example, if you read my debut novel, 142 Ostriches, the A story is about a young woman who inherits her grandmother’s ostrich farm in the desert and has to decide if she’s going to keep it or sell it.
But the deep life lesson she has to learn is to pull her head out of the sand, recognize her own unhelpful, inherited patterns of behavior and choose something different. This question of a deeper life lesson is what you want to explore after you finish your first draft.
Anything that doesn’t connect to either the A story plot or the deeper life lesson becomes a candidate for cutting, compressing, or reimagining.
If You Don’t Miss It, Let It Go
At a certain point in the revision process, cutting entire chapters can start to feel… liberating.
Early on, every scene might feel sacred. Untouchable. But over time, the perspective shifts. The response becomes clearer: this doesn’t serve the story. It can go.
That’s what it means to edit from clarity rather than fear.
In some cases, a first draft might stretch to 150,000 words and then a third of it gets cut in revisions. Not because the writing is bad, but because it no longer belongs.
That distinction matters. Cutting isn’t failure. It’s a sign of progress.
It means you understand the story better than you did before.
That’s growth.
Create a “Maybe” Folder
Letting go is easier when nothing actually disappears.
When you cut sections, move them into a separate document. Call it “Cuts.” Call it “Maybe Later.” Call it whatever helps you breathe. I once heard Roxanne Gay say that she calls her maybe file the “I Still Love You” file. It’s easier to move things to a file with that label than to just cut them.
Knowing the words still exist (in a different file) gives your nervous system permission to be bold. And sometimes, something you cut from this project finds a home in another one.
Words are resilient. They don’t mind waiting.
You’re Allowed to Change Your Mind
No single round of edits is final. In fact, you will do more rounds of revisions that you want to think about. Even when you think it’s done done done, you should hire a professional editor. Even once you find an agent, they will have notes. Even once it sells, your editor at the publishing house will have notes. Then there will be rounds of copy edits. It’s a long journey.
Along the way, you might cut a scene and realize later that it was doing more work than you thought. You might bring it back in a different form. That’s not backtracking. That’s listening.
Each revision pass brings you closer to the shape the story wants to take. The only mistake is pretending you have to get it perfect all at once.
You don’t.
Let Clarity Be the Goal
Editing is not about making your manuscript shorter. It’s about making it clearer.
The most useful question isn’t, “Is this good writing?” It’s, “Does this serve the story?”
When you edit from that place, decisions get quieter. More grounded. You stop negotiating with every sentence and start honoring what the book is becoming.
You’re not just tightening the draft. You’re refining your understanding of it.
And that’s where the real confidence comes from.
The “Maybe” folder is a wonderful idea. I save the entire draft document because I don’t want to lose the work and might return to the earlier ones to grab thoughts that seemed pretty good.
My computer’s memory doth overflow.
Nor has any of that helped.
I made the Maybe folder and will start skimming the old documents. This is fun!
Thank you!
I love that you tried the Maybe folder and that it instantly felt lighter (and even fun).
Skimming old drafts with a little distance is such a power move. You get to keep the good bits without letting the whole archive run the show. Thank you for sharing this.