The "How to Write Your Book" Series was published in its original form in Writer’s Digest Magazine in 1997 and 1998 as “The Evolution of a Book,” and later reprinted as a long special section in the 1999 Writer’s Yearbook Extra titled “How to Write Your Book.” I significantly revised the articles for online publication.

Part Three

From Complete to Fully Revised Manuscript

How to turn your rough draft into a finished manuscript

© 1997-2000, Paul D. McCarthy All rights reserved.

Writing a book, I said in Part One: From Concept to Outline, begins with an idea, and as we moved through Part Two: From Outline to Complete Manuscript, we turned that idea into a solid outline and, at last, a completed manuscript.

Completed.  But not finished.  Now, you're ready to develop and revise the complete manuscript, improving it until no more can be done.

In this section of the series we will cover:

Preparing Yourself

No matter the temptation, don't rush into revising the manuscript once you've completed it. You'll work more effectively if you first plan properly.

Begin by dividing your work into four stages:

1. The preparatory stage, where you'll reread the manuscript and review your notes

2. Major development, where you'll expand and enrich the material

3. Major revision, where you'll rearrange, delete, and rewrite

4. Comprehensive development and revision, where you'll finish improving every aspect of the book.


While it's too soon to know the full extent of the work you'll be doing and how long that work will take, you can make rough estimates and establish a schedule, with appropriate deadlines for each stage. As you move through the stages, with the work going more quickly or slowly than you'd planned, adjust the deadlines but keep them tight enough to maintain your focus on getting the manuscript finished.

The preparatory stage is a period for reviewing, rereading and reflecting on your completed manuscript. First, prepare a very concise overview of the entire book, based on the latest outline, as a reminder of how you've put it together. 

Next, review the notes you made while you were writing. Delete what you've already done or is no longer appropriate, revise as necessary the notes that are still relevant, and divide the notes into two groups, comments pertaining to further development of the book and ideas for revising the actual text. (Later, when you're ready to work comprehensively, consolidate your notes because you'll be thinking about development and revision simultaneously.)

As you work, refer regularly to the overview and your notes. Revise them as necessary to keep them current with the changing manuscript.

Now, do a straight-through reading of the manuscript, to enrich and reinforce your understanding and recollection. Don't slow down for concentrated analysis or note-taking. That'll occur later. If you identify problems, consider them briefly and move on. Your general awareness of the nature and extent of the problems gives you a more substantial context for later work.

After you complete the reading, and relying solely on your memory, think through the whole book. Consider its overall progression, parts and elements, and whatever else you can recall. This reflection gives you a different perspective on the book than if you simply read it again, and may reveal previously hidden weaknesses. As you concentrate on what you remember or can visualize, identify and note the problem areas.

Through all stages of this work, maintain a full recollection and understanding of the evolving book. Make every improvement, major or minor, fully appropriate to the whole and all the parts of the book.

Major Development

There are two basic forms of development: expansion and addition.

Expansion is building on and extending what's already in the manuscript, and ranges, for example, from briefly continuing an argument two characters are having, to igniting the smoldering hatred between them and taking it to the level of near-madness with murderous results.

Addition is putting in new material, and may be simply extending a sentence with a couple of words, adding just-released study results to a book about public health, or introducing the issue of his illegitimate child to the biography of a prominent executive, with considerable supporting documentation.

Expansion and addition are often closely joined. Perhaps you're writing a novel of modern love, and decide to add a controversial love interest for your heroine. This addition will expand the emotional and moral complexity of the heroine's actions and life by involving her deeply with that love interest.

Sometimes development is both addition and expansion. Inserting "Then he died," adds a dramatic phrase and a new narrative element, and heightens the impact of the scene.

Keep these possibilities in mind along with the development stage's two goals:

1. Identifying the areas of the complete manuscript that need significant addition and expansion, and

2. Engaging in and finishing the major development of the complete manuscript.


At last, you're ready to go to work. Read the complete manuscript again, this time slowly and carefully, and note every part that could benefit from further development. Be aggressive and imaginative in conceiving the possibilities.

You may be writing a book about animal predators. Consider the advantages of expanding the scope of the book so that it covers all of the large predators as well as the insect and reptile predators that you've already discussed very compellingly. You might also want to add a specific chapter on the nature of prey and being prey.

Also, think beyond the book's specifics to the potential inherent in its basic nature and subject. Consider what else you could do, given what kind of book it is. Say, for example, you've written a historical novel. In every historical novel, it's possible to expand the historical information; extend the time frame; illuminate more or other themes, issues and customs of the period; and introduce real, historical figures to complement the fictional characters. Think about whether any of these potential, general changes would improve your own novel.

Once you've completed the process of identification and decided what major development to do, start at the beginning of the manuscript and add and expand as appropriate.

Your notes will guide part of your work but some development, perhaps a considerable amount, will be the result of your analysis of and response to the manuscript as you work on it now. Through the actual making of changes, the need for other changes becomes more clear.

Be fluid in your development. Move back and forth between expansion and addition, or do the two simultaneously if that's more productive. You may only need to concentrate on one if that's the only form of development the book needs.

Perhaps you've written an analysis of contemporary presidential campaigns, and decide to add two more important themes-about the relevance of personal lives in the assessment of political figures, and the distorting influence of money from special interests. To support and clarify your thinking on these issues, you interweave long passages of history and statistics which flow into the similar material you've already written about the other issues.

You may decide, if you're writing a guidebook about the native wildlife in your region, that your straight presentation of information is too dry and monotonous, and that you should enliven the material and bring great color to the information by adding many anecdotes about the behavior of these animals so the readers are entertained while they're learning.

Balance fluidity with efficiency. If you're engaged in a particular sequence of expansion or addition, it may be best to pursue that straight through, then return to where you started that sequence, and again move forward through all of the material.

For example, if you decide to add a subplot near the beginning of your family drama, continue that development by working in the subplot material and complications throughout the rest of the novel. This allows you to concentrate on the logic and structure of the particular subplot.

Also, use this approach on the whole book. When you've finished the basic major development, separate the important storylines, themes, issues, conflicts, etc., and individually follow them through to the end, to confirm that they develop consistently and substantially and to identify and resolve any remaining problems.

Major Revision

Revision has two basic forms:

Structural revision is any rearrangement, from the minor reordering of words and phrases to the major reorganizing of the chapters and parts of the book; and any deletion, from the particular cutting of words, sentences and paragraphs to the removal of large chunks of the text.

Textual revision is any changing of the words and sentences, from the replacement of one word with another, to the extensive rewriting of a significant portion of the manuscript. If it's major enough, textual revision can affect the structure of the book. For example, you might rewrite and distill the material of three chapters into just one chapter.

During this major revision stage, you again have two goals:

1. Identify the potential major rearrangements of the complete manuscript, and the significant portions of text that should be deleted or extensively rewritten, and

2. Engage in and finish the major revision of the complete manuscript.

Start by once more going through the manuscript carefully, identifying all the areas that may need structural and textual revision.

You may decide that a troublesome chapter cannot be fixed no matter what you do with it, and that it's best to cut it entirely. Also, you may realize that the pacing of the manuscript is quite uneven. Sometimes the narrative moves quickly and smoothly, but at other times, the momentum is halted by long stretches of tedious and monotonous material. Mark the slow passages for later work, whether judicious or extensive cutting, or considerable rewriting.

When you're done, go back to the beginning of the manuscript. Do the structural revision first, and the textual revision later. It's best to start with deleting and rearranging because changes at that level significantly influence the nature and direction of the rewriting.

If you move chapters or large passages around, then in the rewriting, you'll need to strengthen and probably change the connections between them and the progression from one to the next. Also, you don't want to waste time rewriting material that later you'll decide to cut.

If you know exactly how you want to reorder the material and which deletions you're going to make, do both as you go through the manuscript. Otherwise, delete first, cutting throughout as necessary, then rearrange the text.

Extensive cutting produces a book that's tighter and faster; clarifies many of the book's elements, including the structure, pace, themes, and plot; and exposes the essential material, which is then easier to focus on.

Perhaps you wrote a book about today's tennis superstars, with each player profiled in their own chapter. What you realize now is that the information and observations aren't consistently interesting or illuminating. As you go through each chapter, cutting the weak material, you also understand better what's truly important to say about each player and you remove everything but that.

Once you've tightened the manuscript sufficiently, begin restructuring, and continue the process until you're satisfied that the material is being presented in the strongest, clearest, most interesting and well-paced way. Go through the manuscript repeatedly, confirming the book's logical progression and the right fit of the material, and making any necessary structural adjustments.

In the tennis book, as the cutting brought each player more sharply into view, you saw how a different order of presentation might be more entertaining and informative, and now you rearrange the chapters in various ways until you settle on the best order.

Maybe in writing your Woodstock novel, you divided the narrative into five parts, each presented solely from the point of view of one of the major characters. On reflection, you decide this structure makes the parts too self-contained. So you separate the parts into shorter narrative sections, and rearrange them so that the characters' storylines are interwoven rather than independent of each other.

Now, you're ready to strengthen the expression of your story, ideas and information. Look first to those larger portions of the book that need significant revision, perhaps a several-page section, a chapter, or a few chapters in sequence. Start rewriting there. Continue that process until all of those portions are clearly and strongly expressed.

You may decide to revise on the level of style alone, making the writing in a chapter, where you might have rushed, more polished and refined. Also, you may revise for clarification, strengthening connections between ideas that are poorly linked, or extensively rewriting the last third of the manuscript to fit the significantly different conclusion that you worked out during the previous, developmental stage.

You may have written a memoir, and feel that it has insufficient emotional impact because of your detached, impersonal style. In the rewriting, you open up and invigorate your expression considerably so that the material is more lively, revealing, moving, personal and candid.

Comprehensive Development and Revision

You're now at the final, comprehensive and conclusive stage where your work encompasses all forms and the full range of improvement, from minuscule to major change.

In doing this work, you have one goal: Begin and continue improving the manuscript, in every possible way, until you're satisfied that there's nothing more you can do, at any level, or with any element or aspect, to make the book better. Work straight through the manuscript, considering every word, sentence and paragraph; analyzing the thematic, narrative, and informational substance; and expanding, reorganizing, adding, deleting and rewriting, as appropriate.

Perhaps you're writing a post-modernist novel and conclude that the style is still too conventional. It needs to become more staccato, with the punch of separated drumbeats instead of a steady rolling. You therefore decide, in this last revision, to cut words ruthlessly, reducing the sentences to their essential meaning, sacrificing fullness but gaining intensity. Also, to increase the enigmatic quality of the narrative, you remove several explanatory passages, and move several descriptive passages closer to the end where they reveal less.

As you move forward, keep the various improvements coordinated and appropriate. You may have written a collection of essays, and as you work on the third essay, you delete a few paragraphs, rewrite other paragraphs, polish the opening and write a new conclusion. When you've finished that work, reread the essay carefully. If you see that some of the seams show or gaps have opened, work on them until every element is right. Then move on.

Generally, proceed steadily through the book. This steady progress gives you the benefit of building directly on everything you've done. However, if the nature of the work demands that you move around in the manuscript or if it's simply more productive to do so, then follow the work.

For example, if it's easier or more efficient to cut all references to a particular controversial idea at one time, do that. If you decide that a character's dialogue is inconsistent in the several places in the novel where she appears, concentrate on making her dialogue consistent throughout the manuscript. If a scene in the first third of the novel makes you realize that the climax needs one more element of physical danger, add it now while you're thinking about it.

After you've worked through the entire manuscript, evaluate what you've done, and decide whether or not the manuscript needs still more work. If what needs to be done is clear, do it. If you have only a sense of something not quite right, try to find it. But if you're finished, stop. Don't be satisfied too easily, but don't be arbitrary about revision and development either.

Because it's possible to work on a book almost forever, the desire for improvement must be balanced by reason. Make the book as good as possible but also know when to be satisfied. If the changes you're making aren't improving the book or are so minor as to be almost invisible, it's time to stop and accept that the book is what it is going to be. If you're so creatively hungry for more writing or so ambitious you can't be satisfied, start a new book.

As for this one, you've done everything with the manuscript you can do on your own. You're ready now to get the assistance of your editor. Perhaps that means simply sending off the book to the editor who contracted for it. Or maybe you must now begin the work of finding the right publisher for your manuscript.

But sooner or later, another person will become involved in your book. In the final article in this series, Working with Your Editor, I'll describe how you and your editor will work together, and how she or he will help you attain the final best book.



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