Your story can change a great deal during the revision stage. Editing and revising can be scary and tedious for most writers, but it doesn’t have to be.
When revising their work, many writers naturally adopt the A.R.R.R. approach:
Add: The average novel has between 60,000 and 100,000 words. Does your book have enough words to be considered a novel? Have you given your readers all the information they need to make sense of your story? If not, go back to your notebook that you kept for additional scenes and any additional details.
Rearrange: Consider the flow, pacing and sequencing of your story. Would the plot be better served if some of the events occur in a different order?
Remove: After making additions to your story, how is your word count now? Are your readers experiencing information overload? You may need to eliminate passages that don’t quite fit.
Replace: The most effective way to revise your work is to ask for a second opinion. Do you need more vivid details to help clarify your work? Is one scene contradicting another? Ask friends or fellow writers to take a look and give you feedback, and if something isn’t working rewrite it and replace it.
I encourage you to practice ARRR in your writing and really look at how you’re editing and revising your novel. Looking back on my writing career, I can see how I used each of these parts in my writing.
I hope this helps your writing process!
