Last week, I finished the 3rd draft of my novel and wanted to share some more tips and tricks that came up while revising.

Lesson 1: Get good feedback

I don't mean feedback that your draft was good--that's useless. You want solid critique. You want beta readers who will tell you, "This character arc isn't landing for me," or "This scene is super convoluted," or "I'm bored."

For a lot of beginning writers, myself included, this feedback is really hard to find! Your friends (even if they're writer friends) will be too nice to you. I'm telling you, 100% for sure, if you think your friends are being honest about your work: they're not. They love you. They see your story through that filter. Their feedback is not the full picture. I'm not saying you shouldn't let them read it--sometimes you need a pep talk!--but take their feedback with a big ol' grain of salt.

So, if friends and family are not great sources of feedback, where should you go? Find a writing group! If you're lucky enough to have a local writing guild, join them! Otherwise, check out some groups online. My favorite platform for this is Discord because it's a good mix of live chat and forum layouts. But, there are also writing communities on reddit, X, facebook, etc. Find an authortuber you like and get involved in their fan groups. There are so many lovely, active writing groups where you can connect with people in your preferred genre.

It does take time feel out whether someone is going to be a good feedback partner for you, but patience is worth it here. A good, objective critique partner is worth their weight in gold!

Lesson 2: Know what you're editing

This draft went so much easier than the last one because I had a targeted list of things I wanted to fix. I got some really solid feedback, had some great brainstorming sessions, and I had a dang checklist of everything I wanted to change. I won't show a picture because spoilers, but here's an example:

While reading through draft 2, I'd identify a problem (either via my beta reader feedback or through rereading things myself), and I'd note it down.

Then, I'd either talk it out with my reader or brainstorm by myself. I'd come up with a list of possible solutions to the problem.

Sometimes, after creating this list, I'd wind up choosing multiple solutions, or combining two of them, but either way I now have a vague plan of what I'm going to do.

When I get to actually editing, all I have to do is come up with the specifics. I like to leave things a little up-in-the-air so that I have room for creativity once I'm back in the draft. If my plans get too rigid, I feel locked in and stuck.

Having all of my edits--from beginning to end!--planned out in a big list was so helpful. I literally had a list of problems that I was crossing off as I solved them. Being able to see my progress on this list really helped keep my momentum going.

Lesson 3: Stop stalling

So yes, this draft only took me 2 months to complete (compared to, like, a year for the last draft), but that's still twice as long as I estimated it was going to take. Why?

First, my estimate was overly enthusiastic. I had my list! It was going to be easy! And yes, it was easier, but it's still a lot of work.

Second, I kept stalling, procrastinating, and avoiding the work, especially toward the end. I've been working on this story for ages now and, honestly, I was kind of scared to finish it. I was either going to start querying, or ugh, have to do ANOTHER edit once this draft was done. And either one of those things was daunting! I didn't wanna do another edit! And querying is SCARY! Buuut, if I never finished this draft, I'd never have to move on to the next step. Problem solved!

Eventually, I just had to get over myself and get the work done. I did take a little break from thinking about LFB after the draft was done, sent it off to some more beta readers, and now it's time to move on!

Hope some of this has been helpful to you! If you have any editing tips or coping mechanisms, share them below! I feel like editing/revising doesn't get talked about nearly as much as drafting and, in my opinion, revising is WAY more important.