How to turn your messy first draft into something actually worth reading

Have you written a first draft, but have no idea where to start when it comes to revisions? If so, this video is for you. Today I am sharing my revision and editing process, start to finish – how I take a hot mess first draft and turn it into a polished book that I feel confident sharing with the world. So grab a notebook – and that messy manuscript you've been avoiding – and let's get started!

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✨T I M E S T A M P S✨
00:00 Introduction
01:18 The importance of decompression time
02:47 Revising the first draft
06:56 Line editing
08:19 Getting feedback
09:23 Professional edits and proofread
10:39 Subscribe for more writing videos :)
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Subscribe for weekly episodes of #WritersLifeWednesdays! Make Your Story Matter™ and make your author dreams come true… new videos every Wednesday.

✨ V A L U A B L E R E S O U R C E S✨

MORE VIDEOS YOU WOULD LIKE:

→ HOW TO WRITE CHARACTER BACKSTORY

→ 5 QUESTIONS EVERY WRITER ASKS ME

→ MY SCRIVENER SETUP

→ 10 WEAK WORDS TO CUT FROM YOUR NOVEL

✨F O L L O W ✨

✨ A B O U T ✨
My name is Abbie Emmons I teach writers how to make their stories matter by harnessing the power and psychology of storytelling, transforming their ideas into a masterpiece, and creating a lifestyle that makes their author dreams come true.

Story isn’t about “what happens” — it’s about how what happens affects and transforms the characters. I believe that there is an exact science (a recipe, if you will) behind a perfect story. And if you know what ingredients you need, you can create your own perfect story with ease and confidence. That’s what we talk about every week on this channel – and if it’s something you’re into, be sure to subscribe and join this community!

[bookishlylola]

I have waited for literal YEARS to watch your revision/editing videos, all because I had never finished a first draft! 106k words and almost four years later, I can finally say I made it!!!

[ministryofmagicedits]

Can we just appreciate that these videos are FREE

[CostinMoraru]

abbie: set it aside for 3-4...
me: days
abbie:... months

[tabithacase]

This came at the perfect time!!! I just finished my first draft, and I'm so overwhelmed now because I've never actually edited an entire story before.💛

[valeriehowardbooks]

Your process is soo similar to mine. One thing I do differently is instead of hiring one proofreader, I hold a contest for who can find the most mistakes in my manuscript and whoever finds the most wins a fun prize. Saves on my budget and lots of people are very motivated to find all of the mistakes! :)

[pamelahenry]

Thank you for such a simple tip as printing out the manuscript to edit the old-fashioned way on paper. That's all it took to unleash my editing energy. I didn't realize I was feeling trapped by my own laptop.

[luanagonzalez]

I just finish writing my first ever first draft and your videos help me a lot while I was writing it! this is amazing! thank you so much!

[meliaelentari]

I finished my first draft over the weekend, 75, 000 words later! This video is every well timed, thank you

[ROMANTIKILLER]

I am now in the process of rewriting what 20-something years old me saw as a novel, but was essentially just a slightly polished first draft. I found the 15 years inbetween to have been extremely helpful in detaching myself from the original version and spot many weaknesses in plot and characters that I was unable to see back then.

[wordsmith]

PERFECT timing!!! I literally just finished my first draft and have no idea where to begin edits (because it SORELY needs it lol)

Now that I've got two novels and two novellas under my belt (written, not published), I can really see how much outlining helps me in the long run. It helps a lot to have things sorted out beforehand, because no matter what I do, I will ALWAYS end up adding a brand-new very important plot element out of the blue towards the end of the book, one that changes the whole course of the series (if it's a series). These random additions really complete the story, every single time---so I've come to expect that by the time I'm done writing, a lot of things will be different from when I started (entire characters and systems appear and disappear halfway through XD, it's a mess until it's edited).

Also, for me, I can't actually figure out the theme of my book until I'm done with it. Because at the end, I can exactly see the whole picture, and I can see the correlation between the theme my characters are leaning towards and the truth that I realize is the one I want to "shout from the rooftops." Then, I sort of edit the theme into my characters and the events that happen in the story.

[AmyFMiller]

Thanks for this! I've finished my first draft of my first novel, and am ready to start revising, so this helps a lot! Also, I use the "don't decorate while you're still building" metaphor with my writing students. Love it!

[nimue]

Thank you for being honest but kind. I don't believe there's any reason to totally trash people when trying to help them write their novel as the last person did in her video. This was extremely helpful.

[marykedewitt]

I came here to tell you thank you! I have just (ten minutes ago) finished my first draft of my first book and needed an Abbie video to celebrate 🎉 I am ecstatic with joy, cuz its been a few years coming. Thanks for all the great content that have helped so many of us (so many in the comments) come to this point!!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Congrats everyone!!!

[lucybickerton]

Abbie Emmons my QUEEN... your videos have been so enlightening and are pretty much the only thing that is getting me through my final year script project at uni. I'll probably be watching you and supporting you forever.

[maltisingh]

This was literally gold. I wrote my first draft two years ago and I thought that it's was really something I am confident about so, now I have started revising it after I saw your video.
Your way of explaining things is awesome :-)

[thebookoutt]

Hi! Before this first draft, I had written a story before, back when I was 14. It was a 48k first draft. After I finished, I spent one month away from it, tried to hop back in, and... bam. I could barely edit. First of all, I had no clue what I was doing. I didn't reread any of it. I kept mixing line editing with plot and structure. And I realized, my plot and structure wasn't very strong. I've kind of scrapped that story for the time being.

This story is new. I started writing it on March 31st and finished on April 8th, with 57.3k. words. Yes, I was grinding all spring break with some days being 6-7 hours of writing... straight. But now I have my first draft! It's been around a month and a week since then and I'm ready to hop back into editing.

This time, I actually have a plan. An editing process.

[meganlynn]

FYI. I can basically quote your entire intro now. I’m sure I can’t be the only one. Thanks for another great video on a very needed topic!

[ambermashal]

Ahh so perfect! I literally just finished some developmental editing on the my first draft of my book. Abbie I’m convinced you can read our minds😌

[kathywerebwrites]

Love the tips! Thank you! For me, however, I prefer to put my 1st draft away for only a few days. I've found if I leave it for a few months then I'm in the thick of another project and it's hard to pick it back up/give it the attention it needs and deserves.

[alanabanana]

Abbie, I just read your book 100 Days of Sunlight, and can I just say how much I love this book. I love it so much. I love the characters and Tessa and omg I love Weston. I think my favorite side character is Rudy. You really know how to make such lovable characters. Agghhh I loved it so much. I don’t usually read outside of school but on the rare occasion that I do, it’s got to be a great book, and this is what happened with 100 Days of Sunlight (came home with less than half of it done, finished it by the end of the night). I know you probably don’t want to read this whole thing about me ranting about your book, but thank you so much for creating this! You really are an amazing author!! 🥰❤️❤️