My Musings: Tips for Revising Fantasy
After receiving feedback from my agent on the first 50 pages of my fantasy novel, I am currently working on revisions, and thought I would share some things I've found helpful for this process:
Issue Spotting (First Read Through)
Most of my agent’s feedback was tailored to solidifying the foundation of my worldbuilding, so in order to make my rules consistent throughout, I am kicking off revisions by doing a first read through to spot sections where the worldbuilding is vague, inconsistent, or needs more detail. Once I spot these sections, I either highlight them or leave notes as comment bubbles (in Word) beside them to remind me to address them later. Once I’ve finished this First Read Through of the manuscript, my goal is to have a comprehensive idea of all the things I need to fix before I actually start make changes.
Revising (Second Read Through)
In this round, I will be addressing all the issues I flagged in the First Read Through (and inevitably more as they pop up once I really get into the weeds of how this imaginary world works). Ha! Easier said than done! After having completed this process with the previous book I worked on with my agent, I can say that, at least for me, revising can often be more difficult than writing from a blank page. And yet…it is also uniquely rewarding. After all, it really is only refining and enriching the world and characters you’ve already created. If writing that first draft can be compared to drawing an initial rough sketch, then revising is likely akin to adding the details to make that sketch a masterpiece.
Separate Document for Worldbuilding Rules
Sadly, I can’t take credit for this one as my agent first gave me this idea. However, since I’ve found it so helpful, I wanted to mention it here. The concept is just as the title says. Instead of keeping my worldbuilding rules in my head or manuscript, I write them all down in a separate document. Some authors write down these rules in simply another word document that can span pages. I, on the other hand, write them in a powerpoint format. Don’t worry, it’s nothing formal like a presentation. In fact, I would cringe if my agent were ever to lay her eyes on it. But I’ve found separating some aspects of worldbuilding by slides (as well as pictures from my pinterest boards!) is helpful to reference as I write/revise.
Consider Word Count
Since fantasy books can often have the longest word counts (averaging 100-115k words or more), keeping track of your word count if your book falls into this genre isn’t as much of necessity. However, one easy way I’ve found to trim down word count is to eliminate unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, and shorten descriptions. An unnecessarily long book isn’t an advantage in any genre, so making your language as concise as possible is a win all around.
Hope you found some of these tips helpful, and best of luck to those revising out there!