2 posts tagged with "revision"

You’ve got numbers and notes: drop-off around Chapter 4, readers loving a side character, a cluster of highlights on that one reveal line—plus a few two-star reviews that sting. You’ve also got a living draft that feels close, but not quite. The bridge between “interesting signals” and “better story” is a simple thing: a revision map that turns data into decisions.

You don’t need fancy tools. You need clear edit verbs, a way to rank fixes, and a habit of testing changes in small, safe loops.

You stare at the cursor and press delete. Five thousand words vanish from your work in progress (WIP), and your stomach drops like an elevator. You’re sure you’ve just made the book worse, smaller, flatter—and then you read what remains, and the story breathes again.