At-Home Workshop: Revise Your Novel in 31 Days

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Welcome to the home page for the Month-Long At-Home Revision Workshop. If this is the first you're hearing about this workshop, then read on and see if you'd like to join in (starting late is no problem at all, it's a work-at-your-own-pace kind of deal). The more the merrier! If you participated last time, welcome back.

Since I get asked a lot about the differences between this workshop and my book, Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft, let me take a moment to explain those differences.

This workshop was the foundation for that book. It's the Cliff Notes version, and it gives a taste of what the larger book is all about. The book has considerably more information, analysis questions, revisions options, and cheat sheets to help you analyze and revise your novel. If you enjoy the format here, I highly recommend getting the book. It's nearly 400 pages of helpful information and guides, broken into an easy-to-follow format that focuses on what you need to work on when you need to work on it. There was so much more I wanted to do for the workshop, but I would have needed to run a six-month workshop to do it (grin). The revision book covers it instead.

And off we go again... 


Workshop Prep These are tasks you'll probably want to do before diving into your revision.

Prepping for the March Revision Workshop
Workshop Prep: Create an Editorial Map
Revision Prep: Create a Revision Plan

Revision Steps By Day These are the daily tasks, though some might take more thane day, and others will take less. Work at your own pace, or do step out of order if you prefer (though I do suggest doing the larger, more conceptual tasks before the smaller line edit tasks).

Day One: Analyze the Story Structure
Day Two: Analyze the Character Arcs
Day Three: Analyze the Scene Structure
Day Four: Clarify the Goals and Motivations
Day Five: Clarify the Conflict and Tension
Day Six: Clarify the Stakes and Consequences
Day Seven: Focus the Narrative Drive
Day Eight: Flesh Out the Character Development
Day Nine: Tighten the Character Descriptions
Day Ten: Balance the Backstory
Day Eleven: Focus the Point of View
Day Twelve: Clarify the Theme
Day Thirteen: Deepen the World Building and Setting
Day Fourteen: Eliminate Unnecessary Infodumps
Day Fifteen: Clean Up the Description and Stage Direction
Day Sixteen: Clarify the Tone and Mood
Day Seventeen: Strengthen the Foreshadowing and Reveals
Day Eighteen: Eliminate Unnecessary Told Prose
Day Nineteen: Check the Narrative Focus 
Day Twenty: Streamline the Dialogue 
Day Twenty-One: Streamline the Internalization
Day Twenty-Two: Sharpen the Hooks and Tighten the Pacing
Day Twenty-Three: Smooth Any Rough Transitions
Day Twenty-Four: Revise Any Unnecessary Passive Voice
Day Twenty-Five: Eliminate Clichés and Trim Overwriting
Day Twenty-Six: Clarify Ambiguous Pronouns
Day Twenty-Seven: Strengthen or Eliminate Any Weak Words
Day Twenty-Eight: Revise Any Misused Words and Awkward Phrasing
Day Twenty-Nine: Eliminate Unnecessary Repetition
Day Thirty: Fix Any Grammatical Errors
Day Thirty-One: Do a Final Read Through

How This Works

Each session focuses on one step a particular revision aspect and provides tasks for writers to complete. The plan is to do one step a day, but we all know revisions have a mind of their own and don’t always stick to a schedule, so don’t worry if some steps require more time than others. Depending on the novel and the writer, some steps will be easy and there won’t be much to do, while others will take longer than a single day.

This might be a 31-day program, but take as much time as you need to revise your novel and don’t feel pressured to keep up if that will hurt the quality of your writing. These steps are intended to guide you if you’re not sure where to start, motivate you on those days when writing is tough, and encourage you to keep writing by breaking the process into manageable pieces.

What You’ll Need

This workshop is aimed at novels that are in the first draft or later drafts stages, so the focus is more on tightening the plot and polishing the text. If you still have major plot holes to fill, research to do, or scenes to finish, I recommend getting it done before starting this workshop. The more you still need to figure out, the longer the process will likely take (which is fine if your goal here isn’t to get your revision done in 31 days). It’s okay if there are weak areas and the text itself is still rough, but aim for at least a solid first draft.

If you're still working on your novel, then I recommend my other At-Home Workshop on Idea to Novel in 31 Days.

A Peek at the Process

We’ll be approaching this from the top down, working on macro issues first, then narrowing the tasks down every week to micro polishing issues. We’ll get our stories working, then our plots and characters, then move on to getting the scenes solid, and finally polish the text. (Because there’s no sense polishing the text if we haven’t worked out any plot problems yet). Each week will scale down another level. If you need two (or more) weeks to finish a level, take the time and move on when ready. This is about motivation, not heaping more stress on you.

Who’s with me? Will this be your first time, or did you do the workshop last time as well?

Follow along with the book. Get all three Fixing Your Revision Problems books in one omnibus!

This book contains Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems, Fixing Your Plot & Story Structure Problems, and Fixing Your Setting & Description Problems--PLUS a BONUS workshop: How to Salvage Half-Finished Manuscripts.

A strong story has many parts, and when one breaks down, the whole book can fail. Make sure your story is the best it can be to keep your readers hooked.

With clear and easy-to-understand examples, Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft Omnibus offers eleven self-guided workshops that target the common issues that make readers stop reading. It will help you:

• Flesh out weak characters and build strong character arcs
• Find the right amount of backstory to enhance, not bog down, your story
• Create unpredictable plots that keep readers guessing
• Develop compelling hooks to build tension in every scene
• Determine the right way to include information without infodumping
• Fix awkward stage direction and unclear character actions

Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft Omnibus starts every workshop with an analysis and offers multiple revision options in each area. You choose the options that best fit your writing process. This easy-to-follow guide will help you revise your manuscript and craft a strong finished draft that will keep readers hooked. 

Available in paperback and ebook formats.

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of "Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read" from the Georgia Center for the Book.

She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.

When she's not writing novels, she's teaching other writers how to improve their craft. She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing.

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