Make A Living Writing Romance

How much time should it take to revise your romance manuscript? That’s a question I often hear.

The most obvious answer is that it takes as long as it takes, right? Some authors complete several manuscripts a year while it takes others more than a year to finish one.

It Helps To Have a Plan

One of the reasons revising your romance novel may take a long time is because you’re working without a plan. A solid RevisionChecklist will help you make daily progress. A plan can turn a six month revision process into something you can accomplish in thirty days.

Use the RevisionChecklist I’ve put together for myself or create your own. A checklist will help you avoid revision challenges.

Common Romance Novel Revision Challenges

Boredom - At some point revising your manuscript may not be as engaging or inspiring as writing it. If this is the case, perhaps you need time away to get reinvigorated. That’s okay. Taking time away from your mansucript is a common recommendation from writing experts. How much time? A few days minimum. A week or two is a great idea.

A New Story Idea – To be honest this is what always trips me up. I’ll get about half way through a manuscript revision process and BAM! Tons of great story ideas start flooding my thoughts and distracting me from the revision process.

The result? A lot of half revised manuscripts.

The solution, I’ve found is to really crank through the revision process. I give it a month. If ideas pop up during that time period, I write them down. Ignoring potential story ideas is painful so don’t do that.

No Revision Plan

Sometimes the biggest challenge is that you don’t have a plan to work from. No plan is perfect so don’t try to make that the challenge. Instead, create a method that makes sense. For example, this seven step process can be used as the foundation to create your own revision plan or checklist:

1. Take two weeks off from your book
2. Read through it completely beginning to end and take notes on where it needs to be fixed.
3. Fix scenes
4. Fix flow, sentence length, word choice
5. Fix spelling and grammar
6. Read through it again beginning to end
7. Call it done!

How long should it take to revise your romance novel?

A general rule of thumb is one to six months. Obviously, the less time it takes you the better because it makes room for you to start working on your next novel. However, speedy revisions aren’t worth anything if your book doesn’t end up being the best it can be when you’re finished.

Create a revision process. It helps you dot the i’s and cross the t’s. It helps you revise quickly and ensures you’re submitting the best book possible to agents and editors.

To your success!

There’s no argument that the romance writing process is highly individualized. Some people write in a very structured manner, typing for an hour each day or working until they complete their word count goal. Others go on writing binges where they write for hours or days straight and then also have long dry periods where they may not write a word.

Some romance writers plot and plan every single detail before they ever start writing their manuscript while others, who call themselves “pantsters”, write by the seat of their pants. They just sit down and start typing out a story.

The Revision Process Is Just As Individualized.

You may sweep through your romance manuscript and make all the necessary changes in one pass. You may break down the process and make ten passes through your manuscript, each time focusing on a new step, dialogue for example.

You may dedicate a specific amount of time each day to your revision process or you may sit down and complete it all in one chunk of time. You may decide to revise 3 chapters a day, 100 pages a day, or for an hour a day.

So How Do You Create The Right Revision Plan for You?

There are three keys to any successful revision plan. They include:

1. Measurable goals
2. Structured time
3. A process or a checklist

Measurable Goals – The biggest goal to set here would be a deadline for having your romance manuscript polished.  A general rule of thumb, though you may be much more motivated and really amp the revision process, is to spend as much time revising your manuscript as you did writing it in the first place.  There is plenty of wiggle room here because if you had a whirlwind writing session and wrote your book in a week, it may very likely take longer to revise and polish it.  However, it’s a place to start.

Other measurable goals include smaller goals like a page count per day or a revised word count per day.  This strategy may seem restrictive however; it really helps you push through those days when you don’t feel so motivated.

Structured Time – You know what time of day you’re most productive, creative and energetic. This is the best time of the day to write and it’s the best time of the day to revise. Schedule your romance writing into each and every day and try to schedule it during your best time of the day.

A Process/Checklist – There are many phases to revising your romance novel. You want to make sure:

• Your scenes are fleshed out
• Your characters are consistent
• You use the 5 senses as appropriate
• Your dialogue works
• Your sentence structure varies
• Your pace, tone and POV are all appropriate for the scene

And so on….

Your revision checklist will reflect this. How you organize your checklist and structure your revision process is up to you. You may combine several elements or you may give your romance manuscript 20 passes, each time looking at a new element.

Here’s a sample RevisionChecklist.  It’s recommended to use this as a guideline for creating your own process customized to fit your style, goals and writing process.

Revising your romance novel is a required step to get it ready for publication. Make it easy on yourself and create a process that fits you.