Writing the second draft without losing your voice

Revision fails when it is done in the wrong order. Structure first, scenes second, sentences last. Polishing a paragraph you will later delete is the most common way writers lose months.

Start with a one-line summary of every chapter. Read the list on its own. Gaps, repetitions and dead chapters are visible in the list long before they are visible in the manuscript.

Protect your voice by keeping a separate file of the lines you love. When a pass makes the prose feel generic, read the file. If none of those lines survived the chapter, the chapter has been over-edited.

Finally, give the draft distance. Two weeks away is worth more than two weeks of continuous tinkering, and it costs you nothing but patience.