Notes on Revision - Part Three

In this series, we’ve moved from the structure of a story down to its through line—from whether the big pieces are working, to what the story is really about underneath the plot and character arcs. Now we’re going to zoom in farther, to the line-level revision.

Line-level revision is where most writers want to start, and I understand why: it’s tangible and satisfying; you can see a sentence get better in real time. You swap a word, tighten a clause, read it back. That immediacy is appealing, especially compared to the murkier, more destabilizing work of structural revision.

But there’s a reason to arrive here last. Line-level revision only matters when the story underneath it is truly, thoroughly sound.

The first thing to look at is voice. Voice is what makes your book yours, and no one else’s. It’s the quality a reader recognizes on the first page, the texture that distinguishes your story from every other story with a similar premise. In revision, one question is whether that voice is consistent from beginning to end. Did you start with one tone and drift into another? This happens frequently, especially when a manuscript has been drafted over a long stretch of time or across multiple iterations.

One of the most effective revision tools available to you is to read your story aloud. Your eyes will skip over problems that you will otherwise catch immediately when reading aloud, like awkward phrasing, sentences that run too long, dialogue that looks fine on the page but sounds wrong spoken, and repeated or overused words. For picture books especially—which are books designed to be read aloud—this isn’t optional. If a line is a mouthful, it probably needs to be simpler. If a passage has no rhythm, it needs to be reworked. Read it aloud more than once. Read it to someone else. Have someone else read it to you. Every pass reveals something new.

Word choice is next, and it matters at every length, in every format. In picture books, where you may have only a few hundred words to work with, every single one has to earn its place. But this is true in chapter books, graphic novels, and novels, too—the scale is different, but the principle holds.

In revision, interrogate your language choices. Is there a more precise word? Not a fancier one—a more accurate one. A word that tells us something about the character, about how they see the world, or about the texture of the moment. Is your word choice too generic, when it could be purposeful?

Are you leaning on modifiers where a stronger noun or verb would do the work alone? Are there crutch words you’re reaching for out of habit, or because you think they’re voice-y, like “just,” “really,” “suddenly,” or “very”? You’ll likely be surprised by how many there are.

So many writers craft gorgeous sentences: sentences that are genuinely stunning and striking, with evocative language and melodic wordplay. But beautiful writing and effective storytelling are not the same thing.

I’ve read manuscripts where the language is extraordinary and the story still isn’t working—because the writer fell in love with how something sounded and held onto it past the point where it was serving the narrative. It could be a passage that’s lyrical but redundant, or a description that’s painstaking, but slows the pacing to a crawl. Often it’s over-verbosity: several sentences doing what a few words could do, because those sentences were lovely. That attachment is understandable, but in revision, it’s also something you have to be willing to let go of.

The question is always the same in revision, whether you’re looking at an arc, a subplot, or a sentence: is this here because it’s doing a job, or is it here because I wrote it? Those are different things. And once you can tell the difference honestly, your revision gets sharper, faster, and more decisive.

When something has to go, let it go. Save it somewhere—some writers keep a running document of lines they’ve loved and cut, a kind of archive. I keep a page in Notion where I catalogue the language I’ve written that I adore, but have no current place for. That’s a fine practice: honor the work and wordsmithery. But let the story be what it needs to be.

One last thing: after you’ve revised the whole book, venture back to the beginning. Does it still work? We often tend to warm up in our openings, spending a page or a chapter or a few spreads easing in before the story actually starts. In revision, find the place where the story truly begins.

Revision, at every level, is an act of looking honestly at what you’ve made and deciding to make it better, and closer to what it’s capable of being. This matter when you want to sell your story to publishing houses, and then to booksellers and readers.

Every beloved book you’ve ever read has been revised, thoroughly and rigorously. Those books were worth it. So is yours.

Happy revising!