Book Coaching 101: A Philosophy of Revision

How to think holistically about helping writers through a manuscript revision.

All the prep we’ve been doing for the #amwriting podcast Summer Blueprint Sprint has got me thinking about when it’s effective to step back and take a big-picture view of a book project versus zooming in to focus line-by-line on the story or the argument— and there are three primary moments:

1. At the start of a project. Sometimes a writer is so inspired that they go straight to the page to capture the spark of the idea, start writing, keep writing, and produce a book that is cohesive, whole, and beautiful. May we all experience that sort of powerful flow in our creative lives! But the start of a project is usually a lot more fraught, filled with stops and starts. I believe it’s a critical moment to pause and consider the fundamental questions of the project. Why are you writing it? What’s your point? Who’s your ideal reader? Even a short period of inquiry at the start of a project can have a profound impact on the resulting book. This is the process my Blueprint method is designed to facilitate for fiction, nonfiction, and memoir.

2. When the writer is stuck. Another good time to pause and look at the big picture is when a writer can’t move forward. Maybe they’ve written three chapters or five or thirteen, but they don’t know what comes next. Or they know that what they’ve written isn’t holding together. Or there is too big a gap between their skill and their taste. (See the Ira Glass quote on this gap — James Clear has an interesting write-up on it.) This is another good moment to answer those big questions. Clarity about intention and structure usually solves the problem of being stuck.

3. Before a writer undertakes a revision. This is another moment when writers could benefit enormously from stepping back to look at the big picture of their manuscript, but most of the time, they plow ahead without giving their revision a strategic thought. The way they plow is to go right back to Page 1, following the same grooves they followed as they wrote. By grooves, I’m thinking here about ruts in a road. Maybe a covered wagon whose wheels follow along the same track the wagon ahead of them took. It’s really hard to steer out of those grooves but relatively easy to just keep going, reading chronologically with the same mindset you had when you wrote the draft. There is a better way — and explaining it is explaining a whole philosophy of revision.

The Problem With Starting a Revision On Page 1 (For The Writer)

We’ve all done it — finished a draft and sensed “the end” the way a racehorse senses the finish line. We think, This draft is amazing! It just needs a little tweaking! Perhaps I can get it to our beta readers/production team/agent/editor ahead of my deadline! Maybe I am secretly brilliant and not subject to the realities of writing that drag other writers down!

We head to Page 1 and get in those grooves. If what we see is pretty good, we cruise along on the surface of our manuscript thinking, Yup, that chapter’s good. Ohh this passage is great. Love this bit of dialogue. Look at me! We may change a word or two here and there, tighten up the language, and fuss with the flow, but we’re really just keeping our eyes glued to the page and our minds in the rut of what we’ve already created.

The result of this kind of revision is often a manuscript plagued with problems and a writer closed off to hearing honest feedback about what is working and what is not.

If we get into the revision groove and what is on the page is a mess in some fundamental way, we may start to think, Uh oh — this doesn’t make sense. Wait — why did I put that thought there? OMG — am I going to have to rewrite that chapter again??

And then the voices of doubt and despair rise up: I’ll never finish this book. Good thing I became a lawyer/doctor/textbook editor/organic farmer because I can’t write to save my life. My dad was right — I’ll never make anything of myself without a PhD. (Note: this was my dad…)

We quickly get overwhelmed by everything we have to do to take our pages from rough to viable, let alone to get them to great. And what happens next?

We might put the manuscript in a folder on our desk where it never sees the light of day.

Or we might hand over our pages to get a professional opinion on what’s working and what’s not. That act of handing over can be problematic if the writer is also handing over their power. They may be saying to themselves, I don’t know what’s wrong and I can’t figure it out: you tell me! This sets them up to swallow whole whatever feedback is offered, whether it is useful or not, or effective or not, or resonant or not.

There is obviously enormous value in having a professional read and comment on our work — it’s the basis of my entire career as someone who trains and certifies book coaches, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for compassionate and skilled editors — but how we hand our work over is critically important. We need to do it at the right time, and select the right professional, and approach them with the right mindset — which means bringing a spirit of collaboration and inquiry rather than a spirit of fix it for me.

The Problem With Starting a Revision On Page 1 (For The Manuscript Reviewer)

Writers often come to manuscript reviewers with finished manuscripts (I’m not using the term book coach here on purpose — stay with me!) They’re trying to make sure they put their best work forward into the marketplace, or maybe they’ve already given it a go and the results were not favorable.

What the reviewer does when they get the manuscript is the obvious and natural thing: They start at Page 1 and read forward like a reader, making comments and taking note of their experience with the text. They bring their editorial skill and attention to the task, but they haven’t asked the writer to offer an assessment of the work. They aren’t entering into a collaborative and strategic process. They just put their head down and read.

It takes a reviewer 8 or 12 or 20 hours to thoroughly review a manuscript. They are charging hundreds or (hopefully) thousands of dollars because it’s difficult work, it’s valuable work, and there is no way to do it quickly or to outsource it to AI. It involves a deep knowledge of narrative design, the ability to read the nuances of story and argument, and an understanding of how a writer moves their work from good to great.

Because manuscript reviewers are charging so much, they often feel that they have to write pages and pages of notes to justify the fee. They dump everything in the editorial letter, proving that they were paying close attention, proving that they saw everything there was to see, proving that they are better than a robot reader. They lay it all on the writer and (maybe after one phone call to make sure everything they wrote in their letter was clear), wish them luck in sorting it all out.

There is no ongoing relationship to support the writer in understanding what pieces of the feedback resonate with them and whether or not they agree with the recommendations. There is no ongoing relationship to support them as they execute the changes. While the feedback is likely insightful and useful, the writer still has to wade through it, figure out what to make of it, figure out how to prioritize it, and figure out how to execute it.

The result is very often that the writer is just as overwhelmed as they were before they sought help. They dread the work of revision. They slog through it joylessly, complaining to their writer friends that they are in revision hell.

HEY MANUSCRIPT REVIEWER— If you LOVE doing cold manuscript evaluations and this is your Zone of Genius (a business reality I talk about HERE), DO THEM! DON’T LISTEN TO ME! I believe that the best way to help writers is to do whatever works best for the writers and if manuscript evaluations are it for you, carry on!

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

A book coach — who by definition is in a longer-term relationship with the writer than a manuscript reviewer — can provide the ongoing support the writer needs to understand the feedback, decide how to approach it, and improve their pages as they revise. That’s massively valuable in and of itself.

But there is a better way to approach the revision process altogether and that is for both the writer and the book coach to step back and look at the big picture before they turn to the pages.

This means not starting at Page 1.

This means not reading straight through the manuscript chronologically.

This means that the writer doesn’t just hand over their pages and their power.

This means that the manuscript reviewer (now book coach) doesn’t just put their head down and read.

This means that the process starts by thinking strategically.

How Do You Think Strategically About Revision? Enter the Blueprint*

Although I made the Blueprint to help writers start a book from scratch, the way I most often use it is to help people who are revising a manuscript.

It provides a tool and a process for thinking strategically and ensures that both the writer and coach pay attention to what matters most.

*Important note! Obviously, anyone can use my Blueprint method — I wrote three books about it. But only Author Accelerator Certified Coaches are authorized to teach it publicly in workshops, conferences, and online venues, and to publicly advertise Blueprint coaching services. The same goes for the Mini Blueprint, which is a powerful little one-page version of the Blueprint.

I teach a masterclass called The 3D Revision that teaches book coaches how to coach using this philosophy of revision, but it is only available for Author Accelerator Certified Coaches. It relies heavily on the ideas and concepts I teach in our main certification course, including the Blueprint itself, so it is reserved for folks who have gone through that program. If you are interested in our certification program, go to bookcoaches.com/abc

Here’s how it works:

The writer takes a week or two to work through the 14 Blueprint steps.

They write down why they are writing this book, who it is intended for, what point they are hoping to make, or what experience they are hoping their reader will have.

They write book jacket copy and a super simple version of the plot (fiction/memoir) or the TOC (nonfiction). They consider their title and ask key questions about structure.

They put the major elements of the story or idea into an outline — but not an exhaustive one with every single story beat or every single argument they are making in the book. In order to be effective, the outline must be extremely short — no more than 3 pages — so that you can see the shape and flow of it, and it must focus on the biggest problems that are likely to show up in that genre or category of book.

I know I sound bossy here; it’s just that this outline serves a very specific purpose: to allow us to see the story or the argument. We need to be able to examine it, stress test it, turn it over, and look at all sides of it, and the only way we can do that is if it is concise.

The answers to the 14 Blueprint questions and these specific kinds of outlines (called The Inside Outline for fiction; the Outcome Outline for nonfiction; and the Impact Outline for memoir) form the basis of the strategic conversation the writer and coach will have about the revision.

Asking the writer to do this assessment work before they hand over their for manuscript review yields profound insights. Is it easy for them to answer these 14 questions? Odds are good that means they’ve got a solid manuscript. Do they struggle with the most fundamental aspects of what they’ve written? That’s probably pointing to the places where the manuscript needs work.

The Blueprint review invites the writer into a process that is a different process from the writing process. Instead of looking at the words on the page, they are asking themselves, Where does this work align with my intention and where do I think there is still work to be done?

Writers know.

Sometimes a writer will come right out and say they have not written the book they really wanted to write. Other times, they will correctly identify that the first half of the book is great but the second half is not (or vice versa.) They often know if the book is too short or too long or if it veers off in a direction that doesn’t work. They often identify parts of the work they love and that they want to bring to the forefront in the revision.

If you give them the time, space, and most importantly the support to honestly assess their work — including identifying where that work shines — you are empowering them to take ownership of their work. You are helping build their confidence as a writer. You are teaching them how to find their voice. There is so much goodness in this process!

Once the writer has done the Blueprint, the book coach can enter into a conversation around these ideas, bringing curiosity and insight to the task of making a strategic revision plan — and all this before they spend whole days reviewing the manuscript. The back-and-forth discussion around the Blueprint is usually fantastically productive.

Revision is primarily a strategic undertaking, but most people don't approach it that way. The Blueprint gives you a process for making strategy a priority.

So When Do You Turn To Evaluating The Full Manuscript?

You might not do it right away.

You might guide the writer to go in and surgically repair something that appears throughout the manuscript like a thread in a tapestry.

You might work with the writer on only the first three chapters or only the last three.

You might add or subtract or fix a certain POV.

You might work on a subplot or a particular concept — again, tracing that element of the book throughout the manuscript rather than coming across it intermittently during a chronological read.

If what needs help is something around voice — in nonfiction, for example, if a journalist or a lawyer is too fact-based in their writing, or an academic writer is too reliant on citing other thinkers rather than embracing their own authority — you can work on voice. You might invite the writer to revise one or two chapters, working on finding the language and rhythm that is uniquely theirs. You might work on that same chapter until their writer feels it — and then ask them to apply that newfound voice to two more chapters at a time.

Working through the Blueprint allows you to work on the part of the manuscript that needs the most work.

The book coach might only turn to evaluate the complete manuscript when all the parts of it are shored up — and then, what we are doing is reading for the experience of the work and the flow of it. We can bring a more nuanced eye to the work because we don’t have to be on the lookout for major plot holes in a novel or big logical issues in a nonfiction book; we know they have already been addressed.

Revising in this strategic and collaborative way is so effective that I long ago stopped doing full manuscript reads as the first step in the revision process. It no longer makes sense to me for me to spend my time that way or for a writer to spend their money.

My Revision Philosophy

In a nutshell, my philosophy on revision is the same as my philosophy on writing in general:

Think before you write.

The novelist Jorge Luis Borges said that “art is fire plus algebra.”

We all know what the fire feels like — the spark of the idea, the flash of the story we must tell, the wisdom we are passionate about sharing with readers, the deep yearning and ambition that keeps us sitting down and putting words on the page with the belief that we can move our someday readers.

But most of us need the algebra to make it all work. We need the intention, the strategy, the prioritizing — and there is nowhere in the creative process that is more true than with revision.

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Join the Blueprint! If you would like your writers to experience some Blueprint coaching, or you would like that, check out the Summer Blueprint Sprint at the #amwriting podcast — a ten-week limited-edition podcast series with me and KJ Dell’Antonia, a New York Times bestselling novelist who is also an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach. There will also be weekly AMAs and write-alongs hosted by Author Accelerator Certified Coaches. Head over to the #amwriting Substack.

Cool coincidence! Author Accelerator Certified Coach Monica Cox just wrote a great piece on a similar idea over at Jane Friedman’s blog. You can read it here.

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