How to Edit a Book in 30 Days
30 days ago, I was caught in the 'second draft death zone' with my book.
I hadn't made any solid progress after finishing my first draft 5 months ago. So when Nat Eliason told me that, inspired by my 50k words in 30 days project earlier this year, he was going to embark on a mission to write 120K words in one month, I asked if could I join in and do my own sprint.
My goal was to get out of the 2nd draft death zone and edit my entire draft in one month.
And I did it in just 24 days!
This draft improved my book by 9% (according to Claude)
I took 7 days off for family + close friends, and still got this done in 1 week ahead of schedule! 30 day sprints are effective for me to reach big goals, even with life getting in the way.
So if you've stalled on editing your own book, here's a day-by-day breakdown of what it was like to edit a book in 30 days so you can have an emotional support person when you do it, too!
THE PLAN
Draft Focus: Increasing the story's Conflict and Suspense.
- I had 31 days between Aug 19th and September 19th
- I planned to spend 9 of those days visiting family and friends
So I had 22 work days to edit this draft.
There was 91,084 words in my draft when I began
That’s an average of editing 4,140 words per day.
I thought this would be doable but turns out, it was a lot more work than I thought! (still doable though!)
I finished in 24 days
that's 7 days early!
Total words in book 104,594
- I wrote an additional 13,510 words (avg of 563 words a day)
I took 7 days off to spend with family and friends, which means I completed the challenge with 17 (very busy) days of work.
Day 1:
8/19/2024
My goal: get out of the 2nd draft death zone and edit my entire draft in one month.
I started today. Viewing my draft again after so long was brutal. I envisioned myself publishing this piece of shit as-is and my esteemed friends reading it.
"Wait, Madison Taskett wrote this? Didn't she say she could write?" and they'd throw back their heads and laugh and laugh and laugh.
And no one would ever read anything I've written, ever again.
I snapped back to reality, deleted my manuscript, and decided to run off into the countryside and farm goats for a living.
The end.
...
Jk.
Daily goal: 4,140 words/day.
Today: 5,204 words
- I think I wrote an additional ~1,000 words as I came upon parts that needed additional conflict.
Most Important Learning:
Doing sprints with deadlines solves crazy-big problems that can stall me for months
- I've been stuck on some key problems with my draft which is why I've barely touched it. Today I had to pick an answer to the problem and roll with it.
- Turns out, the solutions to the problems with my book do not have to be perfect. Choosing action is always going to be better than waiting for the 'best' possible solution that may never arrive.
Other Learnings:
- I moved Airbnbs today and it was not only very stressful, but took ~6 hours out of my day, I expected it to take two hours and be fairly chill.
- Everything will take longer and be harder than I expect
- I am so glad I took this challenge on during a month when I have a LOT of distractions. Life is never going to have perfect conditions. If I don't do ambitious things when life is messy, then I'll never do ambitious things, period.
Idk if I'll keep posting here daily, more likely I will tweet when I have a good update.
Day 2: 10 Hours of Editing 😭
Today: 4558 words (I'm not ahead of goal though- I just keep adding more to the book)
34 Pages Edited so Far
I thought this challenge would be easier than the 'writing 50k in 30 days' challenge (laughs and cries at the same time)
I did 10 hours of editing today.
Honestly tho- I love this work. Even if I am frustrated. I can't believe I'm done and now I'm writing more instead of chilling out, smh.
Why is an editing sprint harder than a writing sprint?
I find things from earlier editings that I need to redo.
I see my book as a huge intertwined web of everything that happens. And so when I change something in one part of the web, it might mean I have to go back and change other things that happened before it. Every tap on the silk can be felt everywhere in the web.
I changed some key details from yesterday's section, and it took hours. I don't have enough time to make things perfect so if I think of better changes, I'll keep ripping things out and replacing them. I do think it's getting better.
I think the beginning of the book will be the hardest to edit, because the set-up is the weakest part of my book. The middle lacks a lot of conflict and suspense though, and will be a close second. The end will likely be the easiest.
K I'm gonna go watch something mindless and pretend I'm a zombie.
Hugs,
Madi
PS: I saw a groundhog in my airbnb's backyard today and it wagged its tail like a chonky little dog and I didn't know groundhogs were really a thing (they don't live in the Western half of the US) and I want to name them all Lasagna and hug them.
Day 3: the invisible work of editing
Today: 6,866 words 😭 (I'm barely ahead of goal- I just keep adding more to the book)
57 Pages Edited so Far
Learning: I write characters' actions while forgetting their reactions
Every scene in a book is comprised of actions and reactions. In my first draft, I wrote very few reactions.
Example: the main character turns down a promotion she's worked for years to get, and quits her dream company to move to a mysterious city that she can't leave or contact her family from. When she gets to that city, I just have her move forward- I never show her missing her job or her family, or being scared that's she's in a different society that she can't escape. Adding her reactions to these things creates crucial tension and connection.
Learning: 4k words of editing is so much more than just 4k words of editing
On top of the editing, there's also new writing involved and it can be a lot more work than it appears.
When I was doing the 50k/30 days goal, my avg daily writing goal was just under 1700 words.
Today, I not only edited 4,573 words, but wrote an additional 2,293 words on top of that. That writing alone is equal to one of my most prolific days during my last challenge, WITHOUT adding on the editing piece. Holy hell.
Today was an 8 hour day, which isn't bad. It's 9:30 pm and I feel SO ready for bed. This work is exhausting (but I also absolutely love it).
I've also been trying to read a chapter of 'Conflict and Suspense' every night, so I can learn craft and immediately apply it to my editing. This 30 day sprint is a sprint for sure!
Day 4: Real Life gets in the Way
Today: 6,034 words
81 Pages Edited so Far
My youngest sister got into town a couple hours ago. I'm going to take the next couple of days to focus 100% on her.
I calculated my family time into my daily word count goal before I started this challenge, so it's all good.
When Nat first said he was doing a sprint, I thought about bowing out because I have almost 1/3 of this coming month with family. But I'm so thankful to do this challenge during an imperfect time. I want to write and edit many books, and there will never be a month where I'm just sitting alone in a house with no commitments and no responsibilities. Real life is real life. And if I can do something like this during a month where I'm not touching my computer 1/3 of the time, then I'll be able to write and edit during almost anything.
Day 8: It's not Writer's Block, it's Writer's Wall
Today: 7,174 (killl meeeee)
133 Pages Edited so Far
I think the hardest part of this isn't the writing work. It's the emotional work. Every morning I'm like, "Is this book any good? Is this a waste of my time?" And every morning I have to just push through it. I think this is normal. I have absurdly high standards for my writing, and I doubt I'll ever reach my own expectations.
I spent all of Friday and Saturday with my youngest sister. I didn't touch my book. It felt so freeing. She visited me a couple years ago and I couldn't just sit and be in the moment with her and it killed me (and I wrote a short post about it), so it was really lovely to see that I can be 100% present with her now.
She left Sunday morning and I spent the rest of the day writing in the most magical place (pictured below).
It's much harder to come back from a break than it is to write every day. It's like there's this invisible wall that grows taller and stronger the longer I go without touching my book. And once I've been writing for an hour or so, the wall disappears. It's there every morning, but it's thin like paper when I write regularly, and thick like steel when I take month-long breaks or longer.
Day 9: internal vs external conflict
Today: 6,120 words
155 Pages Edited so Far
Every day I fix something new only to break something else in the process.
Today, it's all about internal vs external conflict.
internal conflict: emotional/spiritual conflict
- ex: family disputes, boss/employee butting heads, love triangles, secrets that are revealed, etc.
external conflict: things that are happening in the outside world that affect the character
- ex: a war that might kill the character or someone they love, a monster loose in the town, a fatal disease, an enemy of some sort that is always drawing nearer and getting more dangerous
The ratio of internal/external conflict varies based on genre, and it's a delicate balance to strike the right chord within the genre you choose.
I've done a good job of upping the internal conflict of the book so far, but now it's starting to read more like a soap opera than a sci-fi book. I need to add in a lot more external conflict to balance it out.
In my book, I've been waiting to introduce a key piece of external conflict. I have good reasons for this, but it's seriously harming my story. There's a right time to introduce plot points and I don't have it down yet.
Day 10: A New Record
Today: 8,296 words (a new record)
186 Pages Edited so Far
"I really don't want to do this today. I just don't want to fucking do this today!" I say aloud, mock-crying. It's 4:34pm. I have one scene left till I'm done.
The quality of my first draft makes or breaks my editing. Today, the original writing I had to work with was awful, and I wrote entire scenes from scratch and deleted a bunch of stuff that just didn't work at all, and I wondered if I was even cut out to be an author.
But then my final scene of the day (the one at 4:34, it's now 5:11pm, update, it's 7:29pm and I kept working for a while) was well-written. In fact, it's utterly delightful and witty and deep and now I'm over my quota, going down more pages, editing it further and further and having a delicious time with it.
I'm totally cut out to be an author! I'll be a great author! I'll be the best author the world has ever seen!
Until tomorrow, when I have to edit another shit scene, and I'm suddenly trash again.
Anyhow, I am exhausted.
Tomorrow I'm going to see my college bestie. I'll be out of commission for 4 whole days. See you on Tuesday!
Day 16: Messy Middle
Today: 4,266 words
221 Pages Edited so Far
I'm back from a long weekend of hanging out with my college bestie, her husband and their 1 year old kiddo. It was wonderful.
On Thursday, I thought I could take my 5-10 hour day and condense it to two hours. I failed. Today I basically had to redo all of Thursdays work and then do today's work. I'm exhausted.
The problem wasn't just the workload, it's that I was editing the middle of my book. Frankly, I still don't know what needs to happen with my book's messy middle... it's a constant battle between wanting to do my best editing but also knowing that I am not gonna get it perfect right now and I have to accept that.
My book has huge holes. I am slowly learning how to fill them, but I have to work faster than I can think.
Next time I do a sprint like this, I think I need to bake in 'big picture days' once a week, where I tackle large issues that necessitate me going back through the book and fixing a ton of things instead of just focusing on the 4,000 pages in front of me.
Day 17: Crash and Burn
Today: 4,363 words
238 Pages Edited so Far
I recently saw an IG story from a successful content creator where he admitted that on average, 1 day of each week is a wash for him. Maybe he didn't sleep well, maybe he trained too hard the day before, maybe he's sick, maybe he's got a headache, whatever, one day a week, he knows it's gonna be hard to not-doable for him to do good work.
Today is that day for me. I did my editing but it wasn't good. I am going to rest for the rest of the day. See you tomorrow.
Day 18: Low Point
Today: ~4,200 words
260 Pages Edited so Far
At the gym this morning, setting a 'rest' timer on my phone between sets, when the numbers started disappearing from my vision.
You've got to be kidding me. And after I wasted yesterday?
I drove home, rainbows streaking in front of my eyes, trying not to get upset, taking ibuprofen, curling in bed with the curtains drawn, feeling the migraine set in, unable to see, unable to think, unable to form words in my mind.
Sure, I got my editing done today. But I wanted to do an amazing job, and I didn't come close. But I can't beat myself up for it.
I've been working out consistently for almost a year now, and there have been many days where my workouts have been at 75%, 50%, even 25% capacity. But a day of showing up poorly is always better skipping out completely. It's the bad days that are the most important, because I'm building discipline.
My draft is choppy. There are parts where I did a stellar job writing the first draft, and other parts where I'm like wtf was I thinking, this is trash. I can tell that on those days, past Madi didn't have it in her to do her best work. But I'm not mad at her, because she got me to a finished first draft of a novel. She gave me something to work with.
I'm sure I'll feel this way about editing Madi, too. And I'm sure that with time, I'll get better at writing and editing, even on my worst days, but I will always have my worst days, and my work will never be fully consistent, and I will hopefully always be thankful for whatever I can do on the days that I do it.
I just gotta rest and do my best and let it go.
Day 19: sex scene
Today: 7,107 words
281 Pages Edited so Far
I'm rubbish at writing sex scenes.
Even though these characters don't exist, it still feels like I'm peering through the windows at something too private for my eyes. It's also difficult to handle such an emotional moment in the book.
The best thing I've done to the scene so far is add a sentence of sadness. This scene is mostly happy, so one sad moment adds depth to the entire scene.
It's like, on Wednesday I went to an apple stand at the farmer's market. The farmer had about 12 different kinds of fresh apples.
"Do you want sweet? Sour? Or sweet with some tang?"
"Sweet with some tang!"
Of course I want both! The hint of sour only heightens the sweetness. I do that with really emotional scenes in my book, too.
Anyhow, I think I made the scene kinda cool. There's only one in the book. Hopefully it suffices.
Day 20: Editing Isn't Linear
Today: 4,856 words
303 Pages Edited so Far
I thought book editing was linear. I would edit roughly 4200 words a day for 22 days and then I'd be done with conflict and suspense for my novel.
lol
Now that I'm 3/4 of the way through my sprint, I'm seeing that editing is more like a patchwork quilt. One square of 4200 words on one day turns out really well, maybe that quilt patch is a really vivid color, new and soft to the touch. The writing in there is chock-full of great conflict and suspense. But on another patch, a different set 4200 words look like old greasy brown paper that's used to wrap fast food in. One day of working on those words is nowhere near enough.
On top of that, as I go along, I find big concepts that need me to go back through the whole book and re-concept parts of it. It's like taking a seam ripper to parts of the quilt and stitching them back together in different patterns. But I don't have time on my sprint to really do that.
So I'm going to finish my 'edit a book in 31 days' challenge on time (maybe early) but... not really.
I am guessing this is totally normal.
And either way, I'm doing the damn work. I'll work till I sleep again tonight. On a Saturday. I love it. I love it so much. Just thinking about it is getting me teary eyed. I feel so incredibly thankful to be able to struggle right now and to try to write a good book. This is all I've ever wanted, and it's here, and I'm doing it!, and wow and wow and wow
Day 21: omg a good day
Today: 5,733 words
324 Pages Edited so Far
Damn, today's writing is good.
I would totally devour this book if it was all written like today.
It's such a relief to know that I have it in me.
Day 22: How I Visually Edit My Book
Today: 4,339 words
339 Pages Edited so Far
Would you like to see how I visually edit my book?
For my first draft, I use Scrivener, but for editing, I use a google doc.
I'll highlight things with different colors. Blue is saved for my future 'world building' draft, and pink (not pictured) is conflict and suspense stuff that I need to come back to.
Here's an example (note: this scene is rough and not final in any way)
In the example above, I have no idea what Vogel's house should look like, because I don't really know what the world they live in looks like. I'll figure out all of that stuff when I do a draft solely focusing on world building.
In addition to highlights, I'll leave comments with concepts to come back to or things to keep in mind. Here's an example of a comment:
In the above example, I have a small scene that could be cool in the book, but I don't know where. So I comment how I want the scene to contribute to the theme. That way when I find a spot for it, I'll know what to do.
I'll also leave myself little encouraging notes so that I remember I'm a decent writer and it's all gonna be okay.
Anyhow, these are just some examples from today's editing, might not be the best, and certainly not polished at all, but gives you an idea!
Day 23: I'm 'In It'
Today: 6,465 words
✨6377 words remaining in my draft! ✨
359 Pages Edited so Far
I'm really in the book now.
When I make my morning coffee. When I'm at the gym. When I dream at night. I'm in the book. It's all I think about and all I want to talk about.
I spend roughly 8-10 hours a day editing. It's thrilling, it's fun, it's boring, it's hard, my book is amazing, my book is trash, I'm too close to it to see anything clearly.
Day 24: DONE
Today: FINISHED (6,846 words today)
385 Pages in the Draft
I've edited the entire draft! Woohoo! Seven days early too!
I bought myself fancy apples from my apple dealer to celebrate. (Yes I have an apple dealer. Today's apples were a cultivar from 1600s France. I am living my best life.)
I improved the book ~9% with these edits
This is based on me asking Claude a zillion different ways to rank both drafts, and on average it ranked my current draft about 9% better than the one before it.
I would give you a prompt to use for your own book, but Claude gave biased rankings to all of my prompts, and so I would not recommend any specific prompt of mine for an honest ranking from Claude.
I think Claude wants to be too nice. I got my best results from asking it to be especially critical.
Next Steps: doing another full-book edit focusing solely on external conflict. This edit sprint heightened the internal conflict a ton, but I didn't do as good a job on the external conflict of the book. I actually might attempt to do this through doing a 'World Building' draft next (as I think that'll add a lot to the external conflict but idk). We'll see!
What I know for sure: I'm gonna take a few days off and eat my creepy french apples and go hiking.
Thanks for joining me on this journey! If you liked it, consider staying updated to get my best writing when I write it 👇