The first draft of a novel is a glorious, chaotic mess. There’s no other way to describe it. You get the idea, you chase it, you lasso it onto the page while it’s still half-feral and snarling, and for a while, it feels like triumph. Like art. Like the great masterpiece has arrived in the form of a blinking cursor and 90,000 words that you just know are at least 87% brilliant.
Then you reread it.
And suddenly, the characters are arguing in circles, the pacing is wheezing on life support, and your once-glorious plot twist is waving at you from page 12 like, “Hey. Remember me? You forgot to follow up on me… ever.”
Welcome to the rewrite.
Editing my own novels was not my first choice. But as an independent author, there’s not exactly a surplus budget for that professional, polish-it-till-it-shines touch. I remember getting a quote of $800 to edit Duality, my first novel. When I asked about Vitae, the number jumped to $1200. By the time I finished Hey, Roomie! I didn’t even bother asking. That quote would’ve had me clutching my chest like a Victorian widow.
So I learned to do it myself. Not haphazardly—I studied. I researched editing guides, watched tutorials, read blogs by seasoned editors. I did my best to absorb everything I could so I wouldn’t accidentally dismantle my own stories in the process. I’m not perfect. But who is?
Over time, I stopped seeing rewriting as punishment and started viewing it as craftsmanship. The raw material—the ideas, the dialogue, the plot bones—are already there. Now it’s about carving. Shaping. Honing. Sometimes hacking. But always refining.
One rule that’s stayed with me: trimming is better than adding. Yes, sometimes a scene needs more punch, or you realize a character’s arc needs another moment to land. But if your rough draft is 320 pages, your second draft shouldn’t be 415. It’s not a buffet. It’s a meal—intentional, paced, and satisfying.
That said, I never fully delete anything I cut. I’ve got a “Snippets” file the size of a novella, full of scenes, paragraphs, and stray sentences that didn’t fit their original home. But that doesn’t mean they’re useless. A few of those wayward moments found their way into Vitae and Hey, Roomie! later on—just needed a new outfit and a little backstory, and they were ready for the main stage.
I’ve also noticed a curious pattern in my editing: the beginning of the novel almost always needs the heaviest hand. By the time I’ve reached the middle and end, I’ve spent dozens—sometimes hundreds—of pages with these characters. We know each other. I know how they move, how they speak, what they’re hiding. The start, though? That’s the awkward first date. It usually needs more rewrites, more finesse. Less coffee breath, more clarity.
My process is part instinct, part ritual. I do full read-throughs and editing passes at least six times before I even think about letting beta readers see it. If something’s not ready, I won’t send it. Period. I want their focus on the story, not on spelling errors or clunky syntax.
As for tools, I still use good ol’ Microsoft Word for the manuscript. It’s what I know. Scrivener was gifted to me, and I fully intend to use it… someday. Probably. But lately, I’ve been loving Atticus for ebook formatting. It’s intuitive, sleek, and by far the easiest conversion tool I’ve used.
Reading my work aloud has become one of the sharpest tools in my kit. There’s something about hearing the rhythm that reveals every awkward sentence and unintentional echo. Especially after experiencing audiobook narration firsthand. Writing for the ear is a whole different animal—and it taught me a lot about pacing, flow, and how to keep your sentences from tripping over themselves like toddlers with shoelaces untied.
Rewriting isn’t glamorous. It’s not fast. It’s rarely easy. But it’s necessary. It’s where the magic settles into the bones. It’s where you stop chasing the spark and start building the fire. It’s when the story becomes real—not just for the reader, but for you.
And if you’re lucky, you fall in love with the story all over again—not for what it could be, but for what it’s becoming.
xo Ametra.
