What should I fix first in a novel revision?
- Fix order is fixed: structure → scenes → sentences.
- Structure first: plot logic, act turns, scene order, what the book is about.
- Scenes second: does each individual scene earn its place and do its job.
- Sentences last: rhythm, word choice, dialogue, line-level polish.
- Polishing sentences before fixing structure wastes 20-40% of revision time on cut material.
Fix structure first, then scenes, then sentences. Start with the biggest layer — does the plot hold together, do the act turns land, is the book about something — before touching individual scenes, and touch sentences last of all. Working top-down means you never spend hours polishing prose in a chapter that the structural pass deletes.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Revision energy is finite, and the order you spend it in decides whether the book improves or just churns. Line-editing a scene that gets cut in the structural pass is pure waste, and it is the most common revision mistake new novelists make. Fixing the load-bearing layer first means every later pass operates on material that is staying in the book.
Chapter ii·What to include
- Layer 1 — structure: plot causality, act/midpoint turns, scene order, theme, premise.
- Layer 2 — scenes: purpose, conflict, and consequence in each individual scene.
- Layer 3 — sentences: voice, rhythm, dialogue, redundancy, word choice.
- A "do not descend early" rule: resist fixing prose while structure is unsettled.
- A cut-first mindset: decide what stays before improving how it reads.
- A pass-per-layer schedule so layers never blur together.
Chapter iii·Example
A thriller author itches to fix a clumsy chapter-two paragraph, but forces herself to run the structural pass first. The pass reveals chapter two is redundant with chapter five and cuts it entirely — the paragraph she wanted to polish no longer exists. Only after the structure settles does she descend to scene work, then to the line pass. She estimates the discipline saved three weeks she would have spent polishing deleted pages.
WriteLoom's Edit studio runs revision top-down — structure, then scenes, then sentences — so you never polish prose that a later pass deletes.
See the Edit studio