About this podcast
Supporting fiction writers doing the hard work of revising unputdownable novels. The novel editing process is the creative crucible where you discover the story you truly want to tell—and it can present some of the most challenging moments on your writing journey.
Developmental editor and book coach Alice Sudlow will be your companion through the mess and magic of revision. You’ll get inspired by interviews with authors, editors, and coaches sharing their revision processes; gain practical tips from Alice’s editing practice; and hear what real revision truly requires as Alice workshops scenes-in-progress with writers.
It’s all a quest to discover: How do you figure out what your story is truly about? How do you determine what form that story should take? And once you do, how do you shape the hundreds of thousands of words you've written into the story’s most refined and powerful form?
If you’ve written a draft—or three—but are still searching for your story’s untapped potential, this is the podcast for you. Together, let’s dig into the difficult and delightful work of editing your next draft.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 103 episodes
- Are You Chasing the Wrong Olympic Gold? · 25 min · Episode 102This skater didn't win an Olympic medal, and I'm obsessed with him. I watched Cha Jun-Hwan’s figure skating routine last week in the Olympic men’s short program competition. I…
- How Will You Know When Your Novel Is Done? · 21 min · Episode 101When will you be truly satisfied with your novel? How will you know when you’ve succeeded? How will you know when you’re done? Will it be when you LOVE your book? When you stop…
- 6 Reasons to Love Editing (From People Who Actually Do) · 29 min · Episode 100What if editing isn’t drudgery, but the most delightful part of your writing process? So you’re revising yet another draft. You’re hoping against hope that this draft will be…
- What Makes a Story Excellent? (And How to Know When You've Reached It) · 20 min · Episode 99Is story excellence something you "know when you see it"—or can it actually be measured? Is excellence defined by hitting bestseller lists? Filling seats at every book tour stop?…
- What to Do When Feedback Gets You Stuck · 15 min · Episode 98If you get feedback that grinds you to a halt, there's a problem. But YOU are not the problem—the feedback is. Recently, a writer came to me with feedback she was struggling to…
- 3 Non-Obvious Problems Hiding in Well-Developed Drafts · 22 min · Episode 97If the line writing is lovely, but the story still falls flat, check for these surprisingly hard-to-spot problems. You’ve written a draft of your novel. It’s a pretty good draft…
- What Genre REALLY Measures (And Why Every Genre You Try Feels Wrong) · 21 min · Episode 96What do you do when your genre just refuses to work? When you’ve tried every content genre you know—Action, Crime, Horror, Thriller, Performance, Love, Society, and more—and…
- Where the Turning Point Goes (And How to Know If Yours Is in the Right Place) · 17 min · Episode 95If you’re second-guessing your pacing, give your turning point this two-part check. Where the heck is the turning point? If you’ve ever tried to spot the turning point in a story…
- Turning Point: How to Find and Write the Moment That Changes Everything · 27 min · Episode 94It's the hinge your entire story turns on—and one of the hardest story elements to identify and write. Can I be honest? I struggled with turning points for years. I knew they…
- The Hidden Half of Your Protagonist's Goal (That Makes Story Structure Work) · 20 min · Episode 93If your structure is perfect on paper, but your story still falls flat, this might be what you're missing. Have you ever structured a story with all the right pieces, but…
- When Should You Work With an Editor? (It's Earlier Than You Think) · 17 min · Episode 92What if you've already done enough to work with an editor—right now? You’ve been working on your novel for so long. Not just months—years, maybe even decades. And yet you have a…
- How to Use Genre as a Revision Tool (with Savannah Gilbo) · 1 h 18 min · Episode 91Here’s what to DO with your genre once you know which one you’re writing. So you know your story’s genre. It’s an Action story with a Worldview internal genre. Or it’s a Love…
- The 12 Core Genres That Power Every Great Story · 22 min · Episode 90Genre isn’t what you think it is. Here’s how to use it better. Genre. Let me guess: It’s the bane of your existence. A convoluted soup of arbitrary descriptors that almost but…
- How Great First Lines Make Readers Pay Attention (with Abigail K. Perry) · 47 min · Episode 89It is a truth universally acknowledged that a fiction writer in possession of a brilliant story must craft a captivating opening line. No pressure, right? Your opening line is…
- Where Progressive Complications Go WRONG (and How to Fix Them) · 30 min · Episode 88Are your readers bored? Disappointed? Confused? Here's what that tells you about your story's middle. You’re stuck in the messy middle. Languishing in the doldrums of your story…
- Make Sense of Your Messy Middle With the Most Underrated Story Element · 28 min · Episode 87You don’t need more filler. You need better progressive complications. Your inciting incident hooks your readers and promises them a story they’ll love. And then comes the…
- How Great First Chapters Make Readers Care (with Abigail K. Perry) · 1 h 12 min · Episode 86Your first chapter has a monumental task: to make potential readers care about your book right away and hook them to keep reading. Every sentence is a chance to earn your…
- Inciting Incident: How to Revise an Unputdownable Beginning · 26 min · Episode 85Your inciting incident sets the stage for everything that follows. Here's what to revise so it can carry the story. A great inciting incident does a lot of heavy lifting. → It…
- What If You Do Everything Right and the Book Launch Still Goes Wrong? with A.S. King · 51 min · Episode 84“It really broke my heart, actually. . . . For the rest of my life, it will break my heart.” A.S. King gets honest about what happened when the publishing industry failed her…
- Think You Need a Line Editor? Try This First · 28 min · Episode 83Do you need to hire a line editor? Or should you line edit your manuscript yourself? After all, you want to write an excellent novel. You know that great writing takes shape in…
