Step Five:

Revise and Edit

As you saw, during the writing process of the first draft, I did edit it and make revisions as my outline evolved and I needed to fix the continuity errors as a result; however, those were only minor changes and adding a line or two here or there where I needed it, and running it through a quick spell check on occasion. Once I finished the first draft, I went through Part 1 and went over all of my editing, revising, and beta notes, and changed what and however much I could.

Then I let it sit for a month as I continued to either outline Part 2, or work on other projects. Once I gave it enough of a break, I read through it again. My main concerns were the "too summarized" parts, and adding more imagery and sensations so that the story came alive and was more inviting of the world instead of jumping from one event to another.

The original idea was to then find a few betas and have them pick apart the story, and do another round of revision and editing, but, by this point, I was more eager to work on my numerous other projects, so I published it as is and placed author notes at the bottom of each chapter with all of the questions I would have asked betas. Then, as readers read and commented their thoughts, I would write Part 2 (if I finished outlining by then). Once I finished writing the first draft of Part 2, it would receive the same treatment of Part 1 of a round of revising and editing. Once I finish that step, I'll go through the reader's comments and see if there are any glaring mistakes or improvements I could make to Part 1, and revise and edit it. Once revising and editing Part 1 for the final time is done, I'd start posting Part 2, and later, after maybe six months or a year, I'll consider giving Part 2 that final revising and editing step.

Of course, this is for fan fiction. If this was for an original story that I contemplated publishing, there would be numerous rounds of revising and editing, and I would absolutely work harder to finding professional betas, and hire professional editors rather than working on my projects solely on my own.

However, the point of this project isn't "How do I publish my story, step-by-step?" it's "How do I work with an outline?" and I showed you how I worked with mine by showing you how I made mine flexible and able to consider new and fresh ideas as I wrote the story.