In December 2009 I signed up for Holly Lisle’s latest Writers’ Boot Camp course, “How To Revise Your Novel”. The course was a revelation, helping to turn my revisions from panicky flailing around in a morass of conflicting ideas, into a methodical process where I felt in control. And I ended up selling the manuscript in a three book deal, so obviously it works 
The course lasts five months* and is priced at $49.95 a month, for which you get a weekly lesson to download and complete in your own time, plus lifetime access to the HTRYN forums. There’s no exam at the end – you are in this to improve your writing skills, so if you don’t put in the time, no-one loses out but you.
* Since you work at your own pace, you can take as long as you like. It actually took me nine months to complete the revision, then another month to make some additional changes suggested by my beta-readers.
For a taster of what’s involved, here’s the course outline:
- How to Create Your Target
- Discover Your Promises
- How To Triage Your Scenes
- How To Triage Your Plot
- How To Triage Your Conflict
- How To Triage Your Characters
- How To Triage Your World
- Discover Your Story and Theme
- How Manuscript Surgery Works
- Story and Theme, Take Two
- Commit to Your Keeper Characters
- Rework Your Plots and Subplots
- Tracking and Completing All Your Conflicts
- Working With Simple Time
- Working with Complex Time
- Learning To Become Consistent
- Hands on – Block Revision
- Line Editing With Style and Grace
- How To Improve Dialogue, Description, Action, and Flow
- Final Write-In With Scenes and Chapters
- Type-In – Preparing the Final Manuscript
- How To Modify This Course Into A One-Pass Revision
For more information, visit How To Revise Your Novel: Get the book you want from the book you have.
