The Unskippable Process to Create Unputdownable Books

If you want to craft stories that matter, the ones that represent your very best work, the kinds of novels that readers will adore and keep thinking about long after they read . . .

. . . then there’s one thing you must do.

It’s not popular. But it’s essential if you truly want to craft your best work.

 Picture this: one year from now, you’re holding your book in your hands. You see the gorgeous cover art, feel the slight resistance when you open the cover for the first time, run your hands over the soft, smooth paper, flip the pages and smell that delicious new book smell.

Or better yet: you’re holding your book, but it’s just six months from now.

Or three months.

Or six weeks.

Does that sound amazing? Holding your book in your hands six months from now?

Being done soon is so tempting.

But honestly? I think you’ll find that it won’t actually satisfy you.

Just being done soon won’t lead to a book you’re proud of, a book you love, a book that accomplishes everything you know it can be.

Does it sound amazing to imagine holding your book in your hands six months from now . . . and still not feel creatively fulfilled?

To flip the pages and know that there’s more you could still fix?

To skim the lines and cringe just a little?

To picture the glorious story vivid in your imagination and wonder what your readers will miss because you couldn’t quite capture it on the page?

No, that doesn’t sound delightful? I didn’t think so.

Finishing books fast is popular. Speed sells.

The book world is filled with services promising to help you finish your book fast. If your dream is to hold your book in your hands this year, there are tons of people out there who can help you make that happen.

But after years of helping writers who seek to craft their very best books, the ones they’re truly proud of, I’ve found that speed is not what you need to get there.

In this article, I’ll show you what the true work of revising a novel really is, why trying to speed through it will actually hold you back, and what to do instead—so that when you finish, the book you share with the world is one you’re immeasurably proud of.

“By the End of the Year”

The book creation world is saturated with promises of speed. Write a book in six months, or three months, or one month. Edit that book in six months, or six weeks. Or six minutes, with the power of AI.

I have lost count of how many times I’ve spoken with writers and they tell me they want to publish this book “by the end of the year.” We could be talking in January or November. They could be on their seventeenth draft or their second.

It doesn’t matter—their goal is “by the end of the year,” regardless of what that might mean for their creative process or the book they produce.

And there are so many organizations offering writer services whose primary sales pitch is all about helping writers meet those speed goals. If you really want to publish a book “by the end of the year,” there’s no shortage of services that will help you do that.

The Seduction of Speed

When the book world makes grandiose promises like “write and publish your book in 90 days,” and when writers tell me their goal is to be published by the end of the year, the pain point they’re pointing to is the same: time.

The time you spend on this project. As if the one and only challenge with your book, the one thing keeping you from your novelist dreams, is time, and the fact that books take a lot of it.

I think there are a few reasons why we’re all seduced by speed.

Maybe we think of a year as a really dang long time, and we imagine, surely, I’ll be finished with this project by the end of a really dang long time.

Or maybe the writers seeking speed are working on their first books, and they don’t yet know what it takes to go from first draft to published book. The journey from first draft to published book is a total mystery to anyone who hasn’t gone through it. They haven’t experienced the creative process all the way through, and they simply don’t know how long it really takes.

Or maybe it’s because we’re just so inundated with messages about how fast you can create a book, and those get translated into pressure we put on ourselves about how soon we should be done.

Whatever the cause, the result is the same: we are eager to finish our books soon. Wouldn’t you like that? To be done soon?

The False Problem We Want to Solve

The thing is, when you pin your hopes here, you’re imagining a future where you have a published book SOON, and because of that alone, you are happy. More than that, you’re satisfied. Proud. You feel creatively fulfilled, like you’ve accomplished the staggeringly difficult goal you set yourself.

That simply isn’t true. That’s not how this works. Getting your published book in your hands faster won’t lead to the fulfillment you’re seeking.

And that’s because all these solutions focused on speed are solving the wrong problem.

Worse, when you follow the lure of speed, not only do you get caught up solving the wrong problem—that speed actually takes you further away from solving the true problem.

The True Problem We Need to Solve

The true problem is not that your book isn’t published yet.

The true problem is that there is a gap between what your manuscript is and what you know it could be.

The true problem is that when you read your pages as they are right now, they don’t match what you envision your story could be. Something isn’t quite translating from your imagination to the page. The rich and beautiful story world, the irresistible plot, the unforgettable characters you see in your mind’s eye—well, on the page, they’re dull, forgettable, extremely resistible.

And if you’re honest with yourself, if you were to rush to print right now, you wouldn’t feel creative fulfillment. You’d actually feel disappointment, dissatisfaction, like in some way you’d let yourself and your story down.

This is the true pain point: the gap between what your book is and what you want it to be. Between the impact it has and the impact you know it could have. Between how much you cringe when you reread your pages and how proud you want to be of every single word.

The Temptation to Speed

It is really, really tempting to try to solve this problem with speed.

After all, we’re used to two day shipping and instant streaming and fast food—in short, we’re accustomed to solving problems quickly.

Our expectations for speed in every other area of our lives bleed over into the creative realm, too. Never mind that crafting a novel is not like optimizing a shipping route. If we could get ourselves out of the discomfort of creating and into the comfort of having created in just two days, we absolutely would.

And it’s not just that we’re used to solving problems quickly. The great thing about addressing a problem by going faster is that it doesn’t require you to do anything different. It asks you to do all the same things you were already doing, just with a quicker pace. No need to stretch yourself by learning something new; just do old, familiar things faster.

Plus, if you’re like me, the act of going faster is itself familiar because you’re used to hustling.

Just do more work. Work longer hours. Set tighter deadlines. Sprint faster to reach them.

There are so many areas of my life where I’ve bullheadedly tried to solve problems simply by hustling harder. Sometimes, more hustle is exactly what the problem required.

But when it comes to closing the gap between what your manuscript is and what it could become, hear me say this: hustle doesn’t help. The creative gap is not a problem that can be solved with more hustle.

Because here’s the thing—the factor that both tempts us to speed and makes that very speed work against us:

When we speed up, we move out of the realm of deep thought and creative exploration. And we move into rapid execution.

Rapid execution is the doing of the thing. It’s where you’re literally making changes on the page, crossing out old words and writing in new ones.

Deep thought and creative exploration are the strategizing of the thing. This is where you’re examining the problems in your story that need solving, then imagining a dozen possible solutions and evaluating them to select the right ones. It’s the thinking that comes before the doing.

And it tends to be a lot more difficult and a lot less tangible than execution. Execution looks and feels productive. Deep thought and creative exploration often don’t look or feel productive. So it’s super tempting to skip over them in favor of speed.

Great Revision Takes Time

But this temptation is a false relief. Speed is the opposite of what this problem needs.

The reality is, to close the gap between good and great, between what is and what could be, you must slow down.

And here we come to the crux of the matter, the biggest lesson I’ve learned in 2024, one I’ve seen proven over and over again in manuscript after manuscript:

Great revision takes time.

It simply requires you to move slowly.

This Isn’t Popular

Now, if that statement makes you uncomfortable, if you’re feeling some resistance here, I get it. I promise, I get it.

I’ve heard the pushback from writers many times. And I’ve felt it myself, my own unwillingness to embrace a truth I’ve suspected for a long time. We’re all swimming in the same waters here, the same pull towards speed. I’m not exempt.

For years, I have avoided saying on my website how long a client can expect to work with me to revise their novel.

I’ve felt so much pressure to set short timelines for quick turnarounds, because if I didn’t, then writers wouldn’t want to work with me. And then I’d feel pressure to deliver outcomes that simply do not fit within those timelines.

I felt like my options were either to race against the clock and constantly feel like I was disappointing myself and my clients, or to state plainly how long the real work will take—and then have no clients at all.

Fighting the inherent slowness of great revision stressed me out so much. So I’m not doing that anymore. I’m choosing option three: embracing it as a feature, not a bug, and inviting you into this mindset shift with me.

And so I’ll tell you right now how long it takes when a writer decides to work with me and we revise their book together.

Here is what that process looks like:

First, Story Clarity

It begins with my Story Clarity package.

In this space, the writer brings me their manuscript and an outline that reflects it. We examine the story the writer has built so far. And we dig deep—deep into questions of why they’re writing that story, what it really means, how the characters progress through an arc of change, how the plot is structured.

We get crystal clarity on what the story is truly about, and we build a miniature outline that will be the core scaffolding of the entire story.

This process takes two months.

Next, Story Refinery

Once we have clarity about what the story is, we move into the Story Refinery.

Here, we expand that miniature outline into a full scene-by-scene map of the entire story. That can take another one to two months.

Then, we shift from planning to execution. The writer revises their manuscript to match that new outline. As they do, each week, we workshop one scene together, exploring all the hidden, nuanced ways to make that scene truly unputdownable.

When I work like this through an entire draft with a writer, the process takes nine to twelve months.

If you were doing the math, that’s sixteen months total, from the beginning of planning one round of deep revision to the end of revising that draft.

And this is all in addition to the months or years the writer has spent working on multiple drafts of their manuscript before working with me.

The Result of Revision

The result of all this work—and especially all this time to let that work breathe—is an excellent manuscript. The result is a draft the writer is incredibly proud of, one that finally matches their vision of the story in their head.

The result is a rich and beautiful story world. An irresistible plot. Unforgettable characters.

The result is closing the gap between what their manuscript is and what it can be. The result is the creative fulfillment that comes with accomplishing a staggeringly difficult goal.

The result is solving the true problem. And it can only be accomplished when we dedicate the time that revision truly takes.

What Is Revision?

If you’re like most writers I talk with, you’re probably still not convinced. And that’s okay! Like I said, I get it. This isn’t popular.

So I’m not asking you to believe me, to wholeheartedly adopt every word I say right now. But I hope you’ll listen to why I hold so strongly to an approach that scares so many writers.

Let’s talk about what slowing down really means.

What does it actually look like to slow down? What happens in that space, with all that extra time?

What Revision Is Not

In my experience, writers are really afraid to slow down. They’re afraid that slowing down means that they’re not making progress.

That they’re stagnating.

That they’re stuck, sitting on the same problem for weeks or months without any idea of how to move forward.

That they’re spinning their wheels, editing the same scene over and over because it keeps them busy, but they can’t tell whether their changes are really improving it.

They’re afraid that slowing down means they’re stopping—that progress means executing changes on the page, and if they’re not doing that, they’re not doing anything worthwhile.

None of this is what I’m talking about when I say revision requires you to slow down. You’re right: stagnation, getting stuck, spinning your wheels, stopping—none of that will help you make progress. None of that is the true work of revision.

What Revision Truly Is

So what is the true work of revision?

I mentioned earlier that speeding up moves you out of deep exploration and into execution. That deep exploration that gets lost with speed—that is the true work of revision.

Because at the heart of story are the biggest questions we grapple with as the human race. Questions like:

• How do you process grief? (The Lion King)
• How do you find meaning in life after devastating loss? (Trolls)
• How do you navigate society in the face of tyranny? (Wicked)
• How do you stay true to yourself when your community pressures you to change? (How to Train Your Dragon)
• When you look at, when you really see, the most awful things you’ve ever done, how do you love yourself? (A Christmas Carol)
• What is justice? (Knives Out, Gosford Park, The Shawshank Redemption) 
• How do you repair the broken things of this world—the relationships*, the systems, the people who are hurt? (*Pride and Prejudice; Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow)
• What do you do when something cannot be repaired?

These questions are enormous. They are at the heart of who we are as individuals. They are at the heart of who we are as a species. We have been grappling with them collectively for millennia, and we have never yet found answers so simple and satisfactory that we can stop asking the questions.

When you revise a story at its deepest level, what you are doing is seeking out that enormous, unanswerable question that underpins your entire story. And then you, the writer, are exploring your own answer to it.

How do YOU answer the question of grief? Of tyranny? Of justice? Of broken things?

Simply finding the question is a herculean feat.

And finding your answer? Philosophers have debated these questions for as long as we’ve had language to express them. Of course you can’t possibly find your answer in the span of an hour or a day. You too need time and space to process and explore ideas, to name a thousand unsatisfactory answers before you land on the one that rings true to you.

This is the work of revision. The true work of revision lies in this deep thinking.

It’s not about fixing words here or there. It’s about finding the questions at the heart of your story, and sitting with them long enough to allow your conscious and unconscious mind to piece together your own answers.

And make no mistake—at the deepest level of revision, this work is happening in every part of your story. It’s easiest to see in the big picture, when we’re re-plotting the story and revising the outline. Finding the question and the answer are the most important things I do with clients in Story Clarity.

But this is also at the heart of every scene edit I do throughout the Story Refinery. When a writer brings me just three pages of story and asks for my help in revising them, I take us here, to this level of deep exploration, every single time.

The Resistance Is Strong

My hope is that you, too, are starting to see what I’ve witnessed again and again and again: that the way to craft excellent books is to give yourself time to allow the deep thinking to happen in the revision process. I do not know of another way to craft excellent books.

If you’re still feeling resistance, though, well, I’m not surprised. Like I said, I have heard from writers and felt in myself so much pushback against this reality, the truth of what revision requires.

And I can think of a couple of really valid reasons why that resistance is still there.

You Hold Different Values

First, maybe you’re feeling resistance because this kind of revision is not what’s important to you.

My goal is to help writers craft excellent novels. I love to work with writers who treat a single book as a work of art that they want to nurture and develop until it represents their very best work. I love telling stories that explore what it means to be human and that help us understand ourselves and our world a little bit better. I love supporting writers who want their books not simply to be read, but to be beloved by their readers.

For writers like that working on books like that, this kind of slow revision is imperative. It’s essential. Unskippable. That sort of book simply doesn’t happen without this.

But maybe you’re not working on a book like that. Maybe you’re measuring success differently.

For instance, there’s a huge community of rapid release authors who publish two or three or six books a year. For those writers, success is a numbers game. They’re very aware of how their revenue increases with every release, and how it dips if the gap between books stretches too long. And they’ve figured out how to make a financially lucrative career as a writer.

For rapid release writers, speed is the core problem to solve, and figuring out how to infuse deep meaning into their books is not.

And that’s okay! The beauty of writing is that we all get to choose what values are most important to each of us, and we all get to define success on our own terms.

It’s absolutely okay if your values are different from mine.

It’s absolutely okay if you don’t even believe in the power of deep revision.

If you’re a rapid release writer, you’ll probably really enjoy this podcast, because it’s chock full of editing strategies that you can apply at your own pace.

And you probably really won’t enjoy working with me one-on-one, because I’ll move too slowly for your release schedule.

You’ve Tried This Before

But maybe you’re not a rapid release writer. Maybe, when I listed out my values—a book as a work of art, striving to create your very best work, exploring what it means to be human, crafting a story that will be beloved by readers—you were nodding along, thinking, yes, that’s me.

And yet you, too, are feeling resistance. Because honestly, you have already been at this for what feels like forever. You’ve edited your way through so many drafts, you’re losing count. You have poured everything you’ve got into your story, and you can’t see how to level it up in any meaningful way.

And yet the gap is still there. And you’re wondering—will more work, more time, more drafts really close it?

Is it really worth it to slow down and revise yet again? Will more investment in your book really be worth it? Will it make a difference?

Or will it be a waste? Will you end up with a book that still just “works” and nothing more, no matter how much more you pour into it?

If that’s you, then I’m here with good news, the highlight of my year, the best thing I’ve learned this year about editing novels:

Yes, you absolutely can take your good manuscript and transform it into an irresistible book.

The investment you make to do that will not be a waste. It will be the thing that closes the gap between “cringe” and “proud.”

This is worth it.

And if closing that gap matters deeply to you, and you can’t see how to do it, it’s time to slow down and call in support.

Because when you go slowly, with intentionality and the right support, you will level up your manuscript into something beyond what you ever knew you were capable of.

The Gift of Going Slow

So in 2025, I’m embracing slow revision as a feature, not a bug. I’m building this intentional slowness into every way I work with writers, and I’m sharing that transparently so you know what to expect and why.

If you decide to join me in Story Clarity and invite me into your story, know that I’ll never rush you. I’ll never put pressure on you to speed through any step. I’ll hold you accountable to making progress, yes. But it’s more likely that I’ll invite you to create more space and time for your revision, not less.

And I encourage you to do the same. Give yourself the gift of slowness. Carve out time to wrestle with the deep questions at the heart of your story. Create wide open space, free of pressure or demands, to allow the ideas closest to your heart to bubble up.

This is the path to excellent stories. It’s not fast, and it’s not popular. But it’s oh so beautiful and rewarding.

I hope you’ll join me on it.