Cut + Paste Revisions

I can’t remember if it was with Somewhere In Between or my first manuscript that I started cutting and pasting my drafts, but its been my go-to method for writing ever since. I love the combination of handwriting and typing, and it ensures that I’m double-checking my work and reading it out loud as it’s written.

Here’s how it works:

After I outline a story, I paste the outline into a clean Scrivener document. The outline becomes a series of prompts that I fill in with dialogue and descriptions.

I’ll start the story from the beginning and write all the way to the end. I write everything I know about the story, including notes to myself for how I want things to look/feel/sound. Anything I’m not sure about yet, I add notes to myself in [[bold brackets]]. Print!

My filled-in outline is a rough draft. I read the story from the beginning and use the [[bracketed notes]] as prompts for new passages to write by hand, which then get pasted into the new draft.

I type the handwritten pages and any other new writing, then print!

(Pro tip: I print on the backs of old drafts to save paper)

I continue this process, cutting and pasting, until I’m happy with the story, then do a proofread outloud, marking errors with a red pen.

And that’s it! What’s your writing process like? Tell me about it in the comments!