Hosted by Alice Sudlow · 🇺🇸 US · EN-US · 103 episodes
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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 st
Alice Sudlow hosts Your Next Draft, a arts show with 103 episodes published.
This 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 never finished watching that competition—I w
When 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 cringing as you read it? When you can’t thi
What 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 your final draft. Which, coincidentally, is a
Is 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? Being selected for “Best Books of 2025” l
If 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 implement. She’d written a draft of her sto
If 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, actually. Maybe you’ve revised it—once, o
What 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 every single one just does not fit your story?
If 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 you love, you’ve probably asked some vers
It'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 were essential. They’re the moment when every
If 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 something still feels flat? You check all the box
What 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 long way still to go. The day when you hav
Here’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 story with a Status internal genre. You’re, l
Genre 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 not quite mean the same thing. Sci fi or fan
It 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 your story’s first impression. Agents, edito
Are 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. The inciting incident is long past, the c
You 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 middle. The messy middle. The quiet doldrums of
Your 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 reader’s attention—or lose their fragile, baby-fr
Your 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 hooks your readers, pulling them into the st
“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 book. What happens after you edit your book?
Do 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 revision, and you don’t want to skimp on an
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Your Next Draft is hosted by Alice Sudlow. The show is categorised under arts (books) and has published 103 episodes.
Your Next Draft has published 103 episodes.
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