Chronicles of the Craft: How to Read Your Own Writing Without Wanting to Set It on Fire 🔥

❤️‍🔥 Burn baby, burn. And six other unhelpful writing tips.

Welcome to Chronicles of the Craft, the corner where I leave all the thoughts, musings, and emotional outbursts of my journey as a writer. Don’t mind the mess.

Step One: Step Away Before You Read It

Finishing a first draft feels like a victory. You did it! You survived the late-night writing insomnia, the plot holes you didn’t have time to fix, the characters who took on lives of their own and refused to follow your carefully imagined plans. Not to mention the all the *insert clever dialog here* and *research how to actually do that* notes you left behind.

🫵🏻 You wrote a whole book.

But then, the high wears off, and a terrifying thought creeps in.

😳 Now, I have to read the whole damn thing.

This is where most writers hit their first wall. You expect to read back what you wrote and find a book—maybe a little rough around the edges, but still you expect to find the story you have in your head. Instead, what’s on the page feels sloppy, awkward, amateur-at-best and, in some places, completely unrecognizable from what you thought you were writing.

💀 Cue the existential crisis.

This is exactly why you should not dive into reading your draft the moment you finish it. Your brain is still too tangled up in the writing process. You’re too close to the story, too aware of what you meant to say instead of what’s actually there.

What You Need: 🏎️💨 Distance.

✅ Take a break—a real one. Put your draft away for at least a few weeks days (if you can manage a month week or more, even better).
✅ Do something completely different. Work on another project, read books in your genre, or just let yourself exist without thinking about the story for a while.
✅ Let your brain reset. When you come back, you’ll be able to read your words for what they are, not what you thought you wrote.

Think of it like this—if you stare at the same painting for too long, your eyes adjust. You stop noticing the weird proportions, the places where the colors don’t blend quite right. Walk away, come back, and suddenly, those flaws stand out immediately.

Your book works the same way. The best way to see it clearly is to step away long enough for it to feel unfamiliar again.

And trust me—after a few weeks days away from it, you’ll be shocked by what jumps out at you.

Step Two: Approach It Like an Editor, Not the Author

So, you’ve for sure given yourself some distance. The draft has been sitting untouched for weeks, maybe even months at least 72 hours. You open the document, take a deep breath, and start reading.

Within minutes, you feel the dread creeping in.

• Why did I describe the color of his eyes three different times in one chapter?

• This dialogue is painful. Do people even talk like this?

• Wait… how did they even get here? Did I just forget about moving them from point A to point B?

Your instinct? Burn it. Click the trashcan icon. Change your name and flee the country. Pretend it was all a NyQuil-fueled fever dream.

But here’s the thing. Every first draft looks like this (or so I’ve been told). Even the ones written by our favorite authors. The difference? They don’t see their drafts as a reflection of their talent—they see them as a work in progress.

Shift Your Mindset: You’re the Editor Now

Right now, your job is not to judge how “good” or “bad” the draft is. Your job is to figure out what’s working and what isn’t—with the detached, objective eye of an editor. Now is the time to channel that one high school English teacher who hated you for no reason.

Think of it this way. When an artist starts sculpting, they don’t expect the first chunk of marble to look like a masterpiece. They chip away, refine, shape—bit by bit—until the final form emerges.

Same with your book. You’re not here to judge. You’re here to sculpt.

🖍️ Now grab your red pen. We’re gonna do some damage.

How to Read Like an Editor, Not a Writer

✅ Pretend this book was written by someone else. It’s easier to be objective when you’re not emotionally attached to every sentence. You didn’t write this monstrosity past-you did, and you’re not responsible for their clear lack of talent, ability, and spell-check. Present-you is absolved of any and all blame.

✅ Look for patterns, not just individual mistakes.

• Is the pacing too slow in the first half?

• Are the characters’ personalities inconsistent?

• Does every scene move the plot forward, or are there filler moments?

✅ Ask yourself: If I were a reader, would I keep going?

• Where do you feel engaged?

• Where does the story lose momentum?

• Where do you feel confused? (if you’re confused, we’re all confused.)

✅ Detach from the perfectionist mindset.

• Your first draft is not a epic failure.

• It’s not even a book yet—it’s a blueprint for what the book will become.

This shift in mindset is crucial for making it through the first read without falling into despair.

You’re not looking for perfection. You’re looking for potential.

Step Three: The First Read-Through Should Be for Notes—Not Fixing

Now that you’re reading like an editor, not a panicked writer, there’s one rule you need to follow:

🚨 DO NOT start editing as you read. 🚨

I know. It’s tempting. You’ll spot a clunky sentence and think, I’ll just tweak this real quick. You’ll see a weak scene and start rewriting dialogue. Before you know it, you’ve spent an hour fixing a single page—and you’re still on chapter one.

This is how writers get stuck in revision loops.

Your First Read Is for Diagnosis, Not Surgery

Right now, your goal is to see the full picture—not get lost in the details. If you start fixing individual sentences before you’ve identified the bigger structural issues, you’re wasting time.

Think of it like this. If you were remodeling a house, you wouldn’t hang a painting above the mantle, or start moving in furniture before making sure the foundation wasn’t cracked.

The same applies to your book. You need to know what’s broken before you start fixing anything. Your foundation need to be set before you rewrite a single sentence.

How to Take Notes Without Losing Momentum

✅ Use a simple, color-coded system to track issues as you read.

• 🔴 Major Problems (structural issues, plot holes, pacing problems, details you’ve decided to change)

• 🟡 Medium Fixes (awkward dialogue, weak descriptions, inconsistent characters, missing details)

• 🟢 Things You Love (lines, descriptions, moments, or scenes that are actually hitting the mark)

✅ Drop quick comments instead of rewriting. Instead of getting sucked into fixing a scene, just leave a note as if you’re telling someone else (future-you) to make the edits.

• [This dialogue feels stiff—make it sound more natural.]

• [Does this plot twist make sense? Set up more foreshadowing earlier?]

• [Cut this? Feels redundant.]

• [How did they get from point A to point B?]

✅ Stay focused on the big picture. Remember that this is your first time hearing the story too. Your brain can’t hold all the details at once, so you have to air them out and let your creativity take hold.

Why This Works

⭐️ You won’t waste time polishing scenes that might get cut entirely.
⭐️ You’ll get a clearer view of what the book needs as a whole.
⭐️ You’ll actually make it through the entire manuscript without stalling on page 10.

Bottom line: You can’t fix a book you haven’t fully read.

📝 Take notes first. 🛠️ Fix later.

Step Four: Read It Differently to Gain Perspective

Your brain is too familiar with your own writing. It knows what happens next, it remembers what you meant to say, and it fills in gaps automatically—which is why you can read the same scene ten times and still miss an obvious flaw.

To trick your brain into seeing the draft with fresh eyes, you need to change how you read it.

Techniques to Make Your Draft Feel New Again

📄 Print It Out

• Reading on paper forces your brain to slow down.

• You’ll catch awkward phrasing and typos that were invisible on a screen.

• Marking up a physical copy makes editing feel less overwhelming—you’re studying your book, not committing to immediate changes.

• Your red pen has been dying to have something to do.

📱 Read It on a Different Device

• Load it onto an e-reader or your phone.

• Changing the format tricks your brain into treating it like a real book, not just a document you’ve been staring at for months.

🔊 Use Text-to-Speech

• Hearing your book read aloud exposes clunky dialogue, repetitive sentence structures, and weird phrasing.

• You’ll instantly hear what doesn’t sound natural.

• Repetitive phrases will start sounding redundant real quick.

• Bonus: It’s hilarious when the robot voice completely butchers fantasy names.

  (🪦 RIP “Xina” forever mispronounced as “Shee-nah”)

🔄 Read Backwards

• Start at the last chapter and work your way to the beginning.

• This prevents you from getting caught up in the story and forces you to focus on the writing itself.

• Weirdly effective for spotting pacing issues and weak transitions.

Why This Works

⚡️ Your brain stops autopiloting.
⚡️ You see your draft with fresh eyes.
⚡️ You catch issues you would’ve skimmed over otherwise.

Editing isn’t just about fixing what’s wrong—it’s about learning to see your work objectively. Changing how you read it is the first step to doing that.

🖍️ Oh. And while you’re at it, go ahead and click through all those spell-check suggestions you’ve been ignoring too.

Step Five: Find What’s Good, Too

At this point, you’ve spent a lot of time looking for what’s wrong—and trust me, your brain will have no problem finding it.

But if all you focus on is the bad, you’re going to convince yourself the entire book is garbage. And that’s just not true. 😉 Probably—who am I to say.

Even in the roughest first drafts, there’s always something working—a line of dialogue that makes you smile, a scene that hits just right, a moment that feels exactly the way you wanted it to.

Why This Matters

✅ Your brain is wired to focus on mistakes. If you don’t make an effort to recognize what’s good, you’ll trick yourself into thinking there isn’t anything worth saving.

✅ You need to know what’s working. Revision isn’t just about fixing things—it’s about keeping the strong parts intact.

✅ This book is worth your time. You wrote it because you had a story to tell. Finding what shines reminds you why you started in the first place.

How to Find the Highlights in Sea of Red Ink

🔹 Literally highlight lines or moments that feel right. Even if the scene around it needs work, good writing is still good writing.

🔹 Pay attention to your emotions. If a scene makes you feel something, it’s doing something right.

🔹 Look at character dynamics. Do certain relationships or conversations have the spark you were hoping for?

🔹 Notice when you forget to “edit” and just enjoy reading. Those moments are proof that your book has real potential.

The Takeaway

Yes, your draft needs work. But it’s not a disaster. There’s something there—something worth building on.

And once you find the pieces that work? It’s time to add the layers.

Step Six: Writing Happens in Layers—Your First Draft Is Just the Foundation

By now, you’ve survived the first read-through. You’ve identified what’s working, what’s not, and (hopefully) resisted the urge to delete the entire thing in a fit of existential despair.

So, what’s next? Building the book layer by layer.

A novel isn’t something you write once and perfect in a single burst of inspiration. It’s something you craft, reshape, and deepen—each pass adding depth, complexity, emotion, and meaning.

The Three Core Layers of Storytelling

1️⃣ Layer One: The Bare Bones (First Draft)

• The plot, the big moments, the scenes you’ve been envisioning in your head for months.

• This is the “get the story down” phase. It’s allowed to be rough, messy, and full of gaping holes.

• Your only job? Finish it.

2️⃣ Layer Two: The Framework (Second Draft)

• Structure: Does your story follow a recognizable story structure?

• Pacing: Does the story unfold at the right speed?

• Character Arcs: Do characters change in meaningful ways?

• Scene Purpose: Does every scene matter?

• This is where you move things around, cut what isn’t working, and make sure the framework of the story is solid.

3️⃣ Layer Three+: Depth, Emotion, Texture, and Nuance (♾️ Infinite Drafts)

• Character personality: Do we learn enough about this person to know, like, trust them?

• Character motivations: Why do they make the choices they do?

• Foreshadowing: Are early hints leading to later payoffs?

• Subtext: What’s happening beneath the dialogue?

• Sensory details: Does the world feel tangible? Can you insert yourself into the scene and see what your characters see? Feel what they’re feeling? Touch, taste, smell the world around them?

This is where your book stops being a draft and starts becoming a novel.

For example, when I went through adding layers to my story I focused on one aspect at a time and added it throughout the book in key places where it made sense to highlight. Alora is an apothecary’s apprentice, so weaving in details of her noticing plants in the wild, pondering potions, and thinking about her craft strengthened her character’s personality and point of view.

After couple of draft edits, (and getting to know Alora better) I realized that she wasn’t going to be a fan of sword play or weaponry and learning how to fight. She wasn’t going to be eager to do those things even if the logical side of her brain knew she should. So I had to go back to those scenes are rewrite her internal thoughts and narrative to fit her character’s emotions.

Why This Matters

⚠️ If your first draft feels thin, that’s because it’s supposed to.
⚠️ Each layer adds depth, complexity, and emotion.
⚠️ Your book isn’t finished—it’s becoming.

So when you read your draft and think, this isn’t what I imagined, just know, it’s supposed to feel like that.

Conclusion: The Goal Isn’t Perfection—It’s Progress

Reading your own writing for the first time can feel brutal. The draft in your head—the one you thought you were writing—doesn’t always match what’s on the page. That’s normal. (🚨 Someone please confirm it’s normal in the comments.)

A first draft isn’t failure—it’s just a starting point. Every book you love started as a messy, imperfect version of itself. The difference between an abandoned draft and a finished novel isn’t talent—it’s ✨persistence✨.

🛑 Stop. Read that sentence again.

So if you’re staring at your manuscript, resisting the urge to set it on fire or chuck it out the window, take a breath.

📌 Step away before reading. Give yourself distance.
📌 Read like an editor. Identify what’s working and what’s not.
📌 Don’t edit yet. Take notes instead.
📌 Trick your brain. Change how you read the draft to see it with fresh eyes.
📌 Find what’s good, too. Don’t let your brain focus only on the bad.
📌 Build in layers. Your book is evolving—it’s not supposed to be perfect yet.

The goal isn’t to write a flawless first draft. The goal is to keep going.

Because the only way to turn a messy draft into something great? You revise. You refine. You layer. You keep writing. You rinse. You repeat.

✨ Every great book was once a disaster. The difference is, those writers didn’t stop. Neither should you. ✨

Happy writing.

Magnolia 🌿