This summer, one of my plans is to spend ten weeks revising Roman Sherwood. I’ve been through several drafts of this project, and my revision process always starts the same way. From my observations, I hope to share some things that may help you all in the writing process. First, how do I start revision?

Before I can tell you that, I have to tell you how I finish the drafting process. I do my best, each time I write a draft, whether a short story, novel, poem, or essay, to write all the way to the end. I don’t revise as I go, because I believe that until I write the middle and end, I won’t know how to revise the beginning. So one of my rules is, always finish the draft. Even if you think it is something you will abandon, finish the draft. (No, I don’t finish every single draft I start. But I try to finish, and I think it is good practice to finish things.)

So that’s step one. Write a draft with a beginning, middle, and end, and do not worry about whether the parts of your draft are perfect. Step two, and this is extremely important: leave the draft alone! Do not immediately start revisions. I believe it is important to gain some distance from the draft, then come back to it later as though you were a reader, not the author. I do this by simply refusing to look at it for at least six weeks—often longer—then putting the draft in a different font, printing it off, and reading a hard copy with a pen in my hand.

I’ve read four or five completed, novel-length drafts of Roman Sherwood in this manner. And I don’t think there is a better way to learn how to write. That’s why I am so adamant about finishing drafts. If you read the whole thing, you’ll see which parts work, which parts feel flat, which parts are absorbing, which parts make you laugh, which parts don’t make sense, etc. I try to particularly tune in for those moments where I forget I am reading, and just feel fully immersed in the story. And I ask, how does this writing achieve that effect? How can I make the whole manuscript as absorbing as the best parts?

Through this process, I’ve been able to understand a lot of creative writing lessons that I have learned over the years. If a teacher tells you “Make sure you’re always setting an expectation for your readers” then you may understand that advice in theory. But when you read your manuscript and you see what it looks like in practice to set expectations or fail to set expectations. You should also discover your own rules by reading your writing and seeing what works and what doesn’t work.

What I mainly want to talk about today is another value of reading manuscripts. Discovering your tics. We all have habits that show up in our prose. For example, in an earlier draft of Roman Sherwood, I found that maybe seven separate times, I had described a character starting a car like this: “he turned the key, and the engine came to life with a roar.” Now, it may be corny to use this turn of phrase even one time. But seven times??? Just as a general rule, if the same figurative language, in the same context, occurs repeatedly in your writing, it will probably make your readers roll their eyes.

In this draft, I have eliminated the problem of engines coming to life with roars. But I noticed a new tic. Often, I will interrupt dialogue with description about the scenery and setting. This is fine—desirable, even—because I think you want some variety in a scene, and not just characters talking back and forth in a vacuum. But I noticed that often, when I break to remind the readers of the scenery, I mention a bird rustling, or a bird calling off in the distance, or an owl batting the branches. It happens too if I’m describing a landscape: I will put a bird somewhere in the scenery.

In a way, I think this is good. It makes the setting active and alive. But by now, there have been about a million birds in the draft. So any time I read a scene or a bit of description now, I will ask “okay Nolan, how long until a bird shows up?” If readers start doing this—successfully predicting what you are going to do—it undermines your writing. They may think, if I can predict what Nolan will do line-by-line, scene-by-scene, I’m sure I can predict how the book will end. The reader won’t be compelled to finish your book if they aren’t regularly surprised by the prose and the drama.

I think it is impossible to get rid of tics altogether but spotting them and revising for variety is important. I’d also like to point out, finally, the difference between tics and motifs. A motif is something that deliberately recurs in a pleasing way. Think of the characters’ reactions to the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction, or the repeated images of fire, flames, and candles in Wide Sargasso Sea. Patterns help hold fiction together. But a tic is a pattern that undermines the fiction because it feels like an accident. How do you tell the difference? Read your manuscript. If it pleases you and feels satisfying, it’s a motif. If it makes you roll your eyes, it’s a tic.