The Tool-Kit: Revising, Re-visiting, Re-envisioning
The Typepad Shutdown 30th Sept 2025. If in exploring the Itch you meet a link which leads to Typepad’s ‘closed’ sign, there are three things that will help:
Don’t despair. Many of those posts do actually exist on Substack, it’s just that we haven’t managed to update that link yet.
Use the ‘search’ facility - which you can see at the top of every page of the Itch - to check if the topic you’re looking for has a Substack version. Many of them do.
If you’re feeling kind, before you leave the original page, leave a comment saying which link is Typepaddy, and we’ll do something about it as soon as we can.
THE FICTION DOCTOR’S PHARMACOPOEIA : diagnosing symptoms and treating the diseases in your own or someone else's manuscript
Itchy Bitesized 10: TEN REASONS TO READING YOUR WORK ALOUD
WRITING SYNOPSES FOR YOURSELF : perhaps the single best way to work out a plot, take an overview of a story, or un-scramble a novel that's got in a muddle.
Itchy Bitesized 32: TAMING YOUR DRAFT : are you drowning in scenes, files, feedback, hopes, dreads? This will help.
TACKLING REVISIONS AND EDITS : feeling as if you've got to eat an elephant, and your spoon is too small? Here's help.
Itchy Bitesized 40: THE SIX Ps OF REVISING AND EDITING
DON’T FIDDLE : how to stop yourself endlessly tweaking, poking and mini-editing and getting in a muddle, and keep moving steadily forward whether you're drafting or revising.
OVERWRITING: has someone told you your work is over-written? : here is what they might mean, and what you can do about it.
WHEN ‘WRONG’ WORDS ARE THE CANARY IN THE COAL MINE : and how to diagnose what the real problem is. (£)
Itchy Bitesized 25: BEWARE OF HIDDEN METAPHORS
ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS : why you're so often told to cut them, and why you shouldn't (always) cut them
Itchy Bitesized 38: NINE THOUGHTS ABOUT DESCRIPTION
HAVE YOU HEARD THE ONE ABOUT "WAS"OPHOBIA? : why cutting "was" from your writing isn't just a stupid idea, it's also a dangerous mis-taking.
Itchy Bitesized 12: DON'T PULL YOUR WRITING'S TEETH
REVISIONS: Taking down the scaffolding : many writers find it hard to spot the things which needed to be in the first draft, but must be fished out in revision. Here's how to spot them.
Itchy Bitesized 9: THREE THINGS ABOUT FILTERING a.k.a. HD FOR YOUR WRITING
‘FILTERING’: HD for your writing : an unhelpful name for the single, simplest way to revise your writing into greater vividness.
FILTERING, SCAFFOLDING & HOW TO PERFORM AN EXPLAIN-ECTOMY : more about how to get rid of the extra clutter which is blurring and smudging your story's impact.
THE WAKING-UP OPENING : Why it’s so natural, and so often a bad idea.
CUTTING, CONDENSING & FILLETING: what to do when your story is much too long.
WHEN DO YOU STOP REVISING? : how do you know you're not sending it off half-baked, without getting stuck in an endless loop of fixing things?
THE TEN STRUCTURAL EDITS I MOST OFTEN SUGGEST : what it says on the tin. (£)
THE TEN LINE-EDITS I MOST OFTEN SUGGEST : what it says on the tin.
THE TEN THINGS WHICH MOST OFTEN GO WRONG with beginners' fiction.
WRITE YOUR FIRST NOVEL Part Six: Revising 1
WRITE YOUR FIRST NOVEL Part Nine: Revising 2
