Your Next Draft

About Your Next Draft

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 still searching for your story’s untapped potential, this is the podcast for you. Together, let’s dig into the difficult and delightful work of editing your next draft.

Publisher

Alice Sudlow

Category

arts · arts · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

20 Nov 2022

Latest episode

19 Feb 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 104 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   19 Feb 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Are You Chasing the Wrong Olympic Gold?

   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 was busy rewinding Jun-Hwan’s routine to watch him over and over again. I filmed my TV screen on my phone and watched it again while I sat in the courthouse on jury duty. I gushed about it to friends and family. I’ve been listening to the song he skated to on loop for a week. J...

2. 

   3 Feb 2026

   How Will You Know When Your Novel Is Done?

   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 think of a single change left to make? When beta readers rave about it? When they tell you the romantic scenes made them swoon and the funny scenes made them laugh, the scary scenes gave them nightmares and the sad scenes made them cry? When a reader tells you your book impacted ...

3. 

   13 Jan 2026

   6 Reasons to Love Editing (From People Who Actually Do)

   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 also what you hoped for the last draft, and the one before that. Editing is a slog you’re trudging through. You dream of the day when you can escape this drudgery and return to the free-flowing fun of writing the first draft of your next book. But what if editing isn’t an obsta...

Inside a recent episode

Are You Chasing the Wrong Olympic Gold?

Published 19 Feb 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] I absolutely do not know enough to do that. Really, I am simply observing that figure skating faces the same challenge of every creative medium, including books. How do we measure artistry? How do we distill Tara's good into something clear, concrete, and definable? What actually is good? What are we trying to measure after all? There is a massive technical component to it. There is real, objective, quantifiable skill, measurable in degrees and angles and lines and revolutions. Quadruple axles are far more challenging than a single-toe loop. Completing a full rotation is more technically excellent than landing a quarter turn short. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

79 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

38 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 54 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

70

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

97

Contact Your Next Draft

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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