The Chrysalis Approach is a fun, fancy name I gave to my layered manuscript editing style — an unrushed, low-pressure process that treats storytelling as an evolution.
chrys·a·lis (n) - a transitional state; a stage of being or growth.
Two questions I get often are:
How do you make it to the finish line on a first draft when inspiration/motivation runs out?
How do you approach revisions so they aren’t totally overwhelming?
This layered approach is the primary answer to both. I build a story in layers, assigning a clear intention to each layer and focusing solely on that intent as I work on it. This keeps me from getting so overwhelmed that I want to yeet my laptop off a cliff.
I think of it like building a house. I don’t start hanging pictures on the walls before the concrete is poured. I have an idea of how I plan to decorate it — color swatches, mood boards, design plans — but I don’t actually worry about that stage until I get there. I want to make sure the foundation is sturdy, the layout flows, and there won’t be any leaks or surprises down the line that force me to bulldoze it all.
Development
This is the dreaming, ideation, and planning phase. I’m developing the concept and forming a blueprint for the story. That’s outlining the story beats and then turning that into a flexible scene-by-scene outline, so I’ve already done a lot of the heavy lifting thinking-wise before I start drafting.
Discovery
With at least the majority of the story outlined in detail, I move on to the discovery phase (zero/first drafts). They’re filled with placeholders and are still very much in flux as I flesh them out. These drafts are meant for pure, unfettered exploration. I put the thinking aside and treat them like a playground where I can get as messy and crazy as I want. I’m just telling myself the story and learning who my characters are once they start living on the page rather than just in my head, because they always have their own ideas once I set them loose.
Structure
Once I feel like I have a good handle on the story I want to tell and who the characters are (the foundation), I focus on strengthening the structure. This means making sure that the story beats and how they play out are as effective as possible, the character arcs are clear, the pacing works, and there are no plot holes or inconsistencies (hopefully).
Expression
With everything solid and stress-tested, I hone in on the final layer: making it an ✨experience✨. This is where I go through with a fine-tooth comb to improve atmosphere, descriptions, prose, and dialogue.
My brain works best when I’m hyper-focused on one thing at a time. By assigning a focus to different stages, it keeps me from getting overwhelmed trying to accomplish everything at once and quiets the part of my brain that wants to edit while I write. I’m able to tell my inner editor, “Don’t worry, you get complete control later.” It keeps her from clawing my brains out.
I don’t ever feel like I’m spreading myself too thin because I’m only trying to solve one type of problem at a time, and I’ve prioritized them by importance. Nailing the prose in an early draft is pointless if I end up completely restructuring everything because something major with the story needs to change.
I used to try to get everything perfect on the first draft. I tried to do every element at the highest level right from the start — the story, the pacing, the character development, the themes, the prose. For years, I struggled to finish anything and burned out quickly.
I was putting too much pressure on my early drafts due to ego disguised as high standards.
In the effort to create a “great” first draft, I was sabotaging myself. I wasn’t giving myself space to play and explore. I wasn’t giving the story space to breathe and evolve. I wasn’t having any fun. I was letting my ego run the show because it was uncomfortable sitting with something that fell so painfully short of what I wanted the project to ultimately be.
Allowing something to only exist in a perfect state is not a sign of high standards; it’s a sign of fear. Perfectionism is a sneaky way to keep you from finishing anything. You have to give yourself permission to sit with the bad, messy, imperfect drafts so you can turn them into the strong, well-crafted art you know they can become.
That’s why I follow this “chrysalis” process for myself, so I can reach those standards without burning out. Forcing myself to produce something that meets those standards in a first draft is unrealistic for how my creativity works.
For me, each stage is a process of unfolding, revealing the story in a deeper way. I shape it layer by layer until it emerges as the story it was always meant to be — a mixture of my original vision and something surprising I discovered along the way.
If you want to see this process in action step-by-step when I was writing/revising my debut contemporary romance novel, check out my 3-part series “Behind-the-Scenes of Revising a Romance Novel.”
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xx L.E.
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