When you get your developmental/global edits back from your editor for the first time, it might be overwhelming. You've spent a long time revising and getting feedback and maybe you've gone through the manuscript multiple times with your agent. Still, an editor will find areas that can improve. As with all things, tackling the revision plan one step at a time will make it a lot easier. I can share with you some things I've done to organize my editor's notes and how I've plotted my revision plan.
First of all, get out some highlighters! Pick each color to represent an aspect of your book. I chose to have colors representing these things: Character A, Character B, Character C, Setting + World Building, and Plot + Pace.
Now that the notes are highlighted, you'll have an easier time isolating sections and organizing your plan. Get out sheets of paper for each category and start compiling the notes and some of your ideas.
Make a timeline of all the scenes in your book.
Get a colored pen and cross out scenes you want to cut or mark ones you want to shuffle. Add in notes to improve a scene or add a new one in.
(Hopefully, you don't have to deal with POV changes--but if you do, this might help: use different colored sticky notes to represent a POV change--for example, pink would represent that it was in Character B's perspective. Shuffle the sticky notes around to find a good rhythm and explore if some scenes would be better from another character's perspective.)
This step might seem like a pain but it really helps to see the big picture and saves a headache later on.
Now, when you sit down to revise, hopefully you'll have a pretty clear idea of what you want to do. One page at a time!
After you're finished with your revision, it helps to make the new timeline and double check the flow. Draw out a graph when it ramps, slows, and ramps again.
Good luck!
--Realm
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