The seven tests are tests of the edit, not of the text; the text is tested by the earlier chapters’ tests, run in the ladder’s order. Tests 1 (Map) and 2 (Promise) are run before any repair, tests 3 to 5 (Rung-up, Reopen and Economy) on each repair, and tests 6 (Opening last) and 7 (Stop) at the end. Record a sentence for each, not a verdict.
Test 1 — Map
Is there a book map built from the draft, with the change column filled for every row?
Failure. The writer is editing the book she meant, not the one she wrote.
Exception. A writer who settles the top rungs before drafting and drafts in one pass, as Lee Child did with Make Me (2015).
Test 2 — Promise
Can the promise and the governing question be written in two sentences, and do the first and last chapters answer to them?
Failure. Rung 1 is unsettled, and every lower repair is provisional.
Exception. A work whose question is found in the edit itself, as Annie Hall’s was in the cutting room; the test should then fail until late.
Test 3 — Rung-up
For each failure on the edit list, has the rung above been checked for its cause?
Failure. The local repair: the symptom mended where it was felt.
Exception. A note local by nature: a wrong fact, a misspelt name, a sentence that says the opposite of what was meant.
Test 4 — Reopen
For each repair, are the tests it reopens listed, and have they been rerun?
Failure. The cascade: a repair that breaks something the writer has not looked at.
Exception. A repair inside one scene that changes nothing any other row of the map uses.
Test 5 — Economy
Does each repair answer at least as many notes as it reopens tests, and does the edit cut or move more than it adds?
Failure. The edit by addition, or a repair on too low a rung.
Exception. Fitzgerald’s galley revision of The Great Gatsby (1925), which answered one note by reopening three chapters.
Test 6 — Opening last
Were the opening pages and the last page revised after rungs 1 to 3 had settled?
Failure. The page-order edit: an opening that promises an earlier draft.
Exception. Andy Weir’s The Martian (2011), whose opening chapters were published before its ending was written.
Test 7 — Stop
Does a cold read produce notes that do not cluster above rung 5, and is every kept failure defended in a sentence?
Failure. The edit is unfinished, or has been abandoned rather than finished.
Exception. A cold read whose notes above rung 5 the writer can defend: the stopping rule is then met by the defence.
Reading the results together
Tests 1 (Map) and 2 (Promise) failing together are the commonest state of a first draft and are not a fault; they say that the edit has not begun. Test 2 (Promise) failing alone, with a map built, says that the writer can see the book and cannot yet say what it is for, and no repair on a lower rung should be made until it passes, however obvious the repair. Tests 3 (Rung-up) and 4 (Reopen) failing together describe an edit that is busy and getting nowhere: notes are being mended where they were felt, and each mend creates a new note elsewhere. The repair is to stop, sort the edit list by the rung of each cause, and begin again from the highest.
Test 5 (Economy) failing on one repair is often right, since the repair that mends a cause on a high rung may reopen much; it is a fault when it fails on every repair, which is the edit by addition. Test 6 (Opening last) failing is cheap to mend at the end and expensive to discover after submission. Test 7 (Stop) failing with notes still clustered on one rung says where the next pass begins.
From symptom to rung
The table lists the symptoms readers most often report, the rung on which each is usually felt, and the rung above to check before repairing it. It is a starting point; the consolidated symptom index in the appendices gives every chapter’s symptoms in full.
| Reader’s report | Felt on rung | Check first | Chapters |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Not the book it promised”; ending resented | 3 | Rung 1: the promise inventory | Series and Genre (Chapter 17), The Opening Pages (Chapter 9), The Ending (Chapter 16) |
| “Couldn’t tell whose book it was” | 4 | Rung 2: the grant and its declaration | The Viewpoint Shift (Chapter 13), The Opening Pages (Chapter 9) |
| “Skimmed one timeline”; “didn’t know when I was” | 2 | Rung 1: does each strand serve the question? | Non-linear and Multi-timeline Architecture (Chapter 8) |
| “Preferred the subplot” | 2 | Rung 1: which question is the book’s? | The Subplot (Chapter 14), Arc and Theme (Chapter 12) |
| “The middle drags” | 3 | Rung 1: is the want urgent? Then the option list | The Middle (Chapter 11) |
| “She doesn’t change” | 3 | The criterion log; rung 1: does the change answer the question? | Arc and Theme (Chapter 12) |
| “Guessed the twist”; “felt cheated” | 3 | Rung 2: who could have told it, and why not? | The Reveal (Chapter 15), The Viewpoint Shift (Chapter 13) |
| “The ending fell flat” | 3 | The middle; then rung 1 | The Ending (Chapter 16), The Middle (Chapter 11) |
| “Relentless” or “slow”, no scene at fault | 4 | Rung 3: the proportion of the shape | The Chapter Break (Chapter 6) |
| “Lost after the breaks”; “skimmed the flashbacks” | 4 | Rung 2: the arrangement | The Transition (Chapter 5), Backstory and Flashback (Chapter 7), Non-linear and Multi-timeline Architecture (Chapter 8) |
| “Put it down in the first chapter” | 4 | Rung 1: what the opening promises | The Opening Pages (Chapter 9) |
| “Nothing happens in this scene” | 5 | Rung 3: is the scene needed by the shape? | The Purposes of a Scene (Chapter 1), Scene and Sequel (Chapter 2), The Middle (Chapter 11) |
| “They all sound the same” | 5 | Rung 2: the grant | The Dialogue Exchange (Chapter 3), The Viewpoint Shift (Chapter 13) |
| “Beautiful, but I don’t know why it’s there” | 5 | Rung 3: what the detail deposits | The Descriptive Detail (Chapter 4), The Ending (Chapter 16) |
The table has one pattern worth seeing whole: almost every symptom is felt one or two rungs below the rung where a writer should look first, which is the rung-up rule in tabular form.
See also: the full treatment, section 5, with the procedure for each test and an extended table.