Many beginning writers mistakenly believe that the first draft of their book is also their finished book. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Your draft is not even something you want to send to a professional editor—a writing coach, yes, but not a professional editor.
After the draft comes self-editing. But many writers seem confused about what this involves.
Let’s look at the basics of the process of self-editing.
I recommend letting your book sit for a month so you can come back to it with fresh eyes. We know all the elements of our story in our head as we are writing, but we don’t always communicate those details as clearly as we think we are. A month allows your mind to forget those details and see your story as though for the first time.
When you start the process, approach your draft as if you were the editor. Examine the big picture aspects:
- Point of view. Are you head hopping?
- Plot. Does your protagonist have a goal? Meeting with enough conflict? Solving his/her problems too easily?
- Characters. Are they well-rounded, flat, stereotypical, too perfect?
- Show versus tell. Are you using strong active verbs?
- Pacing. Does your story read at one pace or does it vary throughout?
- Dialogue. Is it realistic? Does it contribute to story development?
- Setting and description. Does your reader know when and where your story is taking place? Does description contribute to story development or just add fluff?
Every word must earn its place on the page.
Examine those words. Do they communicate exactly what you want to say? Do they add to the mood or tone of your story?
If you can’t let your book sit for a month, then I highly recommend enlisting the aid of beta readers. Beta readers are good whether you let your manuscript sit or not. They’ll give you the kind of feedback you need for most of the elements I listed above.
How you self-edit is a process that needs to fit how you work. It might mean listing the basics of every scene (setting, characters, conflict, resolution), taking notes about your main characters, outlining your plot development and character arc as you read through the manuscript. Your style of writing—pantser, plotter, or combination of both—will affect how you self-edit.
Books I recommend that can guide this process are James Scott Bell’s Revision and Self-Editing for Publication and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King.
Once you are done revising big picture items, then go line by line looking for punctuation errors, correct syntax, crutch words, misplaced modifiers, homonym errors, formatting, typos, and more.
My book 7 Cheat Sheets to Cut Editing Costs offers basics on POV and show vs. tell, and gives specifics on common punctuation issues as well as formatting (whether to use italics or quotation marks, numerals or words, etc.).
Once you’ve done your best to ensure your story is as strong and compelling as you can make it, then it’s ready for a professional editor.
What aspect of self-editing do you struggle with?
Leave your comments or questions below.
My hardest part of self-editing is trusting myself not to take out essentials. I got the Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King like you suggested and have the book you wrote and have told myself I’m not going to quit. I will keep getting resources, and learning from everyone I can learn from, and improve my time management and someday I’ll have a book ready to be edited.
Vicki, I hope rather than saying to yourself “I will not quit” you are saying “I am so excited to have my book finished.” Envision and speak the end result.
I have often struggled with trusting myself, too. When I worked in MS Word, I saved any edits as a new file so I could always go back to the original if I didn’t like my edits. Now that I work in Scrivener, I just take a snapshot and go on my merry way editing.
Perhaps if you create a process where you can revert back to previous versions it will allow you to relax and not worry about what you take out; you’ll feel more comfortable. Being part of a critique group or having beta readers might help as well.