How to Self-Edit Your Fiction Manuscript or Book

Finishing a story is not as simple as reaching “THE END” on the final page. Once you have a completed draft, it’s time to start editing your work. Self-editing is a vital part of the writing process that can’t be missed, even if you plan to have a professional editor edit your story later. Here’s how to get started:

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Print out your manuscript, and hide it somewhere for at least two weeks (preferably a month or more.) It sounds counterintuitive, because finally finishing your manuscript will probably inspire a surge of energy, but it’s important to put some distance between yourself and your work. After a few weeks away, you’ll be able to look at your manuscript with a fresh set of eyes.

2. Read your manuscript once or twice without an editor’s hat, all the way through. Don’t have a pen in your hand. Just enjoy the book (or not) as a reader would, and make a mental note of any plot holes you notice or things that don’t add up. Experience the big picture of your story before getting into the nitty-gritty.

3. Start your edit with the simple stuff. You probably noticed when you read your manuscript that spelling errors and grammatical missteps jumped right out at you. Your first edit should be a sweeping copyedit, to clean up all the little typos you missed when you were writing. Start thinking about the rhythm of your sentences. Did you notice that you use the same sentence constructions (for example, a short sentence with one comma) or paragraph patterns (two long paragraphs followed by a very short one) over and over?

4. Hatch a plan for fixing the big issues. After reading your manuscript again, are there any full scenes you need to add? Perhaps a good chunk of back story is needed for one of your characters, or the ending happens way too fast to be satisfying. Plot where these scenes should go before writing them. Does this new information change any of the later scenes?

5. Seek out feedback. Once you’ve completed a broad self-edit yourself, it’s time to give your manuscript to a trusted friend or your workshop group. Don’t do this before you self-edit, because you want to have a good idea of the strengths and weakness YOU perceive before handing your work to someone else. That way you'll know if your readers don't have the same vision for the work that you do.

[lifeengineer]

on 10/20/2009 Great ideas. I have been contemplating writing a book based on an outline with characters I have developed. I will keep this advice in mind.