The Editing Method You Need To Polish Your Novel

Before we go over editing tactics I first need you to give yourself a great big pat on the back.

You wrote a novel! That's amazing and I am so proud of you!

If you haven't already - take a break. You need to come back to your novel with fresh eyes ready to edit and I'm sure you deserve a bit of a rest after spending all that time in front of your screen.

Keep in mind that editing your novel can take almost as long as it did to write it so don't stress out and take it one step at a time.

A Quick Note(s)

*By the time you've reached the stage of editing, I'm sure you've already gone through that long document of yours and corrected all of those silly typos that marked your story with all their ugly red lines - if you haven't - go ahead and start there and then come back.

**There are thousands of ways to edit your novel, but this is the method that works best for me. While I recommend it - It's important to find what will work best for you.

Print it Out

I would apologize for the trees here - but then again - you know your final book is printed on paper - right?

Printing out your novel and holding it in your hand is the most effective way for you to begin the editing process. It makes focusing on your story easier and stops you from being able to start typing away when you think you see a problem.

It will also make the next few steps easier

*Don't forget to add page numbers as well if you haven't already*

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Gather Your Supplies

Before you sit to edit your novel go ahead and allow yourself to wander down the stationary aisle at your local store.

Don't go overboard here. A simple 50¢ notebook from the bottom shelf will do, as well as a cheap pack of colored pens and highlighters. Remember don't go crazy here, you only need a few colors. Mainly a red and black pen and one or two highlighters.

With your supplies, your printed novel, a few snacks, and something to drink - it's time to get to reading.

Read Without Editing

Brace yourself. This step is going to be the hardest one of them all.

It's time to step out of the role of a writer and into the role of a reader.

Get comfortable and settle in to read your manuscript from the front cover to the back.

Keep your notebook nearby making a list of page numbers that you know you'll need to come back to, but for now, keep the pens off of your manuscript. You need to focus on just reading the novel as it is.

You've spent so much time looking at your novel as a writer that some things that made sense to you when writing won't flow as well as reading it.

Start Big

Now that you've got that first read-through done with - I hope you like your story because you will have to read it quite a few more times before this process is complete.

Now it's time to start big - 

With the big picture that is. It can be tempting to fix that small error you underlined in the second chapter, but sometimes this only creates more problems. Think snowball rolling down a big hill.

Starting big means marking plot holes, inconsistencies, and pacing issues, making notes of scenes that need to be added or taken away, and even characters that need to be added or taken away.

Did you find any passages that were just info dumps on the reader?

After you find all of these you can head on back over to your computer and start fixing up your manuscript starting with fixing the big picture. 

Move Small

Think snowball melting in spring.

If you've made a lot of changes to your manuscript I'm going to suggest printing out a fresh copy. 

Once you clean up the big-picture items it's time to go back through your novel looking for the smaller things.

The best way to find these little things is to read your novel out loud as you use a ruler or a sheet of paper to move down line by line.

By reading your novel out loud you'll find all those things you might have just skipped over when reading in your head. You would be surprised at how many glaringly obvious things are there that you somehow overlooked.

One of my favorite things is to plug my manuscript into a computer application that reads it out as I follow along on the page. This makes it so I don't find myself simply glancing over things and rushing through the story because this is the hundredth time I've read it - how could there be anything I missed?

This is where that red pen and highlighter find the most use.

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Tackling the editing of your work can sometimes feel more daunting than when you set out to write it, but the process doesn't have to be scary if you take it one step at a time.

You also don't have to do it alone.

Print out two copies (sorry trees) or more and make arrangements to swap stories with critique partners. It can be a lot of productive fun to arrange meet-ups to swap questions and suggestions with a group over some snacks and a few drinks.

Best of luck!

With love,

B.K. xo xo

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This story was originally posted on Medium.

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