Your first draft of your manuscript is not your last draft. Neither is your second, third, or even your fourth draft! It will go through multiple rounds or edits, even before you hand it over to a professional editor (which I strongly suggest doing). Below are a few self-editing tips to help you get through the often-dreaded self-editing process.
- Utilize Microsoft Word’s grammar and spelling tools first. This will eliminate a lot of errors that you may not realize are errors. Word also gives grammar tips which can be helpful. Keep in mind, it is a computer and isn’t perfect. Some errors that come up, you may just need to ignore. You can also check readability statistics for your document including the grade level. (Look to the internet on how to use these tools.)
- Check out Grammarly.com. This program can help you track down, even more, issues than Microsoft Word can find. You should not replace a professional editor with Grammarly (a human is always better than computer algorithm), but it will help you find problems that you have missed.
- Certain words we use in writing are not necessary. Create a list of unnecessary words, such as that, just, then, really, very, etc. (Look to the internet for a detailed list.) Search your document to see if you can get rid of any unnecessary words.
- Often, dialogue tags, such as said are not always necessary. Turn these tags into actions.
- Look for, and remove redundancies. He clapped his hands. She blinked her eyes. It was large in size.
- After you have thoroughly reviewed your document, change the page size, margins, font size, and line spacing and review again. A simple change to how it looks can make errors pop out at you.
- Read your manuscript out loud. You might want to think about recording and listening to it as if it was an audiobook.
- Open your manuscript, go to the last page, and read your book backward, one sentence at a time. This will force you to read each sentence individually.
- Print out your book and have it bound at a copy shop such as Office Depot or FedEx office. Seeing a book in printed form often results in even more mistakes being found.
Looking for more in-depth self-editing tips and tricks? I suggest you pick up a copy of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King.
Printing out the book is a great tip. You’ve been staring at your work on the screen for a long time. It’s a fresh perspective!
Great tips! Now to try reading my manuscript backwards…
Great post and so succinct. Picked up a few pointers, especially about changing the MS format to search for error and reading out loud with an audio book in mind. Thank you for this!
Great to see another author blogging about self-editing. I use Grammarly near the end of the process but before I send to beta readers etc. It usually catches something I missed. I don’t like to spend time on copyediting or proofreading until I’ve competed a big-picture edit. I also read backward, but on scene at a time instead of one sentence. I find this helps find inconsistencies in story – don’t know why this works, though. I think I’ll the one-sentence approach next.
I love Browne & King’s book. I also love Writer Unboxed, because Dave King blogs there on occasion. Excellent tips!
It might be cheaper to contact Lulu.com (http://www.lulu.com/create/books). They’ll make a copy and it costs less than printing it at home.
Don’t forget to get beta readers to take a look as well.
Great post. 🙂
Anna from elements of emaginette
another backwards reader!
People think I’m nuts when I make this suggestion, but for people like me, who start reading the story rather than editing the words, reading backwards is a great solution.
If you have a mac, you also have the option of having your computer read your story back to you. This one finds all my missing words or places where i’ve used the wrong word.
Also love the redundancy quote. Now when i find these anywhere, it gives me the giggles.
Oh wow, reading my book backwards. That sounds like terrific advice. I wish my eyes could handle it this week, but they’re oh so dry. 🙂