A TEAM APPROACH TO MANUSCRIPT EDITING

Your manuscript is formatted to publishing style standards, and you’ve achieved your word count goal. Bravo! 

Distance yourself from your manuscript for a week or two before working on polishing your work. This avoids missing errors because your brain remembers what it thinks you wrote rather than comprehends what you wrote. If this is your debut novel, utilize this time to investigate a cover design appropriate for the genre of your story and to research business publishing options.

Don’t rush time needed for self editing work that should involve some sentence rewrites. Search for one or two of the editorial steps mentioned below for each read through of your draft manuscript. 

A Team Approach to Manuscript Editing

Eight Self-Editing Steps

1.  Self-editing accomplished, seek input from a writer support group, if you have one, and/or four or five people (not all close friends or relatives) to be beta readers.  A beta reader’s job is not to edit your work. It’s to give honest feedback from a reader’s perspective on what they liked or didn’t like about your story before it is submitted for publishing. It is up to your discretion which suggestions you incorporate into your draft. Sending a beta reader a PDF of your manuscript will allow constructive comments to be added in the margin without altering your text. 

1. Read your manuscript aloud or use MS-Word's "Read Aloud Speech Mode" to check pacing, tone, writing voice, and story flow.

2. Proofread on-line and on a printed copy.  Your word processing software will highlight mechanics of style errors such as spelling, capitalization, grammar errors, and sentence structure irregularities but will not catch all errors. 

3. Your first few paragraphs in chapter one need to hook a prospective reader and confirm the story's genre. Subsequent chapters should have interesting beginning and concluding sentences to make a reader eager to turn the page.

4. Strengthen the quality of your prose by eliminating filler words that don't add importance to a sentence.  Words such as: think, thought, really, very, totally, somewhat, perhaps, maybe, usually, just, even, really, so, totally, sort of, then, seem or seemed. In addition, the Find and Replace feature in a Word document will highlight words you tend to overuse.

5. Choose character names to reflect their nationality and the story's geographic location. Avoid using the same letter to begin the names of more than one character. Ask yourself if the character dialogue fits your character description.

6. Sprinkle character and scene descriptions throughout your story. Avoid excess information dumps in one location.

7. The Show, Don't Tell writing principle should play a major role in your writing style. 'Showing' with vivid description makes a reader feel that they are experiencing a scene. Whereas, 'Telling' them what is occurring is reporting or narrative that distances them from the action. Avoid 'showing' in one sentence followed by a 'tell' in the following sentence.

8. Ensure your story's plot is not confusing and that it is rich with a satisfying climax and many intriguing anti-climaxes. If a sentence doesn't advance the plot or add to character development, axe it.

Self-editing accomplished, seek input from a writer support group, if you have one, and/or four or five people (not all close friends or relatives) to be beta readers. A beta reader's job is not to edit your work.  It's to give honest feedback from a reader's perspective on what they liked or didn't like about your story before it is submitted for publishing. It is up to your discretion which suggestions you incorporate into your draft. Sending a beta reader a PDF of your manuscript will allow constructive comments to be added in the margin without altering your text.

The self-editing tips above cover a portion of the editorial work provided by a professional fiction editor. This effort, on your part, may reduce the level of editing required by an editor and reduce billable hours. It is extremely difficult to spot all of our writing errors. A poorly edited manuscript could result in being rejected by a publishing house or an agent; uncomplimentary book reviews when published and/or a loss of potential readers.

In the back matter of your manuscript, remember to acknowledge those who helped you on your journey to being a published fiction author.

Article by Donna Warner

 DONNA WARNER'S book #1 in the Blair and Piermont crime and romantic suspense series, Targeted, is set in the Caribbean. Book 2, Death's Footprint, takes place in Canada's historic Quebec City. Both books are co-authored with award-winning mystery author, Gloria Ferris. Donna resides on a country property near Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She is a member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) organization.

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