Now that you’ve finally finished your book, you can take a deep breath as you surely start to wonder what’s next? Should you send it to traditional editorials? Keep it hidden forever? Or maybe start editing the crap out of it?
Well, here I will give you 8 simple steps you can follow to edit your book. The process include developmental editing, line editing, copy editing and beta readers. It will be an unavoidable, exhausting, yet necessary step. It involves a thorough review, drastic changes, and refinements. Of course, self-editing does not substitute the work of a professional editor, but it’s a necessary step every author needs to take. It doesn’t matter if you are going with traditional or indie publishing, you have to be sure you’ve given your book the very best.
Let’s get into it!
1. Time to Take a Break
Yes, you heard it right, once you’ve finished the first draft, it is time to let it rest. After all those long hours, days, and months, sitting in front of a computer, with endless headaches, dead ends, and mazes of words, it’s time to take some time to breathe.
This step is perhaps the most important one, because of the impact on the change in perspective that it will give you next.
Because you will no longer find yourself so focused on it, you will be able to appreciate your book from a different point of view, be more aware of the little details and recognize the mistakes you were not able to see before.
You can send a few copies out to friends or critique partners, so you can get some opinions, suggestions, doubts, and, why not, praise.
What I want you to understand, and do, is to relax. The story is already there. It’s neither finished, nor complete. But it’s there.
During this time you can get involved in other projects, new challenges, new ideas, or work in an unfinished story (we all have some of those). You could start outlining your next work, scribbling down some notes, or perhaps, if you are a pantser, drafting the next story. Use this break to find new ideas. If you want to know how to get awesome ideas, check this article.
2. Print it out
Keep it old school and print it out. You might at first be attracted to the idea of editing it on the computer, but truth is it can get messed up. Listen to my advice, and print your manuscript. You’ll be able to see the whole picture and it will be easier to correct mistakes, plus, you can even enjoy your much loved colored markers.
I suggest you to use different colors for every editing stage. You can use blue for developmental editing, yellow for line editing, and red for copy editing. This way, you’ll have it more organize and it won’t be necessary to read again to see why you crossed out a certain part. If you are wondering what are and include these stages, keep reading!
Talking about markers and pretty stuff for writers… Did you know that Amazon has the coolest gifts for the writer in your life? Check this post to and then come back to this one.
3. Divide and Conquer
Self-editing is a really demanding task that can take more time than drafting itself. In order to make this task easier, divide the work into parts without mixing things up. Even if your book has only 4 chapters and more than 200 pages, divide it into parts, do not try to cover all the content in one day or one week. Take one step at a time, because it will be easy to feel overwhelmed.
Separate each set of chapters into separate folders with their respective names, parts 1 and 2 of the 1st chapter, part 3 and 4 of the first chapter, and so on and so forth.
You will thank me when you see how it is easier to find what you are looking for. You will know perfectly where everything will be.
Check this post to learn how to write effective chapters!
4. Developmental Editing
We call developmental editing that phase of the book editing process where we give a thorough review and look for any issues with the storyline
Here you will have to take into consideration some elements like:
- Plot holes (things that cannot work out the way you had planned, unfinished scenes, objects that you had planned to use a certain way, but then you changed your mind and let that storyline unfinished)
- Character arcs and character consistency (Characters should evolve with the story, make sure it happens. Also, delete characters that don’t have a real role in the book, that don’t bring anything to the story, or maybe fuse them together)
- POV (is this the right POV for your story?)
- Scenes and Chapters (Is every scene bringing something to the table? Does every chapter represent a real contribution to the story?)
This will be your first step to edit your manuscript. Keep in mind that during this process many scenes in the book can be removed or added, and structures, changed. Don’t be afraid to cross out mistakes, and delete unnecessary characters. However painful it may be, it will be for the sake of history.
It is actually happening to me now, after going through the pages of the novel I wrote last year, I feel that some things were irrelevant, or that there were parts in which I have plenty of work to do yet. It is intimidating in fact, but the sooner you do it, the better.
This part of the edition is usually very expensive to pay for, so it would be very convenient for you to do it yourself and then look for the opinion of a professional.
Grab your markers and cross out everything you consider unnecessary in your book, everything that needs to be changed, or everywhere you need to add something. Learn to recognize your mistakes and be self-critical.
I warn you that entire paragraphs could be deleted and you need to be prepared in case you have to rewrite the entire book. Consider for instance that you remove one of your characters; you’ll need to change or remove every scene in which that character appears; or if you wrote your book in first person POV, but then realized a third person woukd work better; you’ll need to rewrite it again, from the top to the end. It is in fact a lot of work, but it’s worth the time and the effort if it makes your story a better one.
5. Line Editing
Now that your story makes sense, it’s time to do some line editing! Line editing takes care of your manuscript at a sentence level. It will make the most of the words you’ve written, remove unnecessary words, and make sure that each one has the correct meaning, and keeps the rhythm.
In this stage you can tighten our sentences, replace clichés, and check word choice.
You have to make sure your sentences make sense, go along with the main idea, and provide some information that really helps move the book forward.
Line editing involves thinking about the structure of the sentence and if it is really convenient to keep all the words, think that some may be unnecessary.
If you are not sure about the sufficiency of a paragraph, you should ask yourself; does it really catch my attention? Does it fulfill any function or provide any relevant information? If your answer is No, then, as Elsa would say, let it go, it’s not for you.
Keep the readers in mind, you cannot forget about the audience. The story must be told in a way that your audience can understand what you are trying to convey. Therefore, you must be sure that your development has a language accessible to the audience you want to reach.
6. Copy Editing
Copy editing is the stage in which your manuscript is reviewed and edited to improve its readability.
Here you’ll look for grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes, as well as double spacing between sentences. Also, find and replace your crutch words, and even rewrite lines written in passive voice in the active voice. Softwares like Grammarly or Scrivener can make this part much simpler.
Get picky and look at the details, you will be able to find possible changes of scene, time, space, or place, for example, perhaps in one chapter you have written that the protagonist’s mother is blonde, and in another that she is brunette, be careful with this. It seems like a little detail, but it can totally destroy your story, as well as its credibility.
7. Get Beta Readers
Beta readers are the ones that review finished manuscripts, providing you with feedback from their point of view. They can be friends or family, anyone who will approach your story as a casual reader, pointing out things they liked and disliked, and emphasizing the elements you didn’t see during the editing process.
Don’t mistake a beta reader with an alpha reader, as alpha will be the first person to read and provide feedback on your manuscript.
You are probably wondering how many beta readers you’ll need. Everything will depend on how much content your book has, how much work it needs, and the time it has taken you to edit it.
If any of them decide that there is a scene that needs to be cut, then you should look for 3 more betas, to make sure that scene really serves a function. Everybody doesn’t have the same appreciation.
Don’t overload yourself with people, you can indeed have as many beta readers as you want, but at the end of the day, you will be overloaded with opinions, complaints, doubts, advice, and basically too many changes to consider. You will never get everyone to be satisfied with absolutely the whole story. That’s just impossible. For that reason, 10 to 12 beta readers, tops, is enough.
There are several things to keep in mind when choosing your beta, you have to be sure that these people:
- Enjoy your genre.
- Understand your intentions for the story.
- Are gonna tell you what isn’t working.
- Are reliable and honest.
Facebook is one of the internet platforms that can offer you free beta readers. There are many groups dedicated only to writers, where you can ask for both consultation and opinion.
Check our Facebook group: Writing Tips for Ravens :D.
8. Take Notes while Editing
Editing as you’ve noticed is a long and demanding process, and although you can try to rely on your memory, it’s not advisable. Therefore, if you want to remember things that come up to your mind while you edit afterwards, you need to jot down everything. For instance, let’s say you remove a scene, then you need to be clear that there cannot be a reference to that scene in the future, and yes, you can remember to check so; but as long as you go on, the list becomes larger every time, and the only way to remember is jotting everything down.
You must keep track of your work to avoid headaches and losses in the process later. Imagine having a manuscript of more than 300 pages in your hands and not knowing where you placed everything. Not cute.
Summing up…
Self-editing is a necessary step all authors need to take. It can take a lot of time, but I promise it’ll be worth it. Each time you delete or add something and each time you cringe at your own writing, it will be a sign of your growth as a writer. You will be neither the first, nor the last author to go through it, and not even recognized best-selling authors can avoid this editing process.
Don’t be afraid of letting some parts of your book go if it has a positive effect on your story. It’ll only show how your writing has evolved.
And this is all for this post. Did you find it useful? What do you think would be the most difficult step for you? Let us know in the comments.