Are you in a self-editing nightmare?
Here are 9 Simple Ways to Edit Your Manuscript.
A writers’ victories are short-lived indeed.
For a brief moment
after completing a first draft, writers sit back, breathe a sigh of relief,
post a self-congratulatory humble brag on their social media sites about
finishing their manuscript, and then immediately think about that one character
we forgot to really complete, or that we’re pretty sure we overused the word
“that” instead of “than,” or that those squiggly red lines scattered throughout
our manuscript are surely incorrect.
In other words, the
joys of #amwriting give way to the trials of #amediting.
As a strong believer
that every author needs an editor, your first line of literary defense
shouldn’t be a professional editor. Rather, you need to learn how to
self-edit before sending your manuscript off for that second
pair of eyes.
Breaking Rules
Publishing offers full-service editing packages and payment plans that are
affordable to everyone. We have witnessed dozens of simple mistakes authors
constantly make. If only they’d take the time to learn and incorporate better
self-editing techniques, they would become better writers; endear themselves to
their editors, and maybe even save money on a professional edit.
If you think that you’re
ready to self-edit your book, take a look at these 10 tips that will help you
out:
1. Rest yourself and your manuscript
When you’ve finished
typing the last word of your masterpiece, set it aside for a few days. If you
can stand it, set it aside for a week or more. Many writers place their finished
drafts in a drawer for at least a week before looking at them again.
Why rest your draft
for so long? It’s easy - you want to try to forget everything you’ve written so
that when you do come back to it with fresh eyes, and the best way to do that
is to rid your mind of what’s been filling it for so long.
2. Listen to your manuscript
Hearing your words
spoken makes mistakes glaringly obvious. You can enlist a (very patient) friend
to read it to you, or you can go the friendship-saving route, which has the
benefit of being free: use your computer’s built-in speech synthesis function.
For PC users, make use
of Narrator, part of
the system’s Ease of Access Center. Press “Windows+U” and click “Start
Narrator.” Since the program is intended for blind users, it will automatically
begin to read any text your mouse encounters. To turn this off, hit “Control.”
To have Narrator read a paragraph, place your cursor at its beginning and type
“Caps Lock + I.” To have Narrator read an entire page, press “Caps Lock + U.”
3. Search for troubling words
All writers have
specific words and phrases that
(which?) always cause them to (too?)
second-guess whether (weather?) they’re (their?) using them correctly. If you
know what your (you’re?) troubling words are, use your word processor’s search
function to locate every possible variant of that word or phrase.
To help you consider
what your troubling words might be, here’s a good starting list.
·
a lot/a lot
·
affect/effect
·
can/may
·
further/farther
·
good/well
·
i.e./e.g.
·
into/in to
·
it’s/its
·
lay/lie
·
less/fewer
·
that/who
·
their/they’re/there
·
then/than
·
who/whom
·
your/you’re
If you’re unsure of
how to properly use these words, there’s no shame in looking them up.
4. Remove or replace your crutch words
Do you know the top 10
words you use most frequently in your manuscript?
Outside of necessary
articles and prepositions, you may be surprised at what words you tend to use
over and over. One client of mine used “suddenly” too often, making every
action seem unnecessarily rushed. Some new writers have crutch words that tend
to fly in the face of the age-old encouragement for all writers to “eschew
obfuscation.”
In other words, they tend
to cash in ten-dollar words when five-cent words suffice.
Many writers put words
on the paper that are an indication of how they speak. This is fine – just remember
that your reader may not understand and you may need to explain your way of
speech somewhere to give them a hint about what is going on. “With,” is
something that I personally have an issue with. “Do you want to come with? Go
with.” And, on and on. So consider your reader as you write.
No matter how you
determine your crutch words, go back through your manuscript and see where you
can remove or replace them with something fresher.
5. Remove all double spaces at the end of sentences
If tapping two spaces
following your sentences is an age-old habit ingrained into you since before
the dawn of modern digital typography, may I suggest ingraining another
practice? It simply is no longer done, so find a new habit.
6. Search for problematic punctuation
Are you a comma
chameleon, adapting that otherwise innocent punctuation mark to do work it was
never meant to do? Or does your manuscript need a semicolonoscopy — a thorough
check-up on proper semicolon and colon placement?.
If you know you have
trouble with certain punctuation marks, conduct a search for that mark and
figure out whether you’re using it correctly. If you’re still unsure, let your
editor fix it, but make a note to ask him why.
7. Run spell check or use an automated editing program
I think writers become
too accustomed to the colorful squiggles under words and sentences on their
digital pages; I know I do. In an effort to get ideas on the page, we might run
rampant over grammar and usage.
Yet those squiggles
mean something. At the very least, run spell check before sending your
manuscript to an editor or beta reader. It’s a built-in editor that I’m not
sure every writer uses to their advantage. You may not accept every
recommendation, but at least you’ll save your editor some time correcting basic
errors.
8. Format accordingly
While preferred styles
may differ from one editor to the next, you can show your professionalism by
formatting your manuscript to conform to industry standards.
Such formatting makes
it easier for beta readers to consume, and editors prefer industry-standard
formatting, which allows them more time to edit your actual words instead of
tweaking your formatting. Here are some basic formatting tips:
- Send your manuscript as a Word
document (.doc or .docx).
- Use double-spaced line spacing.
If you’ve already written your book with different line spacing, select
all of your text in Word, click Format > Paragraph, then select
“Double” in the drop-down box under “Line spacing.”
- Use a single space following
periods.
- Use black, 12-point, Times New
Roman as the font.
- Don’t hit tab to indent
paragraphs. In Word, select all of your text, then set indentation using
Format > Paragraph. Under “Indentation” and by “Left,” type .5. Under
“Special,” choose “First line” from the drop-down menu. [Note: Nonfiction
authors may opt for no indention, but if they do so they must use full
paragraph breaks between every paragraph.]
- The first paragraph of any
chapter, after a subheader, or following a bulleted or numbered list shouldn’t be indented.
9. Don’t over-edit
Set aside an hour or
two to go through this list with your manuscript, but be careful about
over-editing. You may start seeing unnecessary trees within your forest of
words, but you don’t want to raze to the ground what you’ve toiled so hard to
grow.
A middle path exists
between exhausting yourself in a vain attempt for perfection and being too lazy
to run spell check. Do yourself and your book a favor and self-edit, but be
careful not to go overboard.
In the end, you’re
going to want a second pair of eyes to look at your manuscript. Plus, going
through the editing process with a professional editor will help you become a
better self-editor the next time you write a book.
Again – look to the
Breaking Rules Publishing Services page to find our editing packages. And
remember – we’re here to help you, if you need a payment plan, don’t be shy, we
more than understand. You only need to ask.
As always, Breaking
Rules Publishing continues to accept submissions in all genres from writers
around the world. Simply email us at info@breakingrulespublishing.com
The Scribe is a 60 - 90-page magazine that features articles and tools to assist in the success of the writers and readers that subscribe. It also offers writers, published authors and young writers the opportunity to share their work, promote their novels, short stories or poetry.
