How to Edit Your Novel

I hope at this point in your writing journey you’ve already realized that you have to edit your book before sending it to an editor.

Seems a little silly yes, but an editor is there to help you fix the issues in your novel you may not see. They’re not there to fix the thousands of times you used there instead of there. This task falls on you.

If you were to hand some editors a completely unedited manuscript they would take one look at your first few pages and send you packing with it until you do some self-editing.

It may seem like a daunting task, but with the right mindset, you’ll be through that first round of edits in no time and on to round two.

How to Edit Your Novel

If you’ve never edited before here are a few of the best ways to help you with that first round of edits.

Take a Break

You can’t go from writing your story to editing it the very next day. The whole thing is too fresh in your mind to think about it from an objective view. Leave it in a draw to rest somewhere for a few weeks or even a few months until you can be looking at your story with fresh eyes.

Read it Outloud

You might feel silly, but this will be the fastest way to catch all of those little nuances in your story you may miss when scanning over it with just your eyes. Hearing your story out loud will help you make sure that your sentences flow and any words your computer's autocorrect may have put in instead of what you actually meant to say are caught.

Chapter by Chapter

This one works well for me. When I’ve finished writing my story I have it printed out at my local office supply store and I place it in a binder with tabs separating each chapter. When it’s time for me to edit I will spend an entire day just looking over one chapter at a time and making sure that everything that needs to be changed or added is marked clearly in a specified pen color. Red for removal, blue for grammar issues, and green for more adding details.

Line by Line

This will help you most with grammatical errors since you are not focusing on the overall story. Use a pen and a ruler and slowly look over each word in the line for grammar issues or spelling mistakes that may have slipped by you in the previous steps.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Red Pen

Editing your novel may mean cutting out an entire character that isn’t really necessary to your plot or overall story or deleting a whole scene that you loved, but hurts your plot progression

There's a popular phrase that comes up for writers in the editing process of their manuscript.

Murder your Darlings.

This means exactly what you think it means. Going through the child before you that is your manuscript and taking away parts of it piece by piece. This doesn’t mean you have to erase these parts from existence forever if it hurts you too much to do so simply move these parts to a new document labeled as Outtakes in case you need them for later.

Know When to Stop

Just like it’s possible to edit your manuscript too little it’s also possible to edit it too much. There comes a time when you have to put down the pen before you drive yourself crazy by adding and taking away parts again and again and second-guessing every decision you’re making.

Editing your novel is an invaluable skill to have in your pocket as a writer. With time you’ll be able to do it as easily as writing.

Best of luck and keep writing.

With love,

B.K. xo

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