Edit Yourself Into Print

How is your work in progress (WIP) coming along?

Are you an aspiring author working on your first project / manuscript? Or are you a seasoned author struggling to finish that ending of your latest novel?

Wherever you are in your writing journey, there are simple techniques you can do to get that latest novel into print.

Don't give up just yet. Hear me out.

My name's Lizzy, and I'm an author, and a mental health writer. For me, writing is part of my life, and my daily routine. I work full time as a teacher, and take care of my growing family. I still make time for my writing because it's what I love doing. 

I've just completed an MFA in Creative writing, and I want to share with you some writing tips about editing. 

Editing is a skill that every writer knows how to do in some degree, but it's through targeted editing that you can really hone your writing, and make it shine the way it deserves.

You can edit your own manuscript to make it shine before you send it to an agent. You don't need to hire someone to do it for you.

Editing your writing is so much more than correcting grammar and spelling mistakes. It's thinking about how you write and what effect this has on your readers. 

Writing tip 1: Scenes

The first writing tip I have for you, is to look at your scenes. 

How do you make your story unfold? Where is your story set? 

Have you done enough to make it stand out for the reader, so they get a clear picture of where it takes place?

Do you have long narrative summaries and paragraphs where you explain every detail at length?

Do you allow your readers to breathe in between words?

Your readers can only follow the words that you write, so use them carefully to convey the story through scenes, dialogue and actions. 

Writing tip 2: Showing not telling

My next bit of advice is in your narrative style. 

How do you convey your story and characters to your readers? Is your narrative leaning on lots of exposition or are you showing the reader what something is like?

Showing your story rather than explaining everything, opens up your narrative and makes it transparent for your readers. This in turn creates a continuity in your story where the reader is actively engaged. It's okay to hold back some details and let your readers figure out the plot while being engrossed in the story.

For example; 

"Amelia took one look at the kitchen and recoiled in disgust."

Here you want to show your reader what made Amanda feel disgust in the first place, so that your readers can feel it with her. That way, you have your readers full attention and they want to turn the page.

Consider this to show Amanda's disgust:

"The door creaked under Amanda's fingertips as it opened into a small kitchen. The afternoon sun's rays streamed into the room through a grimy window on her right. The light lit up the countertops, which were filled with dirty pans and dishes. A couple of cockroaches examined a brown mass in one of the pans before scuttling away under a broken cup."

Here, the reader is in the scene with Amelia and discover the kitchen with her. It makes for a much more immersive experience for your readers than simply telling them what characters feel.

Writing tip 3: Characterization and exposition

How do you portray new characters in your story?

Writers are often tempted to introduce new characters in great detail to give them a clear picture before they move on with the narrative. It's often written like a personality summary.

It's good practice to give your readers enough physical descriptions so they can picture him/ her. You only need a few concrete and idiomatic detail to jump-start your readers' imaginations. 

Show your readers your characters personalities through action and reaction through dialogue instead of describing them. 

Allow your readers time to get to know your characters and reveal their traits throughout the book. This makes for a much more effective narrative and has your reader guessing throughout the pages.

If you wanted to bring out a character's history, you could use a flashback to help your readers understand this person in the present.

Think about characterization as a way to show your readers what this character is like in the world you are building. 

How much time have you devoted to character description? Are these same descriptions in your dialogue and actions? 

Think about the information that you have about your characters. Is all of it necessary to move the narrative forwards? If the answer is no, consider cutting some of this extra "fluff." It could dilute your story. 

Writing tip 4: Point of View

Some books can have many different flavors of points of view but there are only three basic approaches. 

They are first person, ("I" voice, speaking directly to your readers.) third person and omniscient point of view.

The first person point of view is written from the "I" voice. This viewpoint is speaking directly to your readers from your characters head. The reader sees the world through their eyes and all other characters are filtered through this viewpoint.

If you wanted to introduce other characters with the same detail, you could have other scenes from their points of view. Many experienced writers use this technique. I write like this in my novels.

An omniscient point of view is the opposite of the first person view, where instead of being written from inside one character's head, the narrative is written from nobody's viewpoint. This style of writing was common in the nineteenth century in writer's like Jane Austen and George Eliot.

The third person point of view, is a balance between first person and omniscient view. Here your readers are invited to have a perspective between a narrative intimacy spanning to a narrative distance. 

Your word choices and syntax determine where on the narrative scale your story lies. The way you write comes from your history, education and experiences of culture and places.

How do you describe your characters and settings? Are you using only words and phrases that your character knows? Do you write more sophisticated than what your character can manage? 

It's your language that will make your writing either intimate or not.

Writing tip 5: Proportion

Do you leave your readers hanging, or do you tell them everything in great detail? 

Proportion is the way you narrate your story for the reader. Too much and too little detail can be detrimental to your overall story. 

It's when you fill in every tiny detail about what happens to a character or in a scene that there is no room at all for your readers to imagine it. Or, you might slide through a scene so quickly, you leave your readers stumped.

You are patronizing your readers by giving them either too much or not enough information.

If you tend to over write scenes, leave some mundane actions and even throw in an ellipsis now and again to fire up your reader's imaginations. Let your readers guess for a while, then give them more.

You don't need to explain everything in great detail. Your reader gets it.

Similarly, if you skate over a scene without enough details, you risk losing your readers in the plot and they will stop reading. 

You want your readers to turn those pages, so get that balance right.

Think about what matters the most, and what drives your story forwards. Do you have tangents and subplots? Do they drive the story forwards effectively? If you don't have any subplots, you might want to add some.

Writing tip 6: Dialogue

Writing effective dialogue takes skill and practice. This is where your characters come alive (or not) through speech. There are many techniques that you can use to make your dialogue stand out.

Do you explain your dialogue to your readers?

For example: "You are joking," he said with surprise.

You don't need to tell your readers what a character is feeling. This is patronizing your readers. Resist the urge to explain everything, let your readers feel the emotion through your words.

The way we react to emotions makes us who we are. It's showing and telling again but this time through dialogue. Your readers want you to show them how your characters are feeling through body language, word choices and context. 

Writing tip 7: How does it sound?

Character voice and building effective dialogue is one of your greatest challenges as a writer. You can't write exactly like people speak because language is complex and often fragmented. 

Listen to how people speak and notice how many errms, huh's, and pauses there are in natural speech. Creating dialogue has to be more compressed than normal speech and yet it needs to sound natural. Not an easy thing to do.

One simple way to make your speech less formal is to use contractions like "I'd like to go to the game," instead of "I would like to go to the game."

Another way is to avoid repetitions by using the same words twice in one piece of dialogue. 

A third way is to think about the vocabulary that you use. Would your characters use those words? (Or do they sound like you speak?)

Reading your dialogue out loud. How does it sound?

Writing tip 8: Repetition

Repeating words and scenes is generally not a good idea because it risks weakening your narrative and your reader might lose interest. Even worse, repetition makes your story lose its power.

It's better to write it once and do it well, than do it twice.

Writers often get very attached to their manuscripts. We write every day and plough ahead like we're running a sprint to the end. I do this because I need to get the story out from my head. What I've learned is to slow down and pause every so often. 

Writing is more like a marathon with pauses in between stages. 

One great thing you can do as a writer is to put your manuscript away for a few days, a week, or even a month or two if you can bare it. Looking at your own writing with fresh eyes can be illuminating. It not only makes you see mistakes, but you read it again, and get a sense of how you bring your story to life.

I hope that I've given you some ideas on how you can edit yourself into print without using expensive experts to do it for you. After all, your manuscript came from you and you know it the best. You are the best editor of your own work.

Happy editing. You've got this.

My name is Lizzy. I'm a trauma survivor, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and an author.

If you like reading my posts, then please follow me.

For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

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Check out my other articles:

What kind of writer are you?

https://medium.com/restless-quills/what-kind-of-writer-are-you-194075bd06f7

Lifeline narratives for those who feel unheard

https://medium.com/pen-with-paper/lifeline-narratives-for-those-who-feel-unheard-79ab003c087f 

Writing a Master's Thesis

https://medium.com/pen-with-paper/writing-a-masters-thesis-9b62d1baff9c