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Self-editing If you take the word revision apart, you get "re-vision" -- that is, seeing the work from a new point of view. That's the whole point of editing and revision: to view the work again and re-work it, polishing it to a high gloss. "But isn't that the editor's job?" you may be wondering. At one time it was, yes. In the golden days of novel writing a few decades back, editors could take the time to nurture the new writer along, if that writer showed a talent for coming up with good ideas and only needed a little polish. But in these days of corporate mergers and bottom-line mentality, editors are in the business of reviewing and acquiring manuscripts, and even agents have little time to coach new writers along. If you want your work to stand out, it needs to shine to its brightest gleam. You have to be your own editor these days, because editors can no longer spare the time. Looking at the big picture Your novel is complete. You've spent thousands of hours planning, writing, throwing away, writing some more, but now you've typed the last word and said to yourself, "The End!" Now, put it away for a while. Let it rest. Your mind is still too full of the characters and the story to get an objective view. Let the story sit for a few weeks while you work on other projects. When you come back to it, the first thing to look at is whether or not the story holds together. Instead of reading the book through, write a summary of it. You'll need a summary or synopsis for marketing purposes anyway, so try writing one now. It may not be the one you'll actually use to sell the book, but give it a try. Read over your synopsis, or better still, have someone else who is a writer read it over (check with writer's bulletin boards to get volunteers). Does the story hold together? Is it plausible? Or are there areas where you've forced events to happen that don't ring true? Is there enough action to sustain the novel? Or is most of the action going on inside the characters' heads? Does the story have an exciting climax? Is the ending satisfying? Have you defied any natural physical laws or included any inaccurate historical information that will inspire your readers to send snarky letters? Scene by scene Print out a copy of your book or story for marking up. Use marking pens to divide the story into each scene and its sequel (see the essay Crafting a Plot for more on scene and sequel). What have you accomplished in each scene? Does the scene move the story forward, or is it more or less gratuitous? Are action scenes balanced by thoughtful sequels in a ratio that is appropriate to the type of book you are writing? Are there scenes that need to be cut, or moved, or rewritten? Is there excess backstory that needs trimmed, or worked into the story in a smoother way? Are the characters behaving realistically? Does their dialogue sound natural? Not that it should sound exactly like people do when they talk, since most real dialogue is full of "umm..." and "er..." and incomplete thoughts and sentences, and is quite frankly dull to read when transcribed and thus stripped of intonation, expression, and context. But the dialogue should sound natural enough for your characters so that the reader believes that those words could come out of that character's mouth. A modern American teenager who says, "Good morning, Mother. What a perfectly glorious day this promises to be," is not going to be believed, but an 18th century upper-class young woman with the same line might be believable. Finally, does the dialogue move the story forward? Does it develop the characters? Does it bring information to the reader, or is it merely chatter to fill up space? Is the point of view consistent? If you have a first-person POV or a third-person limited POV, do you stay in that character's head, or is there suddenly information on the table that the character should have no access to? At this point, if there are big changes that you want to make, you may want to do a re-write before you go into the final line editing. Line by line Once again, print out your current draft, and go over it line by line. If you composed on a computer, printing the story and reading it on paper will actually help you spot errors that you miss on the screen. Here are a few things to look for, moving from larger details to finer ones: Long, loose sentences. Can they be broken up or tightened for clarity? Find ways to rewrite awkward sentences, or sentences that don't read aloud well. Purple prose: "The magnificent blood-red solar orb slowly and majestically descended into the vast, wine-dark sea," might be a bit much. At most, write, "The blood-red sun set on a darkening sea." Overuse of adjectives: "The cute, soft, furry, striped, baby raccoon waddled down to the chilly, tinkling brook," is the product of someone whose English teacher has been over-coaching the idea of using all the senses in one's writing. Try, "The tiny raccoon waddled down to the stream." Passive voice: "Mistakes were made." "Shots were fired." Who made the mistakes? Who fired the shots? If your main character doesn't know who did these things, or if you're relating an historical event and no one knows who did these things, try, "Someone in the office messed up, and we don't know who," or, "Witnesses say they heard three shots fired." Also avoid, "The car was driven by John," which is not only passive, but sounds pompous. Instead say, "John drove the car." Overuse of "began," as in, "John turned the key and began to pull the car out of the driveway." And what stopped him? Use "began" if the action is to be interrupted or if you want to emphasize the beginning of something. Otherwise, say, "John turned the key and pulled the car out of the driveway." Overuse of "suddenly." If things are always happening "suddenly" in your book, go back and work on building suspense. Overuse of "-ing" words. While there's nothing inherently wrong with verbs ending in "ing," do a search for "ing" words and see how many are piling up in your sentences. Often it's a case of passive voice creeping in. Subject-verb agreement: Make sure that you use plural verbs with plural nouns, single verbs with single nouns. Be careful with compound subjects. "John's tie and his coat are on the chair," not "John's tie and his coat is on the chair." Misplaced modifiers and other ludicrous incompatibilities: Think about what's wrong with this sentence: "Refreshing and delicious, kids will love this new juice drink." Since it's unacceptable in our culture to think of children as "refreshing and delicious" in a literal sense, this must mean that "refreshing and delicious" should belong to the juice drink. Rewrite it this way: "Refreshing and delicious, this juice drink will appeal to all kids," or better still, "Kids love this refreshing and delicious juice drink." The infamous comma splice: "John panted as he ran in, he was late for his interview," should read, "John panted as he ran in. He was late for his interview." The comma splice turns the first example into a run-on sentence. Proper use of frequently-confused words, especially homonyms: Know when to use its (posessive) and it's (contraction of it is). A person's curiosity is piqued, not peaked, nor peeked. Likewise, when we line up we stand in a queue, but we shoot pool with a cue. It's "bear with me," folks, not "bare with me." The latter might be appropriate on adult web sites, but not in children's literature! To accept something is to allow it, while except is used in making an exception to a rule ("I accept all people except those I don't like.") Say, "I should have..." not, "I should of..." Remember that affect is a verb (X affects Y), while effect is a noun (X has an effect on Y), with a few exceptions found only in academic papers. There, they're, and there, the terrible trio that trips up many a writer. There is the car, they're here, it's their car. It's not a bad idea to use the search feature in your word processor and make sure that you have these three straight. There is usually used as an adverb referring to location (The car is over there), or a pronoun to introduce a clause (There are three cars in the driveway). They're is a contraction of They are: They're going to get a new car. Their is an adjective that is a posessive form of they: Their old car is broken down. Then there are the twins, your and you're: Your is an adjective, and is the posessive form of you: Isn't that your new car? You're is a contraction of you are: You're going to have fun driving it. Other frequently-confused words besides homonyms: You are nauseated when you feel sick to your stomach, but nauseous if you have that effect on others. (Replace nauseous and nauseated with poisonous and poisoned and you'll see why.) You are eager if you are awaiting something pleasant, but anxious if the anticipated event promises to be unpleasant. An everyday (adjective) occasion is one that happens every day (two-word adverb). The fast checkout at the grocery store should say, "Ten items or fewer," not "Ten items or less." Fewer usually modifies plural nouns, while less usually modifies single nouns, though less can be used where the plural is used but is taken as one entity: "I have less than ten dollars in my wallet." Proper use of the subjunctive case: "I wish that editing were easy," rather than, "I wish that editing was easy." Some say it's an archaic usage, but it is still correct, though "I wish editing was easy" is becoming more acceptable. Spelling: Use your spell-checker. It won't catch everything, but it should catch typos as well as many common errors (remember there is "a rat" in separate). Proper use of a spell checker would have prevented a student of mine from spelling "instinct" as "instinked" in a final term project If using words and phrases that originate from another language, be sure you recognize them for what they are and don't simply spell them phonetically. Your spell checker may be your first alert that something is wrong with "boo-koo" and "wah-la," which are both French and are properly spelled beaucoup and voila. These are some of the most common errors. A good book on editing will help you uncover many more. If you are willing to show your work to others and can enlist the help of experienced writers, get others to look over your manuscript for any errors they can spot. The more eyes, the better. Things you don't need to worry about Analyze some of the finest essays by the best writers in the top magazines, such as the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, or Vanity Fair, and you'll find examples of all these supposed "Rules of Good English" broken. Preposition at the end of a sentence: You may have learned in English class that "a preposition is something that you never end a sentence with." (That, of course, being a sentence ending in a preposition.) However, this rule is the result of early grammarians assuming that all Latin grammar was perfect, and therefore attempting to impose Latin grammar on English to make it perfect as well. In Latin, it is literally impossible to end a sentence with a preposition (and thus the Latin name, preposition, something that comes before). Hence grammarians thought that educated English likewise should not end with a preposition. However, English has a far more flexible sentence structure that allows us to place the preposition at the end and still have a sentence make perfect sense. In fact, quite often we find that placing the preposition at the end makes a sentence sound less stilted. Compare, "A preposition is something with which you may end a sentence," with, "A preposition is something you can end a sentence with." Both are correct, but the first is more formal than the second, so each will be appropriate to a different type of writing. As Winston Churchill is reputed to have once said, when chided about ending a sentence with a preposition, "This is the sort of thing up with which I shall not put." Beginning a sentence with a conjunction: The old rule that you can't begin a sentence with "and," "but," "or," or other conjunctions is another one of those, "It can't be done in Latin so it oughtn't be done in English" sort of rules. It can be done in English, and often is done for the effect that it can produce. Contractions: They're everywhere. You may have heard that all contractions should be weeded out of formal writing, and while academic writing has far fewer contractions than popular writing, it is certanly not devoid of them. Since children aren't the typical consumer of academic journals, let this "rule" go. Run it through the typewriter again In the days before fancy electronic gizmos, writers made first, second, third, forth, and even forty-fifth drafts of their work. Each time they'd mark up the manuscript, then type up a clean copy with the new corrections. Even in these electronic days, it's a good practice. Typing your manuscript over again, avoiding the temptation to cut and paste, helps you with line-by-line editing as you focus in on the words again. It's a particularly helpful technique for people who tend to "get into" the story mentally to the point that they "see" the story happening and stop paying attention to the words. Typing everything over again forces you to pay attention to each word and sentence as they go by, and you will find yourself making refinements that you otherwise would not have made. Once you've retyped the entire work, run the spell checker one last time and proofread the whole manuscript for any typos. Now, after all that labor, it should be ready for submission.

Recommended books: The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction Michael Seidman Writer's Digest Books, 2000 The most complete, detailed instruction manual for self-editing that we've found that's still in print. The Chicago Manual of Style University of Chicago Press, 2003 The Chicago Manual of Style is a standard in many fields. More books on self-editing: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers Renni Brown, David King Collins, 2004 Getting the Words Right Theodore Cheney F&W Publications, 2005 Write It Right : The Ground Rules for Self-Editing Like the Pro Dawn Josephson, Lauren Hidden Cameo Publications, 2005

Glen and Karen Bledsoe --> articles --> The Writing Process --> Self-editing