To put it quite simply, editing is boring. And slow. And mind numbing. And frustrating. And long. Here’s a checklist to make it a little bit easier.
Write It. Then Don’t Touch It: Finish the scene, story, novel, paragraph, vignette, prompt, or chapter, then stop. Take a step away from your computer (or notebook. Hardcore) and leave it alone. There’s no hard and fast rule for how long, but the idea is to literally forget as much of what you just wrote as possible. The more you read the same thing over and over, the more your brain skips over what you think you already know, and that means you will forget things. Lots of things. So leave it alone.
Spell-check: This should be the most obvious thing in the world, but if you haven’t, run the whole thing through a spellchecker. You may have turned it off so you don’t see red lines under things you know are spelled correctly. Yes, thank you spell-check, I understand that my made up fantasy names seem to trigger something in you, but tone down the enthusiasm.
Run it through again anyway. See red, squiggly line? Fix it. Run it through a grammar checker. Still see lines? Fix it. Then get Microsoft Word or something with a built in spell-check. Seriously.
Focus on one thing at a time: Focus on dialogue on the first run through, then do description next, punctuation after that, etc. Pick one thing to focus on for each pass so you don’t get distracted or confused. Create your own checklist of things to keep an eye out for and do a run through every once and a while.
Check for repetitiveness: Make sure your sentences and paragraphs don’t start with the same word/letter. If you can say the same thing in less words, do it. If the character says something twice in a row, cut it out. If two sentences in a row starts with the same letter, adjust it. Same with paragraphs. Vary sentence and paragraph length, as well. Occasionally, you’ll have dialogue or description that naturally falls this way, this is fine, just don’t make a habit of it, and be aware of it.
Watch your dialogue tags: How many times has your character ‘laughed’ or ‘sighed’ or ‘smiled’ in this chapter? This leans into the repetitiveness we talked about above. Use new words. Get them to do new things. Don’t just add for the sake of adding, but adjust accordingly.
Change how you read it: As stated above, the more you read your story, the less you see of it. Change the font size, or the font itself. Print the story out on paper (not really applicable for novels). Change the color of the font in your favorite word processor and mark problems in red, good passages in blue, things that need to stay in green, etc.
Keep notes as you write: This doesn’t help unless you’ve done it before you’ve started editing, but it’s helpful during edits. Keep track of everything. Add them everywhere. “Sarah has green eyes.” “John doesn’t like peas”. “Need to figure out a name for a town” “Need name for background character #7”, etc. That way you can write without needing to stop at every little question, and you can go back to make sure you stay consistent and Sarah doesn’t change eye color mid story.
Make your description match your scenes: Action scenes don’t need big words and flowing prose. Make it quick, concise, and urgent. Romance scenes and historical novels can take more description. Add all five senses. Describe more. Describe less. Make it work for what you’re writing. Give them different voices for dialogue. Make then all sound different and have distinctive tones.
Quick Checklist:
- Put the story away and wait.
- Fix all major spelling and punctuation problems.
- Clean up the format (not majorly, just paragraph and sentence length and dialogue).
- Go over notes. Adjust accordingly. Make more notes.
- Make sure you have a good opening line.
- Make us love (or hate) the characters accordingly.
- Start close enough to the good stuff so it’s interesting, but not confusing.
- Make your description match your scenes.
- Make your dialogue match your characters.
- Create conflict. Once you think you have enough, create more.
- Cut out any and all dead spaces in your novel. Be brutal. Characters, dialogue, whole chapters. If it doesn’t fit, or make the story go forward in terms of plot, cut it. Don’t delete it though, create a document and save all your bits and pieces.. They could go in something else or spark some more ideas.
- Make sure there’s enough to keep the reader engaged.
- Fix all plot holes and add in back story.
- Add in foreshadowing.
- Make sure the story arc makes sense and ends with a satisfying climax.
Now that you’ve done all that, you’re ready for peer feedback! Find a good writing workshop, either in person or online, and post your newly edited story. You’ll get even more help and feedback and it will help polish up any and every part of your story. Plus you’ll get insight and ideas you’ve never even thought of.
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