Any editing advice/what worked best for you?

I'm a big fan of loading the doc up on my Kindle and reading it on there. Doing that with my current WIP and it's working a charm as usual.

Just tried out Grammarly -- it's lovely and very handy, though it gets awfully grumpy about UK spellings and refuses to let them be added to the dictionary.

Devil Ledbetter said:

1. I use a Word add-on called Text Aloud and listen to the story one scene at a time. It's great because it helps me catch all my dropped articles (my particular writing bugaboo). It also forces me to notice the same word used twice in quick succession, or homonyms that are awkward, or dialogue that falls flat for whatever reason.

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You, too? Glad I’m not the only one who suffers from this affliction. It’s like I find articles/determiners—such as: the, it, a, an, any, this—to be unworthy word-peons of my typing time. The text-to-speech (Word’s Text Aloud) is a valuable tool everyone should use, as you will hear (not hear) these missing words. *Sometimes, you’ll get a laugh. ‘Secretive’ comes to mind for me!*

M.S. Wiggins said:

You, too? Glad I’m not the only one who suffers from this affliction. It’s like I find articles/determiners—such as: the, it, a, an, any, this—to be unworthy word-peons of my typing time. The text-to-speech (Word’s Text Aloud) is a valuable tool everyone should use, as you will hear (not hear) these missing words. *Sometimes, you’ll get a laugh. ‘Secretive’ comes to mind for me!*

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I used to use the read aloud function on my Kindle, but it was glitchy and would jump whole paragraphs. Text Aloud is much more reliable and lets me do whatever size chunk I like.

If you don't see any missing articles in my AW replies, I've either edited to correct them or I've been hacked.

Devil Ledbetter said:

1. I use a Word add-on called Text Aloud and listen to the story one scene at a time. It's great because it helps me catch all my dropped articles (my particular writing bugaboo). It also forces me to notice the same word used twice in quick succession, or homonyms that are awkward, or dialogue that falls flat for whatever reason.

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I went and got this just now. It's extremely helpful! Thanks so much for the tip.

There's a free Android phone app called "@Voice" that handles very large MS Word files (50 pp, haven't tried more than that at once, yet). I email the files to myself, open them on my phone, and then I can listen anywhere.

Read what you've written aloud; it has been and still is the best advice I've ever received.

Like some other folks here, I too tend to edit as I go, obsessively rewriting previous chapters, so my "first draft" is quite polished. However, I also make use of freelance editors. Some are largely a waste of money, but if you find the right match, you can take your manuscript to another level. You may not find one editor who is brilliant at both developmental and line editing. I have two, one for each stage of the process.

All the previous advice given pretty much nailed it. The only pearl I could give, of which, is purely retrospective, would be to watch out on word repetition, especially when devising action tags for dialogue. My ms is huge (300 000 plus) and I had over a thousand (hand/s) over a thousand (eye/s) seven hundred (head/ed) five hundred smiles etc. This of course includes handle handshake for hand but its still ridiculous. I'm getting it down to one or two every few pages. It reads a heap better and keeps the flow healthy but still an exerted effort. First book blues, am I right? Congrats on finishing your ms. Well done!

I finally finished the first draft, then printed it out.

After the wife went to bed, I read it aloud. (I wait until she goes to bed so she doesn't wonder if I'm talking to myself)

Uh oh - I have a huge amount of work ahead of me. In addition to red-penciling simple changes, I kept a running log of the larger issues: "This chapter needs a total rewrite cuz it's boring", or "need another scene from the nursing home" or "add chapter about such-and-such" or "haven't had a reference to music in XX pages."

I'll spend the next few days fulfilling the changes, then repeat to process.

I print mine out double-spaced (two sided to save paper) and go over it with a pen. I write out chapter-by-chapter notes as I go, as well.

However, I'm not doing my own line edits. I have "hired" an editor for that. (A trade with a friend who edits professionally - I do her family's birthday cakes, she edits my book.)

Mr.Letterman said:

All the previous advice given pretty much nailed it. The only pearl I could give, of which, is purely retrospective, would be to watch out on word repetition, especially when devising action tags for dialogue. My ms is huge (300 000 plus) and I had over a thousand (hand/s) over a thousand (eye/s) seven hundred (head/ed) five hundred smiles etc. This of course includes handle handshake for hand but its still ridiculous. I'm getting it down to one or two every few pages. It reads a heap better and keeps the flow healthy but still an exerted effort. First book blues, am I right? Congrats on finishing your ms. Well done!

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This is so important. Action tags can quickly become repetitive stock gestures that add nothing to the story, especially facial descriptors (smiled, frowned, bit her lip, etc.) and eyeball actions (looked, glanced, peered, blinked, squinted). I blame the television for giving writers the notion that every line of dialogue has to be delivered with a character making a face. There are many other ways to convey the emotions that go with dialogue.

ETA: If one suspects this is a problem in a piece of writing, try going through a chapter or two and replacing them all with MADE A FACE as an indicator of general overuse.

Myrealana said:

I print mine out double-spaced (two sided to save paper) and go over it with a pen.

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I do this with my work, and it's absolutely superb for editing. It's crazy how much stuff you pick up when you stop staring at it on a computer and run through it slowly with a pen. I usually read it out loud as well.

Once I've finished that pass, I usually load my manuscript on my Kindle and give it a more casual read, pretending that I'm just a reader. That helps me pick up most of the remaining issues, although it's usually just small stuff by that point.

Devil Ledbetter said:

ETA: If one suspects this is a problem in a piece of writing, try going through a chapter or two and replacing them all with MADE A FACE as an indicator of general overuse.

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I might try that!

I also use text aloud. It helps.

As far as printing, I would say to go on Inkjetsuperstore.com and find which printer uses $6 ink cartridges and buy that printer.

For me that ended up being a brother printer. I bought enough ink to last for a ream of paper for $60+-.
Set your printer on black ink only, unless you color code your text.

I am on my 2nd book, a novella, and about half way through editing, and I have gone through a ream of paper, and I don't hard copy edit all the time. Probably about every third of forth edit.

If I would have used say an epson printer and all factory cartridges, I would have spent a small fortune on ink.

tammons said:

As far as printing, I would say to go on Inkjetsuperstore.com and find which printer uses $6 ink cartridges and buy that printer.

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Better option, in my opinion, save your money and buy a small laser printer from HP or Brother or Canon or another similarly reputable company with a good warranty.

You can one for around $100.00. It should last you for years with reasonable care, it has better quality output, is faster, and a $55.00 cartridge should get you well over a 1000 pages of mostly text. I generally get about 12 reams of paper per cartridge, and often, more.

You're thinking about this too much. Work on something else. Submit short stories, critique work, then come back with a fresh brain. Make your changes, and let people read it. Whether you print them or sit in a pool or wear a tinfoil hat, remember that critiques are just opinons. Also, when you get stuck, try writing the page from memory, a different way. Approach sentenes in new and interesting ways. And don't bash your head against the wall trying to fix something that isn't working.

Your writing might have problems (maybe you bounce between past and present tense in weird ways), that you have to go through and fix---and maybe you prefer the paper stage before using the search function on your computer. But quit thinking about it and start getting notes from people.

You've already got a BOOK and nobody's read it for notes?? Madness.

Devil Ledbetter said:

This is so important. Action tags can quickly become repetitive stock gestures that add nothing to the story, especially facial descriptors (smiled, frowned, bit her lip, etc.) and eyeball actions (looked, glanced, peered, blinked, squinted). I blame the television for giving writers the notion that every line of dialogue has to be delivered with a character making a face. There are many other ways to convey the emotions that go with dialogue.

ETA: If one suspects this is a problem in a piece of writing, try going through a chapter or two and replacing them all with MADE A FACE as an indicator of general overuse.

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It's funny, because when I first started writing, I was adverse to using, said, for dialogue tags, so I was throwing adverbs around so much, I'm surprised my keyboard still has an L and a Ybutton left! Then I progressed to action tags and all of a sudden I had floating heads and so many smiles and hands you'd think I was writing about a Wiggles concert. It would have been nice to know all this from the beginning, but I honestly believe it's all apart of the journey. The old adage, crawling before walking and all that.

On a side note, my computer lost 12 hours work the other day of me removing about 300 hand​ from my MS. That was fun.

I put my fifth draft through Hemingway and the sixth through ProWriteAid. No, neither was perfect, but I learned a lot about fillers, comma placement, and that I was mixing curly and straight quotation marks and apostrophes. I'm on the seventh now. I started out pumping it up to 20pt font, going over it with a fine tooth comb, and printing it out in double space. In draft eight, I'll read it with a red marker in hand.

- After the initial waiting-period of a month or more after writing the first draft, I print out the first draft.
- On my desk, you will find the following: a black pen, a red pen, a blue pen, a spiral notebook, and my manuscript.
- With the red pen, I strike out text. With the blue pen, I add in reminders. With the black pen, I write notes in my spiral book. Going through the manuscript, I often find things that need fixing that I'm gonna have to wait until the second draft to execute. All these things are numbered and recorded in my notebook.
- I do this for the whole manuscript.
- After another waiting period of maybe a week or so, it's time to write the second draft. So I start from the beginning, and re-type my manuscript, fixing things that I'd missed on my first run-through. The following day, I always look at the previous day's work and tie up any loose ends that I missed on my second run-through.
- I do this for the whole manuscript.
- Let it sit for another few weeks/month.
- Time for the polish. I go from beginning to end, sharpening the prose to the word. If it can be deleted, it goes. I often read aloud so I can hear any trip-ups that may find their way after all these edits.
- I do this until I can't find anything worth fixing anymore.

This process takes about a year. Upon the first edit, the removing of material is huge. I'm talkin' taking a chainsaw to that sucker. Or a bomb. After the chainsaw comes a lathe, then a carving knife, then, finally, I can use a dust brush to make 'er pretty. Editing is a wonderful process and I think I learn more about my work and myself through editing and self-criticism than I do writing the first draft.

Yikes. I rambled! Sorry! Anyway, hope this helps. Good luck with your story and I hope I can help further. Do what you feel is comfortable and know that this is how I work. What works for me may not work for you. There's a lot of good advice here already, so go forth and make that novel shine!

One suggestion. If you're changing fonts to edit, it's a good idea to alternate between proportional and monospaced fonts for each pass. It not only changes the appearance but also which words are on which line.

halfbloodprincess said:

1. Reread and edit several times myself

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I've done this on 3 of my works and, so far, it's done wonders. I limit myself to doing it three times (after completing each draft) before calling the WIP done. Except for growing a bit tired of reading the same thing over again, I've had little trouble with it.

HarvesterOfSorrow said:

- With the red pen, I strike out text. With the blue pen, I add in reminders. With the black pen, I write notes in my spiral book. Going through the manuscript, I often find things that need fixing that I'm gonna have to wait until the second draft to execute. All these things are numbered and recorded in my notebook.

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Thanks for sharing! I am stealing this. I'm currently editing, but I'm only using whatever pen is handy. I think the multiple colors will help me keep thoughts straight.

I do a lot of editing of other people's work, and also teach basic English composition classes, so those endeavors may have colored by opinion in self-editing. I know a lot of people here advise to work on the big stuff first, and the nitty-gritty little things later. For me, it is just the other way around. I have to do a grammar/typo/sentence-level edit before I can tackle larger-scope issues, because I find the little stuff too distracting if it isn't corrected. I also find that doing that small stuff, in a careful manner, lets me notice bigger issues as I go along. I make note of those things, and go after them once I've got the little things into shape.

caw

Learn to endure pain, tell yourself your manuscript sucks, weed out the problems one at a time and torture yourself to find an awnser. Have fun!

Write something else.

One of the easiest ways to get the mental distance to see the work itself rather than what you intended to write is to write something else. In my own case, I'm planning to edit book 3 of my current series once I finish book 4. (They're relatively short and I'm writing the current one faster than my betas are reading.)

Dave.C.Robinson said:

Write something else.

One of the easiest ways to get the mental distance to see the work itself rather than what you intended to write is to write something else. In my own case, I'm planning to edit book 3 of my current series once I finish book 4. (They're relatively short and I'm writing the current one faster than my betas are reading.)

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I agree.

I maintain a website containing a jumble of short stories I've written over the years. At times, even in the middle of writing a novel and certainly during the editing process, I'll write a short story or to just to take a break from the story in my novel.