Writing a book is fun. It’s not work. Did I hear some of you groan? Let me rephrase: writing a book is more fun than…drumroll…correcting it.
Actually, I shouldn’t complain about corrections, because I enjoy them. But they are work, the true work of an author.
My daughter has frizzy hair that clumps up when she sleeps. Combing it is torture for her, but I put her through it every morning, because a) I’m slightly sadistic, and b) the resulting lustrous curls resemble spun-gold. A manuscript is like tangled hair: the writing can be strong, but it’s still just an unwieldy mess when fresh out of your mind.
You must read through it patiently, and comb through each sentence to kick out the clichés, the boring words, the repetitions. You must disentangle it!
Before I give you my secret recipe to editing, I want to talk about repetitions. According to me, there are three categories of repetitive words:
- common or weak words (my guilty ones are: eyes, very, really, well, oh, so, like, stare, gaze, see, watch, mouth, lips, mutter, whisper, characters’ first names). If they’re repeated more than once within 1-2 single-spaced pages, I consider changing them out for synonyms or altering the sentence structure to avoid them completely.
- poetic words (my guilty ones are: drift, raise, saunter, tread). Albeit they’re stylish—because they are less common—they should appear no more than every 5-10 pages. There are so many fantastic synonyms to choose from anyway.
- big words (either they’re words pertaining to your specific theme or they’re words that most readers will have to look up). You should really limit yourself to one every 20-30 pages or so. You never want to stop the flow of your writing, and those words might.
What I don’t consider a repetition is the word say! It’s one of those words we read without reading and that is vital to reader comprehension. However, I do encourage authors to weed some out by using descriptive beats to introduce who’s talking.
Here are a few lists of words to avoid that I find useful:
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…
OLIVIA’S EDITING RECIPE
- First read-through. I go through it on my computer, so I can make the corrections right away. During this first-read through, I catch the big mistakes: searing grammatical errors, tense issues, and discrepant plot points. AND I jot down repetitions.
- Perform a word search for above repetitions. (For Word users, it’s that little tab on the top right corner that reads: search in document.) This is also a good time to seek out expressions such as all of, out of to make sure you didn’t forget the
- Second read-through. This is usually when I reduce my font to 8.5 and narrow my margins so that my 350-page MS fits on 125 pages. I then print it out and sit down with a red pen. Why the page cutback? Because it’s much easier for your mind to visualize the whole picture. When I do this second read-through, my chapter fits within 2 pages, which enables me to spot repetitious dialogue and monotonous character thoughts at dizzying speed. This is usually the step that enables me to pick up on formatting errors (i.e. indents, paragraph breaks, misplaced dialogue).
- Beta reader read–through. At this point, you don’t want to see your MS ever again—it’s terrible, you hate your characters, your plot sucks! This is the time to step back and give it to others. They will have a fresh perspective on your story and fresh eyes to catch mistakes. Make sure to keep one beta-reader for the ultimate read-through, though.
- Professional editing. After making your beta readers’ corrections, this is usually when I spend money on my work, and send it off on its antepenultimate editing journey.
- Final read-through. I do this one on my computer, but feel free to print out your MS if you’re more of a paper than screen reader. So, you’ve now made those professional corrections, which means you’ve had to rewrite a bunch of passages. My sister—a professional editor—told me to highlight each passage that endures a rewrite so that you can look at them more carefully during the final read-through. Unfortunately, for Ghostboy, she shared this piece of advice a tad too late.
- Internet Editing tools. This step is for when you can’t see your mistakes anymore, when your eyes tear up and your brain throbs from staring at your MS. There exists several great, free services on the Internet to which you can upload pages of text and it will spit out grammar mistakes, repetitions, passive voice, adverbs, and clichéd sentences. The one I particularly enjoyed was Edit Minion. It’s a great tool, but it does not replace human eyes. Use it sparingly.
- Last beta reader. Really, you need one last person to skim through your book. Just in case you have the wrong word that your computer doesn’t pick up on because it exists (like through and though). That last pair of fresh eyes will also catch missing commas or quotation marks or forgotten periods.
- Now, take a breath and book yourself a spa day to close your stinging eyes and quiet your hectic mind.
And remember, no published novel is mistake-free! And that’s okay because you’ve come as close to perfection as humanly possible if you’ve performed each of these steps.