Whether you are a beginner or an experienced writer, editing a manuscript for publication can really help. Writing tips on how to make it better.
Congratulations! You have finished writing your novel.
Make your novel as good as possible
This post looks at how you can make your novel as good as possible, before you send it out to seek an agent or a publisher.
What to do if you are a writing genius
Ignore everything in this post. Perhaps your first draft is of such quality that it needs no further improvement. Well done.
Signing a copy of your printed book is a great experience
What to do if you are not a genius
Most first drafts of novels, however, will be improved by editing. This raises the question of how you, the author of a book, can best edit your own manuscript. Some of this post is based on a course I attended at the Arvon Foundation (links in bold italics are to other posts on this site). I found both Arvon and the two tutors excellent and would recommend them.
7 writing tips to improve your first draft
Here are seven writing tips to improve the first draft of your novel. I illustrate each with experience of my Istanbul-based thriller Palladium, which I revised for several months a year after finishing the first draft.
Tip 1: celebrate
Step one: celebrate. You have completed a novel. How many people can say that? Reward yourself. Put a spare copy in a safe place (your computer might crash, or your house burn down). Take your loved one out for a meal, or let them take you. When I finished my first draft of Palladium, in Vienna, I went cycling by the Danube. You can ignore this advice if you are Anthony Trollope, who would finish one book and start his next immediately, sometimes the same day.
Tip 2: put your manuscript away
Put your manuscript to one side (“in the drawer”) and focus on another project for a while: a month, or two, or three. This gives you a bit of a distance, so that you can take a fresh look when you start revising. I put Palladium away for a year while I wrote another novel.
Tip 3: a fast read-through
Take out your manuscript and read it start to finish, as if it were someone else’s book. Try not to edit as you read, but make notes about things that strike you about it. With Palladium, this took me a weekend – I did nothing else for 48 hours. You should consider questions such as: is this scene or chapter confusing? Does it contain too much information? Have you become becalmed in a descriptive scene that doesn’t drive the story forward? Do you know what this scene or chapter is for? What are you telling the reader which will make him or her want to read on? Other questions:
- How does each of your scenes, or chapters, change the character?
- Does it advance the story?
- Is the characterisation consistent (“surely my hero would never do that?).
- Do the characters – especially the main characters – develop?- Is your causation strong? In other words, is something happening because of what the characters have done (good)? Or are you dropping in events at random (not so good)?
- Are your characters quality characters? Are they interesting? And are they necessary? Do they drive the story forward?
- Are you using your locations well? Do they contribute to the narrative?
- Are your coincidences too handy? Or too random? Bernard Cornwell, author of the excellent Sharpe series of novels, notes that if someone is fleeing down an alley and takes refuge by entering a door, you must have mentioned the existence of that door earlier, lest the escape seem too contrived.
- Is your text consistent with the theme of the book? In Palladium, I excised several scenes where my main characters were relaxing a bit, on the grounds that they were supposed to be frantic with worry trying to track down a third, missing, female character.
Tip 4: your first revision
Having taken your notes, implement them. This is a big job. With Palladium, it took me several months. Rewrite your manuscript from start to finish, focusing on your notes. Cut out less good stuff. Polish what is left.
Tip 5: deploy your trusted readers
At this stage, you may want to send your manuscript to a few trusted readers and get their input. Some people do this at stage 2 – it’s up to you – but I prefer to send out a more polished product. I sent Palladium to around six readers. Make sure to thank your trusted readers for looking at your work – they are doing you a big favour! It may be that you will later ask them to review your book when it is published.
Tip 6: your second revision
When you have comments from your trusted readers, incorporate those comments which you think are on-target. You don’t have to agree with your trusted readers on everything – but you should take their views seriously, especially if two or more people say the same thing. For example: if they say a scene makes no sense, or a character is a bit thin, take a good look at that scene, or that character.
Tip 7: your line edit
Finally, read your book through again, from start to finish (a “line edit“), trying to improve it. Have you got the tone right? Is every phrase, every word, the best? Are your images as compelling as you can make them? Is every sentence clear? You may want to try reading the book aloud at this stage – reading aloud often reveals things you can improve, such as where you have used the same word twice in a sentence, or where dialogue sounds lame.
That’s it. If you have reached this stage, you should find that your manuscript is better than it was when you started this process. Now it is time to send it out to try and sell it. Good luck!
Other writing tips on this website
If you are interested in writing tips, you may like to explore these other posts on writing:
- This post is subtitled “How to edit your novel part 2” because I recently wrote a post on How to write a novel: edit as you go along, or not? (“How to edit your novel part 1”)
- How to write a novel: plan in advance, or not?
- Writing tips: how to write gripping fiction: scenes, sequels and cliff-hangers
- How to write a novel: five ways to get in the habit of writing.
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