Writing Tip of the Week: When it Comes to Editing, Re-Visit Every Chapter

Editing is a necessary and inevitable part of the writing process.  No matter what you’re writing – from a blog post to a novel – taking the time to correct, add, delete, or change things helps make your writing stronger and helps you deliver a polished product.

When you edit, you likely know the key areas you want to focus on to improve the manuscript.  Still, it’s best to read the entire draft and make changes to each chapter along the way.

Let’s talk about it.

There’s Always Something

Even if you love how a chapter is written, there’s always room for small changes that can result in a stronger finished product.  It can be as simple as rewording a sentence for clarity or as involved as delivering greater detail to a character’s appearance.  You may also find grammar or spelling errors you missed in previous drafts that can now be fixed.

Every little bit helps.

Pacing, Pacing, Pacing

Taking the time to re-visit your entire story can help you see where the story lags, where a reader might lose interest, or where even you, as the writer, need clarification.  Checking the story for pacing and ease of reading can ensure you don’t lose a reader at any point during the story. 

What Really Matters

By going through each chapter, you can also ensure that each chapter has a reason to be in the book.  A reason?  Yes, a reason.  Each chapter should provide the reader with information about a character or plot that helps to move the story forward.  Whether it’s the main story, sub-plots, or backstory, all of it needs to assist in propelling the narrative toward its conclusion.

Beginnings and Endings

How does the story begin?  Does it grab you?  Does it make you want to turn to the next page and keep reading?  Go back through your opening chapters to ensure they help transport the reader into the story’s world and keep them there.  You can offer up set-ups and questions in these early chapters that will be paid off and answered later.  

With the final chapters, have you created a satisfying conclusion for your reader that ties up any loose story threads and gives them a complete story?  Is there anything presented throughout the story that hasn’t been resolved?  Reading the entire manuscript ensures all story points are concluded and not left flapping in the wind for readers to ponder what happened.

Final Thoughts

Editing is a lengthy task and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly.  By giving your story the time and editing it deserves, you can help make it a more robust narrative with better pacing, a stronger opening, and a grand finale.  

It’s also great to snag those pesky grammar and spelling errors!

Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!

Writing Tip of the Week: Scratch Pad Drafting

Rewriting can seem like a daunting task, one often more of a challenge than the initial first draft of your manuscript.  Now that your ideas are on the page, you can begin crafting and fine-tuning them into a stronger narrative.  Making these changes in a work this is tens- or hundreds of thousands of words can also be overwhelming.

That’s why I recommend what I call Scratch Pad Drafting.

This Old Date

I highly recommend that you keep multiple dated drafts of all your manuscripts.  From the first to the last, having a historical record of your story’s evolution is crucial.  This is also important if something happens and you must go back in time to retrieve something you omitted from subsequent drafts.

Free Your Mind

Cutting and adding paragraphs or chapters in a seemingly completed manuscript can be tricky, especially if you’re writing on the fly.  There will be times – many of them – when you’ll be reading through and find that a section doesn’t work.  

What to do?

Have another document open that you can use to workshop fresh ideas.  This blank canvas allows you to try new things, work out ideas, and punch up dialogue without fear of reformatting or other issues that can crop up when working on the manuscript.  Now you have free reign to play around and work things out until you are satisfied with the new version.  

Then, copy and paste the new material and add it to the manuscript.

Punching Things Up

The Scratch Pad can also be helpful when working out a character or location description.  You can work to create the most descriptive sentence using the least number of words.  Or, you can embellish and weave an intricate tapestry of sights, smells, sounds, and more to describe a person, place, or thing.

This is the best place to try those things out.  You’re not affecting the manuscript while you work, and once you have the best version available, you can add it to the draft you’re working on.

This is also good as a place to punch up dialogue.  You can work out important exchanges, jokes, and other moments to make them more realistic and truer to your characters.  Again, the Scratch Pad is the place to play around and find the best version to serve your story and enhance the reader’s experience.

Final Thoughts

There’s always room to fine-tune and refine your work as you craft your next draft.  Using a separate document to work on new sequences, descriptions, and dialogue gives you an open space to play and create without the burden of affecting the manuscript before the time comes to do so.

Happy Writing, and I’ll see you next time!