How To Self-Edit (And Why You Should)
One of the most dreaded (but necessary) stages of any writing project is, undoubtedly, editing. Between the hours spent rereading sentences until words lose meaning, to the rewrites and hunts for plot holes, it can be an extremely daunting task. However, editing is also the stage where the knots get untangled in a story, turning it from a rough first draft into a polished piece of art.
The best way to get this done is, of course, hiring a professional editor. Not only does a professional editor have an expert eye, but they also don’t have the same connection to the manuscript that the writer does. For them, it’s a job that they want to do well–not a project that they’ve put months or years of work into. A professional editor will, for the most part, be more willing to say when a plot point or character needs to be cut.
That being said, one of the best tools a writer can have in their belt is the ability to self-edit.
What is Self-Editing?
Self-editing is, well, doing your editing yourself.
I know. Shocking.
Now, this is more than just going through with a spell-checker and fixing typos. Self-editing is going through all the editing stages on your own before sending your book to a professional or to beta readers. It’s catching all the little mental notes that have likely accumulated in the back of your mind through the drafting process and fixing the errors.
Why Should I Self-Edit? What’s the Point?
Now, you might be asking yourself a question with all of this:
“Why would I bother doing a self edit if I’m just sending it to an editor, anyway? Isn’t that their job?”
It’s a fair question. However, let me throw a counter-point your way.
If you’re going to pay an editor (which can be a very big investment, depending on the length of your manuscript), why would you want to send them anything but your best work? Why wouldn’t you want to make it the best you can on your own before reaching out to a professional for that extra touch?
Learning how to self-edit is also an excellent way to grow as a writer. Self-editing is all about learning how to look at your work with a critical eye and figuring out your weaknesses and strengths as a writer, which will also help you learn where you need to improve.
I cannot stress enough that self-editing is not a replacement for hiring a professional, but I would argue that going through the self-editing stage is still good practice for learning what makes a manuscript tick.
The Stages of Editing
Before editing your own work, it’s important to understand the stages of editing. In order of first to last, there are:
- Structural/Developmental Editing: This is where the “big picture” of the book is edited, adjusting elements like plot, worldbuilding, and character arcs to ensure that the story as a whole is cohesive and works properly.
- Line/Copy Editing: This is editing on a paragraph and sentence level. Line editing is more focused on style consistency (voice, tense, and so on), while copy editing is more focused on mechanical consistency (sentences make sense and flow together, descriptions are consistent, there aren’t issues with repetition, etc;)
- Proofreading: This is the final stage of editing, where you go through the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb to weed out all the grammatical mistakes and typos. It’s the final polishing stage after all the content itself has been edited.
Each stage of editing is important for making a manuscript work. Technically, structural and developmental editing can be seen as different things, as can line and copy, but for self-editing purposes it’s easier to just merge them together.
Self-Editing Tips
So now you know why self-editing is important and what the stages are, but how is it done?
There are a few different ways to go about self-editing, but here are some of the things that have worked well for me.
1. Organization is Key
When you’re finished your first draft and getting ready to start editing, odds are you’ll already have some improvements in mind. If you don’t have any in mind (and even if you do), take a break from the manuscript for a week or two and then read through it again with fresh eyes. Try your best to look at it critically, looking at it as a reader instead of as the person who wrote it.
Once you have some improvements in mind, make a list and put it in order of biggest problems to smallest problems. Then, tackle the issues in that order.
The editing process goes in order of biggest changes to smallest changes. You make the biggest changes in developmental editing, and the smallest in proofreading. The reason you should always edit from biggest issue to smallest is because you don’t want to put a ton of work into copy editing or proofreading something that might be entirely rewritten or even cut out of the manuscript. (And on the subject of cutting things from a manuscript, that doesn’t mean you have to delete it forever. If you’re deleting is a piece of work you feel attached to, just save it to a “deleted scenes” document. After all, you never know when an old idea can be of use in the future!)
Make the plot, themes, and characters work first, then go through and make the prose pretty.
2. Read it Aloud
You can also run it through a text-to-speech program, but I prefer reading it aloud to myself since I can get a better feel of where the writing is a bit clunky.
Reading it aloud does two very important things: it forces you to slow down so you don’t accidentally skip over anything, and it makes it so that you can hear the rhythm of the writing. This is particularly helpful in the copy editing stage, since it helps identify parts that sound weird and unnatural.
3. Read it Over in a New Format
Whether you change the font, put it on a different device, or print the manuscript off, reread it in a new format. Much like reading it aloud, changing the format helps your brain catch different issues, since you are literally looking at it in a new way.
4. Critique Partners/Alpha Readers
If you can, get someone you trust to read the book over.
Whether it be a critique partner or someone you trust, get someone to read the book over and give their honest feedback. It doesn’t have to be anything deep, but getting some general feedback on the story can be a great source for figuring out where to focus your energy with your edits.
5. Research
One of the best things you can do for self-editing is research. And by research, I mean learning about what makes a good story.
Read books on storytelling, such as Stephen King’s On Writing and Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. (You can also find a great list of other writing craft books here.) Watch video essays breaking down plot and character, talking about what works and what doesn’t. Listen to podcasts from editors, agents, and successful authors.
There is a wealth of information on how storytelling works out there, and finding it in a medium that works for you is just a matter of looking online.
So In Conclusion…
Learning how to self-edit and gaining editing skills is an important step in becoming a better writer. Understanding how a story works will not only help you to edit your manuscript into the best version of itself, but also write better drafts down the road.
Self-editing is a long learning process, but with some time and dedication it’s one of the best tools you can have as a writer.
