Editing is a Process

by Patrica Fry ~ April 14th, 2009. Filed under: Copy Editing & Proofreading.

All authors and freelance writers do it. Some people get paid to do it. And without it, you are risking the big R—Rejection. What is it? Editing.

I’ve found over the years that editing is a process. When I edit my own work, especially a book manuscript, I go over it many, many times with different things in mind. And I attempt to teach my students and clients my techniques. For example, there’s the editing work that occurs once the book is completed. Now, you’re going to re-read the entire manuscript several times over and probably make many changes and additions along the way. This is you making sure that your story is on track or your nonfiction book is well-organized and easy-to-follow. But you’re not finished. It’s now time to get down to the nitty gritty editing work. How? Here are some pointers from someone who has edited many hundreds of articles and countless dozens of book manuscripts.

Read your manuscripts with content in mind—does it make sense, does it flow, do the transitions work well, are your explanations clear, is the material pertinent, have you left anything out, are there areas where you have over-explained, what about organization?

Edit out extra words—in other words, tighten your work and then tighten it some more.

Consider eliminating qualifier words such as, “very” and “really.” If you notice, they actually tend to weaken the phrases, points and/or scenes you are hoping to make more powerful.

Watch for overused words and phrases. I had to eliminate “of course” numerous times in my final edit of The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Recently, I edited out numerous introductory phrases from a client’s book manuscript. He started nearly every paragraph with, “As a matter of fact,” “Actually,” “As far as I knew,” “That said,” “Now,” “Yet,” “Therefore,” “Interestingly,” etc. Some authors overuse words such as “suddenly,” “so” and “now” at the beginning of their sentences.

Eliminate clichés. Replace them with fresh phrases. This will thrill a publisher.

Check to make sure you have used the right words in the right places? Spell-check will not alert you to wrong words when they are spelled correctly. For example, you might intend using “carp” and it is spelled, “crap,” “have” instead of “has,” “bed” instead of “bad.” It takes an alert mind and a good eye to discover mistakes like these.

Edit out those words that got missed when you used the marvelous word processing function to add or change something. For example, maybe you inserted a word in the wrong place. Have you ever done that? I think we all have. Maybe you wrote, “He went out to tell the neighbors to quiet down.” Then you decide you want to add, “noisy,” but you inadvertently stick it in the wrong place—“He went out to tell noisy the neighbors to quiet down.” Or you want to switch “were” for “was” and forget to remove “was.” Spend some time with your manuscript repairing these common errors.

Read the manuscript from a grammatical and punctuation point of view. Are your sentences varied, are they grammatically correct, have you used one space only after all punctuation, have you caught all of the redundancies and incorrect uses of words? A common problem I see in many manuscripts is the misuse of the apostrophe. Become familiar with its use and follow the rules.

Fix instances of missing closed quotes or parenthesis. Check for problems such as the use of a period where there should be a question mark. (I just discovered that mistake upon editing this piece.)

Edit down (or up) your sentences. Have you created any incomplete sentences or sentence fragments? Make sure that your sentences reflect a complete idea. Do you tend to write run-on sentences? Are some of your sentences unclear because you’ve tried to put too much into them? Don’t make your sentences work overtime. In so doing, you are just weakening your story and confusing the reader.

Read your manuscript for clarity. Don’t assume that everyone who will be reading your book of Bundt cake recipes knows their way around the kitchen. I usually advise authors to write instructions, for example, as if they are explaining this to someone from Mars. That way, no one will be left behind.

Read your manuscript for accuracy. Check facts and statistics and make sure the attributions are in place and correct.

Do the chapter titles and headings correspond with the table of contents? Do the fonts for chapter titles and headings, etc. conform in size and style throughout?

Folks, this major editing work is your job. Your next step is to hire an editor to fine tune your manuscript. The more thorough your editing job, the more an editor can do for you in a shorter length of time. Some of my clients have such clean manuscripts that it takes just one session of editing. Most, however, require my services twice.

I supposed that manuscript editors have different ways of working. But most, I believe, don’t typically make unauthorized changes to your manuscript. I offer suggestions in red type and I often explain why I recommend the changes. I teach as I edit and this seems to serve my clients well. Once the client makes the changes he or she accepts based on my recommendations, I like to go through the manuscript one last time and this is when we fine-tune the work.

Editing is not a once-over job that you rush through in order to meet a deadline. It is a process that can take time and should. Turn out your best work, look at it several times with your clearest editorial eye and with the suggestions above in mind. Then hand it over to an editor, who is accustomed to editing book manuscripts, for a final polishing.

Patricia Fry is a fulltime freelance writer, editor, publishing consultant and the author of 29 books including “The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book.” www.matilijapress.com. Visit her informative blog often: www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog.