Edit your Book: Make Editing Enjoyable
You should become competent in editing techniques for the best possible chance of getting your manuscript published. When it comes to book publication, we’ve found that editing is crucial. It’s what ranks your writing besides your favourite books. If you find the editing process daunting, it can assist you to see it in the same way you approach the writing process. Editing, like writing, requires a healthy dose of imagination along with the more traditional skills of organisation and focus. But if your book needs to be better formatted and is full of mistakes, you won’t win over many people. You must stand out by submitting the most impressive manuscript possible.
Traditional publishing houses do employ their own staff of editors and proofreaders. But your manuscript will need to be substantially better than roughly a thousand others to reach that far. In addition to learning how to edit independently, you’ll improve as a writer if you do it yourself.
05 Stunning Tips To Enjoy Self-Editing Your Book
Understand your Book Structure
A book’s plot can go anywhere, but its structure must conform to certain norms. The overwhelming chore of writing a novel can be made more manageable by adopting a story structure to help outline your tale. To avoid writing a predictable plot, you can use a preexisting blueprint, which can be found in most of your favourite books.
Improve your Line Editing
Although this may take some of your time, know it will be well spent. Cut your sentences apart and see if they make sense on their own and in the bigger picture. Remove any overused or boring phrases or words from your writing.
Line editing is much simpler on the computer. If you want to examine how long each sentence is and how it flows, it’s best to put it on a new line and double space it. Just by reading the sentence aloud, you can hear if the words flow well together or if any stick out as awkward.
Work On your Manuscript
Keep a notebook handy to make notes as you identify problems with pacing or character development and issues that are simple to resolve, such as character names.
You can get a different perspective on your writing and more easily see problems by paying attention to the flow of your sentences and how your words sound. Reading the content out loud can help you catch odd sentences, overused words, and dull language. You might also take note of if you use the same sentence structure again or if you tend to wander off topic. This knowledge will serve you well as you begin your next writing project.
Avoid Crutch Words
In writing, there will always be a few favourite expressions and terms. During the extensive drafting, reviewing, and editing process, it’s simple to overuse these terms and phrases.
Repeated usage of certain “crutch” words or phrases, especially when they aren’t particularly notable, can be done without calling too much attention to themselves. After a while, readers will catch on to this. Changing one word or phrase often suffices, or the sentence might be rephrased. Tackling the problem of spotting overused words can be a real challenge.
Proofread at the end
If you’re going the self-publishing route, proofreading is essential. This stage concerns simple errors like misspelt words, missing punctuation, or improperly formatted speech. Although you may not notice your errors, your readers will. Seeing your own mistakes is difficult, so you should get a second pair of eyes to go over them.
Proofreading is the final step in editing any creative work, whether a memoir, novel or even a poetry book. A thorough proofread includes one last read-through to catch typos, grammatical problems and punctuation mistakes that may have been missed in earlier edits. Captions, text, and photo layouts should all be double-checked for consistency and design faults during proofreading. You should pay attention to this process even if your book is mostly pictures and has only a few paragraphs of text.
Hire a Professional Editor
A book editing expert will be able to provide you with a wide variety of editing services, all of which will depend on their expertise and training. Your manuscript may require either developmental or copyediting. A copy editor will make changes to your text’s grammar, punctuation, and spelling. A story with a natural flow has been edited by a developmental editor. Who has gone over the story’s broad structure and narrative themes? Even if you intend to self-publish your book. You must still hire an editor to ensure it is of high quality. No matter how hard you try, you will always be more familiar with your work to make unbiased, thorough edits. We often need an outsider’s perspective to help us see our own mistakes and make the necessary adjustments.
