How to Edit Your Writing
It can be easy to see the act of editing as reserved only for the editor, but writers are doing themselves a disservice if they aren’t editing their own work. You see, editing is so much more than punctuation and spelling.
Let’s break down a couple of definitions:
Content/Developmental Editing - taking a birds-eye view of the work for flow, structure, and clarity of the message. Is the book written with the target market in mind? Do sections need to be changed or moved around? Are there any inconsistencies or discrepancies that need to be addressed?
Copy Editing - focuses on grammar, sentence structure, syntax, paragraph length, headings, and may even involve rearranging of chapters or sections. This type of editing also establishes rules for consistency across the book (i.e. name spelling, abbreviations).
Proofreading - the final step, which is often done after the book is formatted. A proofreader is looking for correct spelling, formatting, page numbers, and word spacing.
Writers should be doing much of their own content editing before an editor ever sees the book. Writers need to know how and when to adjust their writing. Content editing requires focus, preparation, and courage to comb through your own words, deciding what stays, what goes, and what needs to be added.
Think of it this way - an artist is painting on a large canvas. She gets the basic design down, and then focuses on one area at a time. If she doesn’t step back and see how her section fits in with the rest of the painting, she is likely to have an incohesive piece at the end.
Similarly, writers who don’t go back and edit their work can go off on bunny trails and get lost in the process, and therefore lose their purpose.
So how do you keep the big picture in mind?
Prewriting.
You may be cringing at the thought, or have had nightmares from venn diagrams and graphic organizers from elementary school. But prewriting doesn’t have to look like that! (unless that’s helpful for you, to each her own!)
Here are the four prewriting steps that will help you (and why they’re important):
Determine the “felt need” of your book - what is the deepest desire of the reader? This is something that you should always keep in mind when writing because it helps you to serve your reader best if you keep the felt need in the forefront of your mind while writing.
Summarize your book in one paragraph (4-6 sentences) - This is the start of the back cover of your book. What are the main takeaways that you want people to know? How can it summarize your book without giving too much away?
Summarize your book in one sentence - Some call this the “elevator pitch” because you should be able to tell someone about your book in the amount of time you’d spend in an elevator. This should be committed to memory so that you can easily explain what you’re writing about when someone asks.
Decide on chapter titles and write 2-3 sentence summaries of each chapter - This is invaluable as you’re writing a chapter. Always reference back to your summary to make sure you’re staying focused. It can be easy to add stories that are personal to you, but it still needs to serve the reader. *NOTE: it’s okay for the focus of the chapter to change as you’re writing it, so if that happens, make sure that the chapter summary reflects it*
Everyone has their own preferences when editing. I personally like to finish chapters, wait a week or so, and then go back and edit the entire chapter. I have had clients who edited section-by-section as they wrote, but I have also had clients who wrote their entire books before editing! Each method has its challenges, but the important thing is building editing into your rhythm of writing.
Learning how to edit your own work will only serve to make you a better writer! No one is perfect, and even editors need editors! So editing your own work doesn’t mean that your editor won’t have changes for you. It simply means you’re putting in the work to grow, which is invaluable.
