by Christine Bode
Why Trust Me?
For thirty-five years, I have been an editor and proofreader. Yes, you read that right. Thirty-five years! I’ve edited everything from legal and medical reports to liner notes for CDs, press releases to websites, and Ph.D. theses to novels. And yes, I know that both PhD and Ph.D. are correct versions of the abbreviation for the Latin term Philosophiae doctor. I read every single day. Being a voracious reader has made me a better editor, so my first piece of advice to anyone who wants to write a book is to read a book. These things position me to offer you self-editing tips.
Readers Make Better Editors
Read best-selling books in the genre in which you want to write and pay attention to the book’s structure, style, diction, tone, narrative voice, and the author’s use of punctuation. Take notes.
Look up “How to Write a Nonfiction Book Outline” or “writing an outline for a fiction book” on Google or ChatGPT, read about that, and then write an outline for your book.
Pay Attention to Your Narrative Tense
Once you have created an outline, write the first draft of each chapter, paying attention to your narrative tense. Be consistent with it. If you’re recounting something that happened in the past, use the past tense. Think about who your audience is and write to them. With nonfiction, don’t use a flowery word when a simple one will do. These things alone will make your editor very happy and save you considerable expense.
However, before you submit your manuscript for editing, here are 20 self-editing tips that will save you a lot of money.
20 Self-Editing Tips That Save You Money
1. Answer the questions, “What do I want to offer the reader?” and “How can I stand out from the crowd?”
2. Consider who your book is for and create a target demographic audience for it.
3. Write for that target demographic. For example, if you’re writing for teens, know the authentic slang used by modern teenagers and make it believable. Interview them to get the right voice.
4. Research, research, research!
5. Decide whether you’re using American or British spelling and be consistent.
6. Create an outline for your book that organizes chapters with working titles. Then, write out what you want to convey in each chapter on recipe cards that you keep at your desk or on a corkboard near it. (Old school practices work!) Refer to them to ensure consistency.
7. Write your first draft without worrying about it being perfect.
8. When you write your second draft, flesh out all the points you mean to cover to support what that chapter is offering the reader.
9. Stay true to your voice and ask yourself how you can make the book as interesting, informative, and insightful as possible to your readers.
10. When writing fiction, pay attention to character development, back story and character history, timeline, and a dramatic arc about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the book that then becomes resolved in the denouement.
11. Be mindful of changing the lengths of your sentences. Don’t list everything in a long sentence. Instead, break it up and highlight the most critical parts of the paragraph with a shorter sentence.
12. Don’t use the same word over and over within one paragraph. Instead, use a synonym finder to find alternative ways of describing the same thing, and be mindful of avoiding repetition.
13. Start a new paragraph if you completed a specific thought.
14. Pay attention to your diction. Diction is word choice or the style of speaking used by a writer, speaker, or character. The diction used when speaking or writing should match your purpose or audience.
15. Understand syntax. Syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language, specifically, the English language. Again, pay attention to word order.
16. Be concise. Express what needs to be said without unnecessary words.
17. Make sure that you’ve covered your key points for each chapter.
18. Watch your punctuation. If you’re writing something in quotes and then adding a comma after it, the comma falls within the quotes if you don’t live in Britain. The same goes for a period if you’re ending a sentence while still within the quote. When you start a sentence and then add a quote within it, start the quote with a capital letter. Ensure that when asking a question, you use a question mark. Sometimes, it’s better to use a conjunction like and or but rather than a comma. Read the sentence back aloud and check its fluidity when in doubt, or use the Read Aloud feature in Word.
19. Before submitting your work to your editor, run it through Word’s Editor and Grammarly’s proofreading service. It’s worth it to subscribe to the premium version of Grammarly or another app like ProWriting Aid or Hemingway if you can, but do not entirely rely on it because it doesn’t know everything about writing in the English language. Sometimes we can break rules or change punctuation to convey our meaning.
20. Above all, enjoy the topic you’re writing about and this process!
Don’t skip this self-editing process unless you want to go broke before selling a single book. I promise it will be worth your time.
If you’re looking for a skilful copyeditor to edit your work, consider Bodacious Copy! Please view some of our projects in our portfolio.