How to Self-Edit and Edit Your Novel or Short Story Like a Pro

If you're a serious writer of fiction who has finished writing a novel, novella, or a short story, congratulations! Whether you wrote it during Nano, Camp Nano or Julno, or on your own, that's only the first stage of writing a book or a short piece of fiction. So before you want to submit it to fiction markets for short stories, or agents, editors and/or publishers for novels and novellas, there's a lot of work to do to get it polished and ready. Take a break from your novel and set it aside for a few days, a couple of weeks, or a month or two. After some time had passed, you can go back to it and look at it with two fresh eyes.

Whether you do it via hard copy or on your computer, there's a couple of ways you can self-edit and edit your novel for free ... or with some optional choices. While best-selling authors love the editing process, I tend to hate it, since it would take longer for me to get it done than when I write a novel alone. With a couple of tools of the trade, I'm going to show you how to self-edit, revise, rewrite, rework, edit, copy edit, proofread, spell check, etc., your manuscript or short story with these handy tips. So get ready to take plenty of notes to use for future reference!

For any beginner writer, it's best for us to do self-editing alone with the rough draft and the right tools of the trade. For hard copy, print out your novel and put it in a binder. Bring plenty of red erasable pens and pencils to make notes with. For those who work on the computer, make sure you have a word processing document like Word or Scrivener that has a compare-merge function. Get ready to use the delete, backspace and strike-through keys.

It's highly recommended to check out or buy Strunk and White's Elements of Style, Renni Browne's Self-Editing For Writers, and Stephen Kings's On Writing at your local bookstore or library. You can also find back issues of Writer's Digest magazines on editing and revision, if you don't have a subscription, and check out their online articles at their website and blog, too.

You should also have a checklist by your side on what you need to cut or add in your story. Make sure you show more than tell, watch out for passive words that need to be active, make sure it's realistic and logical and flows well, check for any head-hopping POVs, and cut out any extraneous fluff that doesn't move the story forward. You might have to "kill our darlings" at some time, depending on your genre and word count, except for short stories. Don't forget to read it out loud to yourself. Or you can find a text-to-speech program for your computer, too!

Most of us don't want to edit our manuscript many times to get ourselves into an over-editing rut. If you want to try to do it in a one-pass revision to get it done in one cycle, here's some borrowed and shortened tips from Holly Lisle's website. (This works best for hard copy, since it's way harder on your computer. I've tried it a few years ago. It doesn't work.)

You would need a print out of your novel, a cheap notebook, a couple of smooth-writing pens, stack your ms on a steady table in three piles, and plenty of good lightning.

Part One: Discovery

1. Write down the theme of your novel in 15 words or less.
2. If you know what your sub-themes are, write them down.
3. In 25 words or less, write down what your ms is about.
4. Write a one-story arc for your main character in one line.
5. Write down the main characters and a 250-word paragraph describing the story.

Part Two: Manuscript Slog. This is when we focus on the scenes with a checklist.

1. Does the scene belong in the story?
2. Is the scene a story in miniature?
3. What's the conflict?
4. Does it contain elements that doesn't fit?
5. Go to your notebook and write down what threads you've killed.
6. Make notes on what new direction you took your story in.
7. Offer suggestions about evolution and theme.
8. Is it well-written?
9. Does it fit logically in time and space?
10. Is it full of weak words?
11. Is the word count right?

Part Three: Type-In

This is where you open your notebook, look at the scribbles, and type it in your manuscript, starting with the first page. If you have new story ideas, write them down and save them for your next book.

Whether you're planning to self-publish your own book or do it traditionally with big-name publishers, indie publishers, small publishers, or even e-publishers. There are tons of editing and self-editing tips online, if you need where to find them. Over the past year, I've compiled a list of words you can eliminate and cull your word count. On the computer, you can use the find/replace key to delete them. Also, watch out for word echoes--that's when you repeat the same word twice in the same sentence. Just change a word or take it out. Remember, the thesaurus is a writer's best friend!

Watch out for these weak filter words to prune and weed in your stories and novels! As for those -ly words, use it in moderation.

About
Able
A Lot
Almost
Always
Am*
Amazing
Anxiously
Any infinitive for to walk
Anyway
And
And then
Appear
Approximately
Are
As
Basically
Be
Being*
Been*
Believe
Best
Big
But
By
Can
Causing
Could
*Did/Does/Do
Eagerly
Even
Every
Feel/Felt
Finally
First
Frequently
*Got/Get
Had (had been)/Have/Had/Has *
Hardly
Heard
His/Her
-Ing words starting sentence
*Is
It is/it was
It seems to be/It seems to me
Just
Kind of
Like
Look as if
-Ly words esp. to modify said
Made
May
Merely
Might
More or less
Must
Nearly
Need
Never
Not
Notice (verb)
Oddly enough
Of
Often
Only
Pretty
Put
Quite
Rather
Realize
Really
Roughly
Said
Saw
Seem
Several
Shall
Short
Should
Small
Smelled
So
Some
Sort of
Still
Such
Tall
Tasted
That
Then
There was/is/are
Thing
Think

• to see
• to hear
• to think
• to touch
• to wonder
• to realize
• to watch
• to look
• to seem
• to feel (or feel like)
• to decide
• to sound (or sound like)
• to notice
• to be able to
• to note
• to experience
Touched
Tried to
Used to
Utilize
Very
Was/were
Wearing/wore
Went
When
Which
Wonderful

Quick tips: If you want some extra work, you might want to check out Autocrit.com. I've found out about that website, a few years ago. It can help you fine tune your ms or short story into a polished form. It's free to join to create an account. It can look over up to 500 words (2-3 pages) a day and would highlight any errors in red. When fixed, it can bring the number down to zero. It's perfect for those who do short stories! If you want to invest on self-editing on your partial or full manuscript, it depends on what membership you need it for. I haven't been to the website in two years. Update: I've made a mistake on the membership pricing when I went to the website two years ago. They were updating the monthly membership to $12/month for the annual price of $144. Sorry about that inconvenience.

I did find another website that can give you free 100% analysis for your manuscripts or short stories, say for a chapter. It's called ProWritingAid.com. They would give you suggestions on improving your writing in your summary report. Their memberships are a bit lower than Autocrit's for a year: $35 for a year, $55 for 2 years, $70 for 3 years, and $120 for a lifetime license. Check it out!

For those who do Nano, Camp Nano (spring, summer or both), Julno, there's Nanoedmo every March for free. You can sign up and register for a free account and have your own widget to keep track on your editing word counts. When I first heard about it, I knew other Nanoers prefer not to do it, since they prefer to edit at their own pace. But I've done it for a couple of years to get me started. It takes the same concept of Nano of writing 50 K or more words a month and applied it for logging in 50 hours or more of editing a month. Say if you wrote 2 hours a day for Nano, you would log in 2 hours a day for Nanoedmo. (And yes, you did get a certificate at the end, if you logged in 50 or more hours to print out.)

After you've done the first pass revision on your own, you're going to need a fresh pair of eyes to help you out to give you honest feedback. There are many free ways to find someone to help you out. Ask a sibling or a friend, or even your parents to help you out. If you have a close relationship with your high school English teacher or college English/Creative Writing professor, you can ask them for help. (My mother was a teacher who helped me out for 3 long years, before she died last spring.)

There's many benefits of working with a beta reader, critique partner, an accountability partner, or joining a critique group. A beta reader will look after your work and give you comments on story flow, while a critique partner will give you honest feedback from POV to grammar errors. If you never heard of an accountability partner, I never did either, until I've learned about it a decade ago. An accountability partner will help you keep track of your editing by word count and support you. Sometimes your beta reader/critique partner can be the same partner, too. (I love my beta reader! She helped out finish editing my ms, after my mother died, and will help me with future projects.) You can also find a beta reader or critique partner online, if you check the website and a couple of blog. I know one of my egroups--RWCList--posts a critique partner list via email, twice a month. If you do social networking, you can ask for one via Twitter or Facebook.

A critique group is also great to give you more feedback from fellow group members. They're free and usually meet at your local library once a month. They might meet in the morning or at night. You do have to bring your short story or chapter excerpt in person, or if it's via email, just email it over to them. If there's not one near you, try the nearest town. If not, there's another option for you to get feedback and that's joining critique email lists and websites.

For the past decade or so, I've gotten tons of feedback from free various sources to get critique on my chapter excerpts. Feel free to check out Youwriteon.com or Forwardmotion.com. It's free to join as a member. As long as others help you, you have to critique others in return. I've been a member of the Internet Writing List for a decade ago. As long as you meet the monthly quota of two per month for a critique/submission for Fiction and Novels, you would be in good standing. Just sign up to join to get approved, and then send out a chapter excerpt. (Revised chapters excepts also count, too.) Everyone's there been real nice and friendly to me over the years. There's the Writing E-List for everything that's writing-related, which included editing, too. {The only caveat for Youwriteon.com, your work will be graded on a scale from one to five stars per editing criteria on a member's review. There's also a chart of where your work would land, when you get four reviews.)

You can also join online forums for free to get tons of feedback for the first pages or so. I know that Agentquery.com, Querytracker.com, Forwardmotion.com, and Youwriteon.com. You might find some help over here at Hub Pages, too!

If you have the money to have it looked after by a professional editor, that might be a good investment for the final phase of editing. An editor, line editor or copy editor would charge you by the word, by lines, by pages, or by chapters, from the first pages to the whole manuscript.

Other paid options to have it looked it and critiqued, is by sending it to a contest to get feedback on. It's a good way to get feedback, whether you won an award or prize, and use it as a published credit for your queries in the future. Other there's a submission fee to enter your story or novel in, but it's something to look into. Otherwise, if you're attending a writer's conference that has an editing session, you might consider that, too, if you want to pay the fee.

One last option is to join a local writing conference, like Sisters in Crime or Romance Writers of America. They do have local charters that meet each month to get feedback. You do have to pay for membership and attend two meetings before you can join as a member. Local charters have free online crit groups, if you can't attend or afford their meetings.

So now you have the tools of the trade, get out there to edit like a pro with a pen or the delete button. You can take as much time as you need to get it done. Don't worry about deadlines, until you've landed an agent and a pub deal! Good luck writers!