Editing your book– A toolkit
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step- Chinese Proverb
‘The first draft of anything is crap.' If you are a writer, I'm sure you have heard of this phrase. It can be a strenuous journey to completing the first draft but it's a worthwhile one. However you would never and should never after completing your novel, send it straight off to an agent without it going through a detailed and meticulous edit. This is not only a bad move, it's like shooting yourself in the foot before passing the weapon to your arch-rival to shoot you in the other foot.
A book must go through several edits and revisions before ever seeing the light of an agent’s inbox. Some writers love editing and some don't but it cannot be avoided. It is inevitable, a requirement for any publishable work. A novel will need plenty of redrafting and editing to get it in shape for publication. Editing or rewriting is one of the crucial parts of the writing process, perhaps even the most important. The glory of the story comes out in the rewrite. Its strengths, the sharpened characterisation, the thrilling plot beats, the robustness of the world-building, all of it and more comes out in the multiple edits you make towards the final draft.
There are three main types of editing:
Development editing: Looking at the big picture and examining your novel as a whole. The broader issues such as plot and character arcs, pace and story structure are acutely scrutinised. This would involve going through your entire novel and seeing where the weaknesses lie and taking notes along the way. The development edit can take several revisions, so many so that writers cannot stand the sight of their manuscript after being in such close contact with it. However with each revision, the story becomes stronger and begins to take fuller form.
Line editing: We are going deeper here into the heart of your work. Line editing looks at style and the actual written word. Does it flow? Does it make sense? Does it even work? At this point, we are inspecting sentence structure, its clarity, the narrative styling and the voice conveyed in the writing.
Copy editing: We are now working at the granular level here, examining the actual sentences from a technical perspective. Here we are looking at punctuation, grammar and spelling.
Editing was never my forte, it was something I had to get better at and now it’s something I look forward to in the writing process. In order to strengthen my editing, I use several editing tools to make the magic happen because who doesn't love free (in most cases) editorial support.
Hemingway Editor: One of my personal favourites, this editor is all about style and readability rather than proofreading. It analyses your writing and presents you with a score, the lower it is, the easier it is for someone to understand your writing. The editor points out when passive voice pops up in your writing, when you use adverbs (sometimes a scourge in writing), which parts of your writing are less clear or too complex. Hemingway Editor is free online but the desktop version is $19.99.
ProWritingAid: This is a web editor and is brilliant in helping to self-edit your work during any part of the editing process. ProWritingAid can be used to check grammar, spelling as checking your writing style, use of passive voice, readability and sentence length. There is a free version however the premium membership gives you more features such as allowing you to edit in Google Docs or Microsoft Word.
Grammarly: A grammar checker which can be used to proofread your writing. The proof-readers features are top notch. There is a free version but there is a paid version available in monthly, quarterly or annual payments and it contains more powerful features such as vocabulary enhancement and plagiarism checker.
Ginger: This is another grammar checker and can be used to rephrase sentences and proofread. There is a free version but there is a paid version available in monthly or annual payments and it contains more powerful features such as error analysis and text reader.
editMinion: A powerful copy editor with a strong focus on fixing writing mistakes. This is an editing tool I have started to use recently in my writing and it is becoming a firm favourite. It helps to identify passive voice and adverbs in your writing and counts your frequently occurring words. There is a sentence length analysis tool which identifies your longest sentence and your average sentence length.
Editing is a necessary process and learning the tricks and tips associated with it is invaluable. By familiarising ourselves with the tools and skills needed, we can make our writing better and sharper, taking us closer to the coveted, completed final draft. Which editing tools do you use? Do you have any others you recommend? Please share in the comments section.
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— Davina Tijani (@dee_tijani)