by L.C.

Created on: April 12, 2009

I've been editing for quite some time, and one of the biggest challenges I have is helping writers edit their manuscripts. For most authors, their books are their babies, and they simply can't bear to change a single thing. The most successful editing jobs I've ever had are those where the writers come in prepared to rip apart and dismantle their entire manuscript. Of course, this isn't easy, and I fully understand. It can also be even more challenging to do this yourself, because we often fail to realize which parts of our work are weak and need improvement.

Fortunately, there are a number of techniques I've come across to help you edit your manuscript in a way that is as efficient as possible, meaning that you produce work of the best quality with the least amount of time and energy wasted.

1) Read it aloud. I cannot stress how important this is. It will not only force you to evaluate each word individually, instead of skipping over bits of phrases and missing mistakes, but it will also allow you to examine the flow and the wordiness of a sentence. If you have an ample amount of time, I would suggest spending the first part of your editing session simply reading. For example, if you have a novel spanning thirty chapters, take the first five pages and decide you will edit these during this session. Start by reading them aloud, and simply put an asterisk (*) beside any parts you find awkward, confusing, wordy or otherwise incorrect.

2) Grab a thesaurus. As you read your story, you might find that some words are repeated far too many times, something most of us don't catch in the writing process. This is your chance to get your thesaurus and find a variety of words to replace your repetitions.

3) Punctuation. Correcting punctuation mistakes can be difficult, because oftentimes you might not know all of the rules. It's therefore very important to pick up some sort of no-nonsense grammar and punctuation book that will plainly explain the rules. This book should always be kept near your writing space for frequent reference. Alternatively, there are many websites that offer the basic rules. Just make sure that the site is trustworthy, or else you might be reading false information.

When correcting punctuation, you should evaluate each punctuation mark and try to see if there isn't a better one. Reading aloud is very important for this process, as you can see where there are run-on sentences that should be cut down, or find out where a comma should be placed to better

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