In On Writing, Stephen King relates that he places his finished drafts in a drawer for at least six weeks before looking at them again. If you can stand it, set it aside for a week or more. When you’ve finished typing the last word of your masterpiece, set it aside for a few days. “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” - Henry David Thoreau If you’re ready to self-edit your book, consider these 10 tips for book editing.ĭon’t miss a step when editing your book and click here to grab a FREE book editing checklist created by Self-Publishing School! If only they’d take the time to learn and incorporate better self-editing techniques, they would become better writers, endear themselves to their editors, and maybe even save money on a professional edit.įurthermore, beta readers and early reviewers will be grateful for the creation of a readable early draft. Book editing at its bestĪs a full-time editor, I witness dozens of simple mistakes authors constantly make.
Rather, you need to learn how to edit -and really, how to self-edit - before sending your manuscript off to be edited by someone else. In other words, the joys of #amwriting give way to the trials of #amediting.Īs a strong (and biased) believer that every author needs an editor, your first line of literary defense shouldn’t be a professional editor. Writers’ victories are short-lived indeed.įor a brief moment after completing a first draft, writers sit back, breathe a sigh of relief, post a self-congratulatory humblebrag about finishing our manuscript, and then immediately think about that one character whose arc we forgot to complete, or that we’re pretty sure we overused the word “that,” or that those squiggly red lines scattered throughout our manuscript are surely incorrect.
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