Three quick self-editing tips
Get your manuscript up to scratch
Here are three tips to keep in mind when editing your own novel.
Rest your manuscript
Once you’ve finished a draft of your manuscript, put it down and walk away from it for several months. For some writers, this is very hard. Life is short, I know! But continually tinkering without taking time to step back and consider the work as a whole can mean you make the wrong decisions for it, or simply fail to see many of the issues (of characterisation, conflict, pacing, and more). I can assure you, once you’ve taken a break, you’ll be able to see the work with greater clarity.
Be careful about an unclear point of view
Your novel’s point of view needs to be a deliberate decision that you make and then maintain throughout the manuscript (or shift only deliberately and obviously for the reader). I’ve assessed many manuscripts where the writer has not realised they have not made a firm decision about point of view. The most common one I see is a ms that hovers between omniscient and limited (but shifting) third-person POVs. This can be jarring for the reader.
If you’re choosing an omniscient POV, it can help to think of the ‘narrator’ as a character in itself, with its own voice, and this can help you keep track. A…
