How to edit as best as you can

Once your first novel is finished, I want you to cry.

I didn’t and I wish I did.

Cry. Cry for all the hours of bleeding over something so precious to you that it kept you awake some nights, more nights than you can even remember right now. Cry for the ache in your fingers when inspiration hit and hours passed in the blink of an eye. Cry for all the times inspiration did not hit at all and your fingers itched to move and be of use once more. Cry for the characters you lost along the way and the ones you found. Cry for the pain they felt, the pain you felt for them. Cry for it is over now. Cry for the moments you thought you would never get here and then cry because you did it, you finally did it. And then cry some more.

Then print up your novel, pack it up and put it away.

Everything that it is and everything it cannot be, does not matter now. For as long as you can, ignore it. Write still, about anything; something you saw, something you heard, a short story told at some family gathering. Just keep your writing alive while you wait.

Wait. Wait as long as you can bare. A week or two. Three months. A year. Wait.

I like three months.

Besides keeping up with writing, the next best thing you can do, in this time you’ve hidden your novel, is edit someone’s work. 

Online I find many stories shared with me. Short ones I find best. Then dissect it and pulling it apart in your own writing room and find what works and what doesn’t work (I'm not saying tell the writer this, this is simply for yourself) Be tough with this work. Pull out unnecessary words and parts that tell rather than show. Make notes everywhere you can about everything you think and find as you read others work.

Editing someone’s short piece is so helpful. It shows you the mindset you need to look over your own work.

Now the time has passed, a week or two, three months, a year.

Dig up your novel and when you read it after all that time, you will read as a READER and not as the AUTHOR.

You will find things you never even imagined you would write incorrectly or dully. You will find the same mistakes as the authors in the short stories you edited. You will blush and laugh at yourself for never realising it was a mistake at all. You will be able to tear your book down to the essentials, neaten the edges, and make it SHINE.

BEFORE you do any of that, your very first step is to get a highlighter.

Any colour you like.

Then read your book from beginning to end and highlight the sentences you LOVE. The ones that feel flawless and unique. The sentences that make you swell with pride when you realise you wrote them.

Highlight these moments throughout your book.

Everything that isn't highlighted, needs editing.  

From the rest of your text 

• Pull out words that clutter your sentences
• Say your dialogue aloud and every word that sounds forced, cut it from your work. Leave in only the dialogue that pushes your story forward, not the ones that explain the story
• Make sure your action and fighting scenes are written in short sentences, hurrying the action along. Long sentences draw it out and make it seem slow
• Check that every character in a scene has a purpose to that part and then to the story as a whole
• Make sure your characters have flaws. No one is perfect. Your reader will love them even more
• Every time you tell the reader something, see that you honestly cannot show them instead
• Take out scenes of leaving and arriving places, unless it has importance, we don’t need to know how they got there, we just need to know that they are there now
• Take out predictable and clichéd series of events. If you have to write out 10 possible scenarios for each action, that's fine, the first few will be expected choices so scrap those, the ones lower down will surprise both yourself and the reader
• Keep your writing simple, your plot and characters involved

There is so much you can edit, but I think I will leave it there. 

I’m eager to hear what you would add to this list and if you find this upload helpful? Love to hear from you!

KEL