I am revising a presentation on self-editing. While I have a fair number of notions of what techniques or strategies I and some other authors employ, I am always open to learning and adding to my tackle box, so to speak. If you're so inclined, briefly share what works for you.
Here are some of the things I do: Until a couple of years ago, I always printed the manuscript. I gave that up because on-screen works for me, since I do at least 6 edits. Plus my FIRST READERS and my wife's edit. When I'm done, I pick a 10% randomly (Excel) selected group of pages. After that, I'm done. Before the first edit starts: 1 - The usual spell and grammar checks. 2 - Search and destroy "really" and "very" if they aren't in dialogue. 3 - I use location, date/time stamps for every chapter. Ensure they are correct. For edits 1-3 and 5 I use Word's text-to-speech. It's wonderful at helping me find left out words. It can also reveal stilted word usage because it's makes you think, "Huh?" If I add anything from a sentence to long passages, I use this feature right then. During the edits I keep an eye out for wayward adverbs and words that are repeated within a sentence or two of each other. I don't do what some writers do, which is to look for just a few things during each edit like checking dialogue and setting, I tend to let my subconscious work on this as I go. I may not notice a weak spot say in description until edit 3, but it does get picked up. Hope this helps. SB
leave it for several months before starting the self edit , then read through and make changes (as ive got more experienced there has been less to edit in structural sense), change the font and read it again, make use of the text to voice ability of my computer to read it to me. I don't worry too much about spelling and grammar in the self edit unless anything jumps out - because its going to get rewritten after its gone to beta readers, and again after it goes to the editor anyway... a self proof is the penultimate step before it goes to the proof reader after all the changes are made (incidentally mod hat on ive moved this into art of critique because thats where we put all threads to do with editting - we need to get daniel to change the name of the section to reflect that)
I don't know if you mean self-edit as in "do all I can to edit before sending it to another person for a once over" or self edit as in "edit without the use of software or another person". This is usually my go to for doing all I can without another person but with software. Break the story into manageable chunks depending on how long it is. Run it through Hemingwayapp and delete all the adverbs/passive sentences I can. Run it through Grammarly. Run it through Prowritingaid <(you have to pay for it but it goes a lot more depth than grammarly does. I got it on sale.) Wait a while. <(I usually get impatient and skip this step but good advice nonetheless.) With the story still in chunks, change the font and the page color, then start a recording device and read/edit aloud; one chunk per day. I guess you can simply read the story aloud but the recording device helps me be less distracted. Wait some more. Get distracted by other stuff. Compile the story back together, change the font and page color again, and read in one go to make sure it flows together. Hope that helps? I've only ever written on the shorter side of things 20,000 or below, so might be different for anything longer than that.
Most important thing for me? Distance. In my case, with my novel—a couple of years! I had put the finished novel out to a few betas as soon as I'd 'finished.' I was so proud of myself, and my betas were asking to read what I'd done. So I did a quick run-through and gave it to them. I don't struggle with SPAG issues, so that wasn't a big deal for me. When the betas came back with their reactions (which were positive overall, but I'd still made a horrendous number of beginner novelist's mistakes) I made lots of big changes—to the story structure and to my writing style, etc. But then...I realised I'd started 'tinkering.' By 'tinkering,' I mean change a sentence here, remove a paragraph there there ...then come back the next day and change them back, or change them to something different again, rinse, repeat. That's when I put the MS away. And I didn't get back to it for a couple of years, due to Life. When I did return ...WOW! Things that were wrong just leaped out at me. Furthermore, the solutions to the remaining story's problems also leaped out at me. Because it was so long since I'd actually written the first draft and done my first edit, I had NO trouble ditching the things that didn't work. My darlings had all died of old age, so I didn't have to murder them! I had no trouble giving them a decent burial. I would say Distance is the most important factor when it comes to editing your own work. Distance is the only thing that will give you fresh eyes, and fresh eyes are what is needed when it comes to all phases of editing except for proofreading. Unless you're working to a deadline that can't be altered, I'd highly recommend you build the Distance time into your writing plan.
You have to be dispassionate, like an assassin. Léon, the Editor. If you can do that then you don't need anything else. But good luck. My edits are always with the paragraph in mind. If one of them fails utterly, I break it apart into sentences, one per line, so that I can see its parts. Then the culprits can't hide. I can look at lengths, structures, voices, beginnings/endings, complexity, clusters of imagery, etc. It's harder to see the pieces when they're all in one block. That's my last resort and it usually works pretty well. It takes a while though, so I only do it when I can't just edit directly. I also like small pages so that everything's formatted more like a book. I use a paper size of A6 (basically 4x6 inches) and I set all the backgrounds to cream so that it looks like an old paperback. It helps me if my writing seems more like a book and less like a document. Somehow that changes how I feel about it.
As far as proofreading goes, I have a couple of simple tricks. The first one (assuming you're editing on computer) is to bump the font size up to very large. I use about 20-point. Then turn on what the Mac calls 'the invisibles.' I don't know what Microsoft calls these, but they are usually in the View menu, and involve turning on the little blue marks that show things like paragraph turns, spacing, etc. Then just start at the beginning and work through the thing. The benefit of the large font is that you no longer 'read.' This means you don't get immersed in the story, and maybe start to skim. Instead, you focus on the spelling and the spaces and the punctuation. As soon as you feel your attention flagging—stop. Walk away, and give yourself a break, etc. It doesn't matter how long you take the break for, because when you come back, the same words are still there. This is dull work, but it also means you can be frequently interrupted and it doesn't matter. And it's hugely satisfying when you do catch a typo or a missed punctuation mark, and know that mistake won't make it into print.
Just tried this on the opening scene for my WIP and it turned up some helpful tips. I'll try it on the rest. Thanks.
As many have suggested, time. I've just left my WIP for a year, and now that I'm back to it, I see some issues that I'll polish up and re-compile. I'm hoping Hemingwayapp, cited by @Lili.A.Pemberton above, helps me in the areas I have blind spots (passive voice, complicated sentences, etc.).
What Works for you in Self-Editing? Slapping myself around the face and telling myself to get a grip. But seriously, yeah, for me its a mixture of what other folks have suggested like leaving it a while and coming back to it. I tried the hemmingway app, too, but when I copy/pasted excerpts from things like Jane Austin and Tolkien into it, it made out they were bloody awful and all their lines were too long... as if everything had to be dumbed down to an insane degree. So it made me skeptical enough to just shell out for the full version of grammerly. That seems to strike the balance for me in highlighting passive tense mistakes and point out when I get too verbose, whilst still letting me have creative leeway. I do agree with @Iain Aschendale too about the larger font size. When I tested a chapter of mine on Kindle Create to see if my formatting would work, the larger font size for some bizarre reason made me notice mistakes I hadn't before. Maybe its less words on a page making each one stand out more, or whatever, I dont care - i can simply back up Iain on that being a very good method of spotting flaws. I also highly suggest not completely self-editing alone. Maybe yourself for the first or second time, yes. But even with hemmingway or grammerly, EVERY writer accidentally uses a repeating phrase, verb or adjective in their work that crops up. Even using the method of leaving it for a while and coming back to it will largely not help you notice yourself doing it; and a fellow person you trust with your work to look it over and point it out not only eliminates it but helps you spot them yourself. With me it was overusing "However," and now it seems to be a lot of my characters "came out" with things... and I mercilessly teased my editing partner, @Padawan for her robot "whirring" every.single.time.that.little.metal.bastard.was.in.a.scene!! I'm having fun with her for "mustering" all the time at the moment- so much so I'm pondering sending her jars of English mustard in the post So it can be fun if you're both relaxed enough about finding your own flaws and having a joke about it.
I havent really figured out a method for self editing my fiction pieces, but my research papers and criticisms, the first round is listening to it being read out loud. The second round of edits is me reading it out loud. Third round of edits is me actually printing them out and rereading and making physical "red marker" edits. Maybe I'll have a relative or a friend read it if I can find someone willing to read it. These methods dont seem to work with my fiction. I find that when I edit my fiction, I keep wanting to change BIG stuff that creates big problems. Or I dont catch mistakes.
I actually start working on a different story. So get done with the rough draft, spend a month or two working on another story, and then swing back and start doing the self-edit. The time allows me the mental distance to be able to look at it more critically than if I go back immediately.
I dunno, I just edit my writing while writing it. (I have a habit of constantly re-reading everything throughout the process.) Then, when I've finished writing it, I go over it to see if there are any final edits to be made. That's usually all it takes. I don't really use what you would call drafts, and I've never relied on editors. I recognize this isn't the recommended approach, but it's what I ended up doing and somehow it has worked okay so far.
