If you’re writing and editing your novel and plan to submit it to an agent or a publisher, there are a few more small things you can do to make sure your manuscript is polished and as professional as possible.
No writer can ever produce a flawless manuscript alone. Writers are simply too close to the story to know if everything has been successfully translated onto the page. That’s why writers work with reader groups, critique partners, writer’s circles, or professional editors.
Draft one of a manuscript is for you. In this draft, you get to tell your story to yourself. You can write as much as you want, go off on tangents or side quests, or infodump and worldbuild to your heart’s content.
There are many ways to approach manuscript editing, each with its own particular process, and nearly every editor and writing advice site has their or its own method. This post will describe the most common types, explain what they’re for, and provide questions you can ask yourself to ensure that you’re approaching this stage in the best way possible.
So, you’ve finished writing your manuscript. Congrats! Huzzah!
Now it’s time to turn that haphazard collection of phrases and scenes into a polished, thoughtful, and intentional novel. And how do you do that? By editing.
Working as a sensitivity reader or a beta reader for a writer friend is one of the greatest joys of being part of the writing community. You get to read a new story before anyone else and you have the privilege of helping your writer friend turn their just-pulled-from-the-cave-wall stone into a highly polished, beautifully cut, sparkling diamond.
Once all the hard work of completing the very first draft of your novel is complete (yay!), and you’ve had the time to give it a look-over and fix all the spelling errors, typos, and other general first-draft inconsistencies and issues, the next thing you’ll likely want to do before you send the book off to editors/agents/publishers is to have a fresh pair of eyes look over the book an
