How to edit your manuscript

a 4-step guide

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I got on a call with an author to give feedback on his manuscript. My main comment: it already reads really well. Any issues were not only fixable, but I also had 100% confidence that he could fix them based on what I saw. 

When I told him all of this at the start of the call, his relief came through the phone. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “This is my fourth full draft.” (want to read the book? It was just published this week — Progress Notes: One Year in the Future of Medicine)

I could hear in his voice how much effort had gone into crafting the book into what I’d read. 

Most authors want to do the same—want to do whatever it takes to make their book great. Impactful. The kind of thing that people will stop and think “that was really good.” And then pass it along to a friend. 

The only problem is, you don’t know what to do. Do you just…read it over? Fix the grammar?

Every author, given the time and experience, will find a way that works best for them. What I can offer you is a structured approach to editing your own work that will serve you well as a baseline. Even if you already have a routine that you like, my guess is you’ll find something here to add. 

Editing passes: 

1. read and ask yourself questions. Capture ideas that come up, along with any who/what/why/how/when questions that seem relevant. After reading a statement you might ask “who was impacted by that?” or “who disagreed with that decision?” There are many angles from which you can ask questions, and while you don’t want to include an exhaustive discussion of every point, asking the questions will ensure that you don’t leave out anything that seems obvious to you, but might be valuable for your readers. Sensory questions come next. When this scene was happening, what was the temperature like? Was the sun shining through the window, or was the light flourescent? Make sure you consider “So what” questions. And ultimately, what promise did the chapter make, and did it deliver?

   Jot it all down in the margins. Don’t make yourself come up with the same good idea twice. 

   Have you ever forgotten something important? Maybe it was a birthday, or to pick up that loaf of bread that you need to make your kid French toast like you promised, or to send an email that someone else was relying on.

   If it’s possible to forget something like that, why would you expect yourself to remember every bright idea that comes to mind when you’re reading your own draft? Yeah, write it down.

   Make use of the comments feature—flood those margins with whatever comes to mind as you read. A whole lot of it might just get a *shrug* when you revisit it later, but a handful of those thoughts will make a big difference to your book. And I guarantee you’ll be glad you captured them all. 

2. re-writing/reworking — decide how many of your own ideas you want to incorporate to improve the book (it’s not just about tacking things on—expand from the inside to make the important parts more 3-dimensional). 

3. After pass 1 or 2, read the manuscript aloud. The key is to focus on reading it to the real people you selected as your audience (probably don’t really read it to them, just imagine that they’re there). Notice where you feel the need to self-edit as you speak. Are you changing a word on the fly? Adding more context? Skipping over something that seems extraneous now that you’re saying it all out loud? Those are vital signs of what can be honed. This is one of the harder steps for most authors to make themselves follow through on. Be one of the ones who does it. 

4. Finally, at the end, use the spelling/grammar check. Publishers all have professional copy editors, so we don’t worry about that stuff as much as you’d think, but turning in a clean manuscript shows that you took a certain level of care. You don’t want to do all this work and then send your publisher a ms that looks like you just slapped it together. ¹

Writing these tips out like this, I worry that they’ll seem blindingly obvious. But it’s surprisingly easy to tell when an author has leaned into their editing process, and when they haven’t. This stuff is straightforward, but not always easy. Fortunately, it works. Why not turn this post into a checklist for yourself?

Are you wondering whether it’s really worth all of this “extra” effort? You’re probably feeling pretty much *done* with the book after working on it for so long. My thoughts on that are covered here — Make it your business to make it good

1. I hope this goes without saying, but check that your citations are complete and that your references are formatted appropriately.