Learning how to edit my first manuscript was a messy, iterative process that was as much about learning as it was about revising. I discovered and applied techniques from blogs and podcasts, gathered tips from training courses and fellow writers. As beta readers called out problems, I tackled them: extraneous characters, languishing b-story lines.

All of that armed me with a bright and shiny editing checklist that was ready for my second manuscript. I knew exactly what I needed to do, right? No surprise, things started to evolve pretty quickly. I added a few new steps, combined and re-ordered others. The process was refined alongside the book, ultimately yielding…

My “final” editing checklist

When the dust settled, the checklist looked like this:

• Print completed draft (and gaze at it lovingly while it sits for at least one week)
• Read printed draft (while scribbling lots of notes)
• Make any big, structural changes (sigh, yes)
• First full editing pass (address critique partner input and notes from step two above)
• Adjust chapter structure and clean up numbering (improve pacing, flow)
• Search and review every use of filler and filter words (eyes wide open!)
• Second full editing pass: multi-step, chapter-by-chapter exercise to:
  • Refine prose (aka line edits)
  • Complete the Forge & Chisel (my oh-so-pretentiously-named spreadsheet tool to unearth plot holes, deepen character journeys, and chart the story calendar and chapter structure)
  • Read aloud and refine prose again (and again, and again)
• Finalize chapter numbers and names (cleanup)

But that neat list doesn’t tell the full story. For that, we need to look deeper.

Online versus hard copy edits

It’s incredibly rewarding to print out a manuscript and weigh the pages in your hands. To hold something you brewed in the murky pit of imagination then dragged, sometimes kicking and screaming, into physical existence. But as good as that feels, it’s not why I “wasted” more than 400 pages of paper and ink.

I am a natural-born wordsmith. I cannot help it. My brain rewrites and attempts to improve upon everything it sees and hears, so imagine me trying to read my own story. Before the end of the first page, my fingers are inevitably tapping keys. Fixing this. Improving that. Instantly forgetting my intent: to experience the story and find its problems.

While I cannot turn this “feature” off, I can mitigate it with the help of a printer. Reading hard copy, I still mark things up and scribble margin notes, but I’m able to separate enough to see the whole. Or rather, the hole (of the plot variety). The gaps in character arcs. Plus, at night when I’m trying to fall asleep, my gaze can wander back to the tall stack of pages on the corner of the desk, reminding me to celebrate. And keep going.

Stronger story, sloppier prose

Lessons I learned while writing and editing my first novel carried with me into my second. The good news is that I produced a much better first draft. By that I mean the story was tighter. But, oh man, but the prose sure wasn’t. It was messy and repetitive and imprecise…and that was intentional.

As I drafted this manuscript, I resisted the urge to wordsmith in real time. Imagine the self-discipline required for me to not refine every sentence, twice. Perfect each word. Seriously, it was a Herculean effort, but I did it because my first manuscript taught me that it’s a colossal waste of time to line edit a scene that gets scrapped. Or moved. Then wholly rewritten.

This time, instead of refining as I wrote, I forced myself to “write forward” (term courtesy of Jessica Brody). It was a challenge, but I did it. I plowed through, writing comparatively loose prose. Words that were good enough, capturing the intention while keeping my eye on THE END.

The result? I saved time and effort by stomaching clunkier, imperfect sentences. More quickly, I celebrated a v1 story made stronger by the lessons carried forward from my previous manuscript. No info dumping. A clear inciting incident in the proper place. Flawed characters. Conflict starting on page one.

Performing structural surgery

The story may have been stronger, but it still needed work. Lots of work. A whopping 105,000 word count for a YA romance made that painfully obvious. For those unfamiliar, that’s 20,000 more words than the top end for the genre (with trends pushing for fewer).

My first read-through identified two big changes needed.

First, the end was way too long. I’d missed obvious opportunities to increase the stakes. I needed to cut scenes that slowed the pace. Taking a deep breath, I rewrote the third act and dropped 10,000 words in one fell swoop.

Second, there was a spot in the middle of the manuscript that needed some structural work as well: accelerate the pace, add a missing scene, heighten the tension, deepen the emotional exchange between characters.

The good news is that writing forward paid off: I didn’t waste a bunch of time on words that got cut and it was so much easier (i.e. less painful) to adjust the scaffolding of the story. I hadn’t spent hours polishing those sentences, so I hit delete and moved on.Editing requires qualified supervision.

Kill the filler words

This was a brand new exercise for me, courtesy of the phenomenal Brenda Copeland, former Executive Editor at St. Martin’s Press. In a webinar with my writing group, she challenged us to examine every instance of her list of fillers.

How’d it go? Spoiler alert: I loved this exercise.

As a data geek, a thrill ran up my spine when I searched a word and saw how many times it appeared in my manuscript. Of course, I was happier when it was twice, less so when it was 187. The words I tend to abuse were immediately clear. I discovered more filler words and phrases—my own personal crutches—and added them to the list.

It felt good to replace offending words with more compelling or precise alternatives. Sometimes, I could simply delete them. On more than one occasion, I struck the whole line or paragraph. And dropped another 3,000 words by the time I was done.

There was something magical about analyzing text this way versus reading in a “linear” fashion. It was wholly perpendicular to my usual approach, triggering a different, more operational part of my brain that allowed me to see things in a new light. Instead of reading in the story, the distance and perspective helped me spot what should be cut and produced infinitely tighter prose and pacing.

Knowing when to flex (as in adapt, not show off)

One good think about the winding, exploratory path I took editing my first book was the really useful spreadsheet (for me, anyway) that I built. It helps me to conduct a chapter by chapter exercise, interrogating each scene and character as the story unfolds and monitoring the overall progression of the plot.

I expected to do this exercise independently—one full pass, start to finish—followed by a subsequent full pass to read aloud and line edit. But when the time came, combining those activities into a single exercise was more efficient and effective.

One by one, each chapter received a focused, multi-step review that (a) polished the prose, (b) validated each character’s wants and needs, (c) illuminated plot and emotional fissures, (d) cross-checked chapter breaks, (e) captured chapter titles, and (f) plotted the timeline of events. It turned out to be a powerful, productive push to the finish.

Readers make all the difference

There you have it: a fully edited manuscript. A bunch of shiny checkmarks signaling it’s time for the next step: beta readers and editorial feedback. Because no matter how great our editing process is (yours, mine, anyone’s), nothing replaces putting your story in the hands of informed, constructive readers. And then hearing they would have read it in one sitting if they hadn’t had to go to work. Or that they stayed up into the wee hours of the morning because they had to see how it ended. The characters they fell in love with…and those that need some fine tuning. Because even when you’ve finished editing, you’re never really done.

There you have it, my sophomore manuscript editing process in a nutshell. Am I gradually honing the process to peak efficiency? Or is each manuscript different and the steps are destined to change with every project? There’s only way to find out. Write more books!