Editing/Revision Suggestions?

[Cathy Bryant]

I'm about to begin revisions on my first novel. Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[JoAnn Carter]

Humm, that's a good question. Are you part of a writer's group? They can help you figure out what your writing strong points are and what you need to tighten.
I know with my first manuscript, I POV issues that I was unaware of until someone brought it to my attention.

Blessings~
JoAnn

[Cathy Bryant]

Hi JoAnn. Thanks for the reply. I am a member of ACFW and thinking about checking with some of my friends from there to critique for me, but I feel like I need to "tweak" a lot before I let others view it. I just finished reading Self-Editing For Fiction Writers, which was a big help, but I also wanted to ask for tips from others on how they go about the process. I've gotten some good advice here and at other sites.

Thanks again! Happy New Year!
Cathy

[Regan Taylor]

Are you contracted or did you just finish your first round and are now going in to clean it up?

[Cathy Bryant]

Hi Regan. I'm not contracted. I just finished during NaNoWriMo and now I need to clean it up. Since I did no editing as I went, I'm dreading looking at it (especially the ending). By that point, I was just trying to get it finished!!

Cathy

[Rita Gerlach]

Hi Cathy,

One thing that helped me through the editing phase for my novel was I made a list of words to delete. Here's a few.

there
was
very
little
really
was
also

One other thing that helps is to print the manuscript out. Pick the color ink of your choice and edit as you read through your novel.

[Cathy Bryant]

Thanks for the advice, Rita! I printed mine out and read through it, naively believing that I would only have a few red notes in the margin. So laughable! I'm still working through my red marks, but what has been edited so far is SO much better. I've gotten rid of a lot of "was" and "-ing" verbs, but there are places where I can't seem to get rid of "was." Are a few "was-es" okay?

[Anika Daniels]

Margie Lawson http://www.margielawson.com/ runs a couple of really great classes - Deep Editing and Empowering Character Emotions. ECE is coming up in March http://www.pasic.net/class_nm_030209.html and DE in May. Margie teaches you to edit using her EDITS system which uses highlighters to look through your manuscript for things like dialogue. With dialogue after you'd highlighted it you would start checking for the cadence of the words and whether it was fresh writing, or was it something the character would say. I would recommend her classes, she is one of the better teachers out there. If you google her you'll find a lot of recommendations for her classes. Gosh this should like an advert. She's not paying me and I'm not getting a kickback!

[Cathy Bryant]

It's interesting that you mentioned Margie Lawson. About 2 seconds ago I noticed a note in my calendar to check out her course on Empowering Character Emotions. It sounds like I should sign up!!! Thanks so much! =D

[Elle Amery]

Hi Cathy -

You're getting some great advice here! Besides writing, I also edit, and my best advice for all writers is this: once you think you have a final, final copy, print it out and READ IT OUT LOUD! It may take a day or two, and your throat will kill you for it, but it is worth it in the end. Good luck!

[Cathy Bryant]

Hi Elle - I have received some great advice, including yours. I still have a couple of scenes that need to be completely trashed and rewritten, but I'm getting close to being able to print it out and read it aloud! Thanks!