Congratulations! you wrote a book! Maybe it took you years to fine tune and put down on paper, or maybe you wrote it in 30 days for NANOWRIMO. Either way, it is an amazing achievement that most people won’t accomplish in their lives. You should be very proud. Now I must deliver some bad news. No matter how much you love it, it isn’t ready to be published yet. Some will have no problem accepting this as fact, but I know from experience that others find this a much more sensitive subject. The truth is, every book ever written has needed, at least some, if not extensive, editing. This can be daunting for any new author to tackle, so here is a brief explanation of the editing process from start to finish.
Developmental Editing
The first step is to write a book, but you’ve done that, so the REAL first step to the editing process is known as Developmental Editing. The most confusing part of this step when trying to learn about it is that it goes by several names. Substantive editing, story editing, content editing, structural editing… you get the point. Whatever you choose to call it, this is the stage where you look at the big picture of your story. Ignore any grammar problems (unless they are so bad you can’t read it), and ignore any small writing problems. Leave a note for later if you must, but I promise we will get to it in due time. Right now you want to look at your overall story arc, your character development, plot, settings, continuity and such. You can do some of this editing on your own, but personally, I think you do yourself a disservice by not enlisting some help. Having someone else with writing experience read through your story with you is a great tool. After having looked at it for so long, it’s difficult to be impartial with your own work and you may be blind to opportunities for improvement. This step can take the longest, sometimes requiring a few passes through the entire story till you are confident with the skeleton of your book. For argument’s sake, let’s say we have a book about a vampire named François. At this stage, we now know how he became a vampire, what he does with his powers, and how his inevitable end is tragic and poetic. With all the scenes in between, we are confident with the backbone of this book. Now it’s time to move on to the nitty-gritty details.
Line Editing
Remember when you would turn in an English paper and it would come back covered in red marks? That is what line editing looks like and receiving it can feel just like failing your English essay. This is the stage of editing where you look at your work at a sentence-by-sentence level. The goal is to work on sentence structure, syntax, word choice, and clarity. If you have a good editor, they will also make suggestions for keeping with your overall tone and consistent writing style. That sounds like a lot, I know, and it kind of is. But I think this is the most rewarding stage of editing a book. You have a great story to tell, but now we are going to figure out how to make it sound fantastic. Some of the easiest places to start when doing line editing is to look for any passive voice that could be active voice, opportunities where you can use stronger verbs, and any redundancies in your writing. A great tip is to read your work out loud during this stage. It can be easier to pick up on things that don’t sound right when you hear them spoken. There is so much more to line editing that just those three concepts though, so I encourage you to look up more tips when you get to this stage. Now let's bring back Francois to help…
Francois walked through the shadows one dark night, his tall figure casting long shadows down the sidewalk where he walked. He wasn’t really trying to be as suspicious as he appeared; he was just gangly and awkward and hadn’t quite figured out how to accommodate his newly vampiric body. Francois would be chased out of town before long. He was sure he couldn’t keep his new secret for long.
After a line edit:
Francois lurked through the shadows one dark night, his tall figure casting unsettling shapes down the sidewalk. He wasn’t really trying to be as suspicious as he appeared; he was just gangly and hadn’t quite figured out how to accommodate his newly vampiric body. Francois was worried he wouldn’t be able to keep his new secret safe. Surely, someone would chase him out of town before long.
Doesn’t that sound much better? My last note on line editing is less about making the edits and more about receiving the edits. Remember that no matter the changes that are made, it is not a reflection of your skills as a writer. Your job as author is to get your ideas on paper. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just cohesive. So don’t let it dishearten you if an editor hands you back a more red than black inked paper. For any editor reading this, please give your author some good critique to accompany the bad! They will appreciate you all the more for it.
Copyediting
We are almost done! Copyediting is the last major edit you will do before seeing a proofreader. This is also an easier step compared to the previous two. In essence, copyediting is checking your entire work for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. This step always reminds me too much of being in school, but it is a vital step. There is nothing worse than reading a story you feel deeply invested in, only to have the spell of fiction broken by a wrongly used word or a misplaced comma. You want your readers focused on your book, not your mistakes. Combing through your own work for every minor problem can be exhausting, therefore many people will hire a copyeditor to take care of this monotonous task. However, for indie authors who are just starting out, we don’t all have the funds to hire an editor for every stage of the process. There are several online resources for copyediting that can make this step much easier. Two of the most popular are ProWritingAid and Grammerly. Both programs examine your writing and will highlight mistakes in your grammar, sentence structure and more. When using these programs it's important to remember that rule number one of examining your edits is to never ‘accept all’. Always read through and double check that it all sounds correct. It is also worth noting that sometimes editors will copyedit while they line edit because it makes sense to work on all the smaller details at the same time. This is not always the case though, make sure you understand what to expect if you are hiring an editor, and even if they do it all, it's always good to give it one more look over. Let's check back in with Francois one more time and see how our grammar is…
The problem was though that he was feeling much weaker than usual, and was having trouble walking because of it. Calculating his approximate time of transition, francois did not believe he was undead merely changed in fundamental ways, he guessed that it had been about 24 hours since his blood thirst had began. His initial night had been rather confusing and he had gotten nothing done except staring at a line of fire ants that he could see in far more detail than ever before.
Copyedit
The problem was, though, that he was feeling much weaker than usual, and was having trouble walking because of it. Calculating his approximate time of transition, Francois did not believe he was undead, merely changed in fundamental ways, he guessed that it had been about 24 hours since his blood thirst had begun. His initial night had been rather confusing, and he had gotten nothing done except staring at a line of fire ants that he could see in far more detail than ever before.
That wasn’t so bad, but now it reads a lot clearer. Onto the final step!
Proofreading
After all that work during the first three editing stages you might be tempted to skip this last step. In the war for good writing, this is your last defense! This is another stage in which I will recommend you find someone to help you. This job works best with a fresh set of eyes. Proofreading is the last opportunity to find any mistakes that were missed before publishing your finished work. A good proofreader should read the entire work and keep an eye out for any continuity errors, syntax mistakes, or missing commas that should have been taken care of but were missed. When you are satisfied that your I’s are dotted and your T’s are crossed, you are finally ready to publish your book.
Whew! That was a lot of work, but believe me, it is well worth it to make sure that your book is the best it can be. I have read a couple of books in the past that were really fantastic stories but had so many errors that I found them hard to keep reading. It is a long process to fully edit a book, but your characters and their stories and worlds deserve the best lighting you can give them. Try not to be too overwhelmed and remember to reach out to your local writing groups, or friends, for help when you can. Happy writing, and good luck!