Line by Line

The Act of Editorial Housecleaning

You finally have your story where you want it. Plot zips along at a good pace, characters intrigue and engage, the twists and turns do their thing, and you’ve nailed your emotionally satisfying conclusion. Now that you’ve edited your story, it’s time to edit your writing.

Photo by No Revisions on Unsplash

When I read a manuscript on submission, I look for a combination of compelling story and polished prose. I don’t expect something entirely submission ready, but I do want clear signs the writer performed some sort of line edit before sending out their work. It can be tempting to short change this stage, knowing an agent or editor is likely to ask for additional structural/story edits in the future. But your job is to submit the best writing you are capable of producing at your present skill level. So, edit for story and then edit for prose.

Strong writing provides the foundation for your story. Whether you write in a minimalistic way or embrace description, you want to use only as many words as necessary to achieve your desired outcome. Aim for the tightest, cleanest writing within the confines of your style.

Ways to Tighten Your Writing

• Declutter. Eliminate most adverbs and strengthen verbs by making them more precise. Go through the manuscript for filler words, such as that, really, even, just, seem, and so on. Sometimes they add to your work but often not.

• Seek out clichés. If the saying sounds familiar, it’s probably a cliché. Unless you’re putting it in the mouth of a character for a specific reason, find an original way to get the idea across or eliminate it entirely if it’s unnecessary to the narrative.

• Consider passive verbs/structure. Whenever a character is or was something, that’s a passive verb structure. Active verb structure feels more interesting, adds momentum, and tightens up your prose. Compare “Jill was running” to “Jill ran.” You certainly don’t need to eliminate the verb to be from your manuscript, but chances are you will locate a number of places where doing so will strengthen the sentence.

Examine the way the story flows on the page. Read each chapter aloud—or enlist someone to read it to you—and listen closely to how the writing sounds. You want the rhythm to be almost musical, and for nothing to sound unnecessarily jarring or pull you out of the story.

Photo by Chris Abney on Unsplash

Aspects of Flow

• Good writing contains varied sentence lengths and structure. Sometimes you will deliberately pile up a few short sentences or fragments to set specific pacing for the story, or use longer sentences to slow things down, but overall, you want to achieve a balance. Beware of getting caught in similar patterns, or of sentences that end up too complicated to read smoothly. Edit any tongue-twisting sentences. Take pity on your future audiobook narrator.

• Check for repetition. This could be overuse of the same words in a single sentence or paragraph, or it might be using a more unusual word several times over the course of the story—or having more than one character use it. All writers have go-to words and phrases, so listen to be certain you haven’t over indulged in some favorites. Likewise, you want to make sure you have not repeated an idea or fact unintentionally.

• Show, don’t tell. You’ll have considered this at earlier points in your editing process, but this is your last chance to make sure you’re keeping your reader pulled into the action. Of course, it’s fine to tell some details, but listen to make sure there’s plenty of showing between instances.

While you’re reading aloud or listening to someone else, pay attention to the dialogue. This will give you a sense of what an audiobook of your novel might sound like. Keep in mind what might sound awkward when read out loud or listened to as opposed to reading silently off the page.

Potential Dialogue Tweaks

• Consider dialogue tag frequency. The he said/she said tends to vanish when you read to yourself, but it can get repetitive when you’re listening to someone else read them all. Cut these back to the bare minimum required for a reader to keep track of which character is speaking.

• Avoid overly descriptive tags. You likely toned this down earlier in your edits, but listening to the text will emphasize anywhere you have tags informing the reader that the character is whining, demanding, or joking, etc. Even worse if they are saying things tensely, curtly, or happily. This is your last chance to clarify the dialogue so it doesn’t require these extra descriptors.

Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash

Last but not least, don’t forget to perform a general proofread. Watch out for dropped words, spelling and grammar errors, and plain old typos. Grammar check can be a bit weird in a lot of the writing software out there, but spellcheck will catch or at least question most problems, so run it to be certain. This is also a good time to do a Find-and-Replace for any names you might have changed since earlier drafts, to catch potential strays.

Congratulations! You now have a clean manuscript, ready to send out into the world. The most marvelous story becomes difficult to read if typos and sloppy writing keep pulling you out of the narrative. While this final editing process might feel a little tedious, it shows agents and editors you pay attention to detail and value the impression you make with your writing. Ultimately, it can only add to your potential as someone with whom they’d like to work.

---

I hope these editing tips prove useful, wherever you are in your writing journey. Many of the general editorial steps can be applied to virtually any type of written project. I’m going to step away from pure craft advice for a while and shift to the business end of publishing. Look for posts on query letters, contracts, and of course the ever (un)popular synopsis in the weeks ahead, balanced with my more personal, chatty newsletters.

Thank you, as always, for spending time with me and for reading. Please pop any thoughts or questions in the comments. I love hearing from you. In the meantime, wishing you a great weekend and a happy Valentine’s Day, filled with all the things you love. Until the next one.🥰