Tips and tricks for new authors

Editing and Rewriting

Here is the part many of us dread.

Editing and Rewriting

Okay, so you've written the book. Or at least you have done your outline and are going chapter by chapter. Well, editing is not reserved for the end. I found this out the hard way. You need to edit as you go, as well as after it is all said and done. Why should you do that when you can just wait till the end and do it all at once? Because you need to refine what you write WHILE you write it.

After I write a chapter, I go back and read it mentally. Here we see all the errors from just blazing though it because you were on a roll and the words were just flowing nonstop onto the page. But also, this is where you should check the structure of your sentences and see what all you can add to make it better. You might end up adding just sentences, paragraphs or even whole pages worth of stuff that just simply makes the whole chapter thicker, deeper and well if you're like me, you'll add better descriptions, more internal monologue, or even whole conversations. Heck you might even delete a bit that just doesn't work.

After I read it mentally, I read it out loud. Getting into the character, speaking how they would or just how you did while you wrote it will allow you to catch punctuation, spelling and grammatical errors, along side oddly structured sentences, and run on sentences. If you run out of breath, break that long winded sentence up. Dialogue will flow MUCH better if read out loud, I mean they are having a verbal conversation, they need to breathe, they need to have emotion behind those words. So what better way to refine that than to actually talk to yourself out loud?

Okay, so now that you have gone chapter by chapter editing as you write, lets say you're half way through your book and it has been months since you've seen the first chapters. Guess what? You should probably revisit them. Why? Because your voice changes as you go. You get better the more you write, you get to know your characters even better as you write, so much changes in your writing style between the first few chapters and midway to the end that those need some love as well as you need a refresher. Yes this adds time to how long it will take for you to finish the book, but you will ultimately have a better book in the end.

Now we are at the end. Finally, the chapters are all done and you have a 100,000 word book ready to be put away, right? No you don't. If you use Microsoft word, click on that review ribbon and turn on track changes because we are going back in for another pass through. "But Jess that sounds like way too much I think I've edited it more than enough along the way." Listen, don't be like me who spent two years on a book only to have to go back through the whole thing so many times that I had to put it down for a while before I could do anything with it again.

Recording your edits allows you to review them before finalizing them. This helps you compare what you want to change with what you want to change it to. Read them suckers several times before you click accept, and I promise you by the end you will have added at least five to fifteen extra pages worth of content that elevates your book to the next level.

My book Evermore was 104,000 words and 414 pages long when I thought I was done with it. Recently I revisited it for, ( probably not) the last time and guess what? I ended up with 120,093 words and 471 pages. Now, when I say the things I added really made it better over all, I genuinely mean it. I gave chapters that did not get as much love as other LOTS of love and attention and they are 100% better now than they were before. The book, in my opinion flows so much better and without a lot of the errors I'm sure it reads MUCH better than when I first posted it.

Sometimes going back over your books, even if they are old, is a good idea and overall helps you grow as an author. Of course there are things you cannot fix in your early books because they are far to large of changes that will change the entire book over all, and lets be real not only would that be way too much work but it would be heartbreaking. Some things are better off used as lessons. Our first books will most likely not be our best, but they will be important nonetheless.