Revising and Editing

1. Revision: Congratulations! You've finally finished your manuscript! But wait- before you send it off to the eager acquiring editor of your dream publisher, you'll need to do a little revising and editing. Having another pair of eyes check your manuscript is crucial for the revision step. After all, your story is perfect in your head, and as an author, it's easy to overlook small but important breaks in consistency. For instance, when I was submitting the first three chapters of my novel to a contest, I had my sister look over the manuscript, and within the first five minutes, she said, "You have two different ages for your hero. How old is he anyway?" Oops- a big error and one that any editor worth her title would pounce on and mark. Revision also means looking at the big picture. Remember your theme? How does it come through in the final version? And take another look at characterization. Although characters can certainly change during the course of a novel, they should still be recognizable by the time the reader closes up the book.

2. Editing- My absolute best advice, and I guarantee it will work: Read your manuscript aloud. As a composition teacher, I've seen many grammatical errors over the years, which could be easily remedied if the author would go line by line through the manuscript, reading aloud and checking the sentence structure. Yes, you have written a novel, and yes, it's long, but it's yours. Do you really want it showing up at an editor's desk looking anything less than polished and perfect? If you need some brushing up on grammatical concepts, the OWL website is comprehensive and filled with exercises, examples, and techniques relating to grammar and mechanics.