How To Edit Your Novel Without Losing Your Joy

No Hair-Pulling Required!

With another year underway, many writers are looking at their completed manuscripts, NaNoWriMo drafts, or half-finished works in progress and wondering: "How in the Kentucky fried chicken am I going to get this revised/edited/published this year?"

As I'm going through a season of edits myself - both developmental and technical - it only seems right to share with you what I've learned about editing and revising over the years, and how I apply it to my work without completely losing my mind.

Sound farfetched? I assure you, it's not.

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Gearshift

Writing a story and editing a novel are two very different jobs. As an author, you should be able to do both.

So once you've finished your draft, you need to switch gears: give yourself time to move from the creative mindset to that of the critic. Set your manuscript aside for a few months. Work on something else. Give your brain some distance from that project, enough to almost forget about it, so when you come back you can look at it with fresh eyes. And, yes, a more objective point of view.

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Divide & Conquer

There's one editing secret that's saved my hide on more than one occasion: YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE.

Editing a novel isn't like sweeping a floor, where you go through once and you're done. So don't try to make all your changes the first and only time.

When I go in to edit a project, I start with the bigger stuff. Developmental revisions if I can, though sometimes that comes later; then I go back and fix any continuity errors and research blunders. If I've heard back from beta-readers at this point, I take another pass to make adjustments based on their comments.

Once that's done, then I start on line edits: dialogue, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and any little things that don't really affect the story as a whole, but will make my work read more smoothly and feel more polished (and also save some $$$ if/when the manuscript goes to a professional editor.) See the pattern yet?

Trying to do all the edits all at once will only burn you out. You'll fry your brain trying to fix all the things in one go. You'll also inevitably miss many more things than you would with multiple edits, which will cost you later on.

It may seem like it takes more time than you have (or want, anyway) to do several focused edits on your own, but in the long run, it will save you a LOT of frustration.

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Work When You Feel Empowered

Consistency, especially when on a deadline, is important; but if you're up at 3 A.M. trying to edit a big chunk of manuscript with aching eyes and a wandering mind, you're not going to get much done. On the other hand, procrastination will only breed contempt for the job you need to do.

So, while you work toward that daily editing habit, observe: When do you feel most energized and focused during the day? If you have a flexible schedule, is there anything you can do to set aside a few minutes during that time to make edits? Instead of scrolling through Instagram or TikTok in your free time and then trying to work while tired, mindfully work toward taking time to edit when you feel focused and alert. (For me, this is usually in the morning, tapering off in the afternoon, and sometimes I get a second wind in the evening.) Consistently working around the same time most days will also train your brain to recognize that this is your focus time.

DON'T force yourself to stare at your manuscript all day every day. Respect your brain's need for rest.

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Protect Your Editing Time - Just Like Your Writing Time

I probably don't talk enough about choosing and protecting your daily 'creative playtime', but it can go a long way toward nourishing your creativity and preventing burnout. The same is true for editing. If you've set aside fifteen minutes, an hour, or three hours (whatever you can fit into your schedule) to edit daily, or almost daily, PROTECT THAT TIME. You may not be able to lock your door and ignore everyone in your house for three hours straight, but there are ways to eliminate most distractions that can get in the way of your editing time.

For example: There's not much you can do to keep your parents or kids from needing you to do something, but you can stop yourself from picking up your phone or wandering off on the internet for a certain amount of time.

You can't explain to your pets that they'll just have to wait to go outside, but you can let your siblings know when you'll be done writing so you can play a game with them.

Minimize the distractions that you can, and the rest will be much less detrimental.

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Don't Kill Your Darlings

It's been a long time since I've heard someone say this phrase, but it's still floating around: "Kill your darlings." Meaning that anything - a sentence, a character, a scene - that you would protect with your life and are really proud of yourself for writing, should be cut like an overgrown toenail, because it probably doesn't fit in or contribute to the rest of the story.

Um. . . Don't.

Before you highlight that section of dialogue and, with tears in your eyes, punch backspace while telling yourself it's 'for the plot', ask yourself: Why do you love it so much? Is it just because you think your expertise shines through in that one sentence? Or is it because that bit of exposition actually adds to the depth of the characters' conflict?

If it's just an ego boost and doesn't come from a place of strengthening the character's voice or internal journey, it should probably go. But more often than not, there's something about your beloved scene that's worth keeping. I'm not saying it's perfect and you shouldn't touch it at all - but there are ways to keep your favorite elements and still tell a solid story.

So what do you do with your 'darlings'? You basically have two options: Work on it until it flows into the rest of the narrative (this is where that 'time and distance' piece make revision a lot easier) or remove it from this manuscript, but not before you copy-paste it into your notes for safekeeping so you can use it in something else.

See? You don't have to kill all your darlings after all.

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Final Thoughts

So what happens next? You've done all the edits you can, made adjustments based on your beta-readers' feedback, and you feel ready to move on - but maybe not ready to publish quite yet.

First of all, once you've finished what you set out to do, leave it be. As writers, we're always striving for perfection - but we are finite creatures and perfection is elusive. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T KEEP MAKING CHANGES FOREVER. It's easy to get sucked away in a cycle of changing just one more thing to make it flow just a little better - but it's not worth it. That would be like running back into the house eight or nine times to grab 'one last thing' before you leave on vacation.

Make the changes you can, but don't procrastinate because it HAS to be just right. It's never going to be 'perfect' - accept it.

Depending on your publishing path, you may have plans to send your work off to an independent, professional editor - for developmental, copy, or line-edits. Or all three. This is a scary step, but it's necessary because neither you nor your beta-readers (paragons of literary genius though they may be) can catch every single typo or inconsistency on your own. I can't cover everything you need to know about professional editors in this post (that's a whole topic for another time,) but here's what you should know:

Professional editors can help you polish your work for publication - but only after you've revised and line-edited your work yourself. NEVER send a rough draft, or even a hot-off-the-press rewrite, to an editor without first doing everything you can on your own.

Editors tend to charge by either word count or page count (thank your lucky stars if it's page count), but it can sometimes change based on how many hours they have to spend fixing your story. If your manuscript is needlessly long, unwieldy, and full of typos and continuity errors when you send it off to your editor. . . Well, you better have deep pockets and nerves of steel because not only will they probably charge extra, they're going to be cranky after having to do your job for you.

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If you found this post helpful, make sure you share it! (Whether that's via social media, word of mouth, or Morse code.) If you have an editing question that wasn't answered in the post, or if you have wisdom to add on this topic, feel free to write in the comments! Something I missed? You can mention it there too. And if you're new here, please consider subscribing so you're notified as soon as a new post drops!

See ya down at the docks, mate. Onward!

Lydia