You’ve received your manuscript from your copy editor. The final step is to polish the novel by fixing spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Then congratulate yourself, you’ve written a novel!
There’s not much more to say about polishing your novel, so here are some fun quotes about writing and editing:
The last editing step in writing your novel is to hire a copy editor. A developmental editor looks at your overall story. A content or line editor helps you polish it. And a copy editor helps you fix the smaller mistakes such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Have you ever purchased a book and been so annoyed by all the typos and punctuation errors that you could never finish reading it? Those errors might seem small to you, but they pull the reader out of your story. To ensure their full engagement, it is vital that you hire a copy editor.
Even if you’re good at editing, it is easy for your eyes to glaze over your own words. I can’t tell you how many times I missed something because I read it as how it should be instead of how it was. Words I misspell because the spell checker doesn’t pick them up: ‘form’ vs ‘from’, ‘he’ vs ‘the’, ‘though’ vs ‘thought’, and dozens more. Other things I tend to overlook are when I don’t close the quotes, when I should or shouldn’t have a comma, or I forget a word like ‘a’ or ‘the’.
When searching for a copy editor, make sure you review their bios, read the reviews of their other customers, and ask for a sample edit. If they don’t find any errors in your sample, great—but be wary. Perhaps they aren’t as detail oriented as another editor might be. It helps to research multiple editors and compare before deciding on one.
Don’t skip out on a copy editor just because it’s not in your budget. I know hiring editors is expensive, but you don’t want to get a bad reputation and hurt your sales. Invest and make your novel the best it can be.
What are your most common errors when it comes to spelling, grammar, or punctuation? What are some funny or annoying errors you’ve come across when reading other’s work? Do you believe it’s important to hire a copy editor? I’d love to hear from you.
To clarify from my last post, this image represents how much my editor shot up my story. 🙂
Step seven in the writing to publishing process of your novel is easy. Revise your novel by making the changes highlighted by your content or line editor. Hopefully, they will be easy to fix. But maybe they highlighted a common writing error you make. Or perhaps they noticed a plot hole or an entire chapter that could be improved.
Either way, take their suggestions with an open mind while also keeping your voice and the story true to what you want it to be.
The first time I got a manuscript back from a content editor, I was crushed. There were so many red lines and several chapters that needed improvement. To be truthful, she had to educate me on the proper way to create a story arc. After getting over my hard feelings, I realized she was right and made most of the changes. My first novel is now ten times better than it was before.
Not all your editor’s feedback will be applicable. This same editor also suggested changing my main character. Although I agreed he needed to be improved, I did not like her suggestions. An editor for my second novel suggested renaming some people because she thought they were too complicated. I disagreed. It’s okay to disagree. Just make sure you’re not disagreeing because you’re defensive about the feedback. The editors are there to help you. It’s in both of your best interest to make your novel the best it can be.
What has your experience been with a content or line editor? How much of your novel did you need to revise? What improvements did they suggest? I look forward to hearing from you!
This is how it feels when I get my manuscript back from a line editor. But it’s worth it.
In previous posts, I mentioned a developmental editor. But this type of editor is needed much earlier in the process when you need help with the overall story structure. At this point in your writing and editing process (step six), you need to hire a content or line editor.
In researching the definitions of these two types of editors, the distinction seems to be blurred. The gist of both are they look less at the overall flow and structure and more at the line-by-line construction.
By strict definition, line editors look at your word usage. They can help you find inconsistencies with point of view or tenses. They can help you find better words for your descriptions or better ways to write your sentences.
Content editors might provide help on a broader scope, but not as broad as a developmental editor. They might notice plot holes or point out flat characters or scenes. They could let you know when some scenes are too slow or when you accidentally fall into telling rather than showing.
Ideally, you’d like an editor to do both line and content editing. Honestly, in looking at the services of several editors, I found they described their line editing to include features of content editing and vice versa.
When searching for an editor, be sure to read the specifics on their services and ask them if they will do a sample for you. Submit a sample to a handful of editors and review the results to see which feedback fits better with what you need.
This type of editor is not cheap, but it can make a world of difference. I am at this state with my second novel. And while I feel my writing is spot-on, I am amazed with all the things my line editor found in the sample I sent her. In some ways, her red lines and comments were daunting. But I loved how much better my writing came out with her suggested improvements.
Whether you’re going to submit your novel to a literary agent or self-publish it, a content or line editor is a great investment. Let your writing get the attention of a literary agent or give self-publishers a good name by publishing something that will knock their socks off. Make your novel the best it can be!
Do you have any suggestions or recommendations when it comes to content or line editors? I’d love to hear from you.
After all that work, you might have to do rewrite your novel again. But why? The biggest reason is because your beta readers might have pointed out issues you missed. Or perhaps they gave you ideas on how to improve your story. Here are just a few things beta readers might point out that will require you to rewrite your novel:
Not enough conflict – Perhaps a beta reader said parts of your story are too slow. This is usually because there’s not enough tension or conflict in your story. Review your character(s) goals, motivations, and conflict.
Weak characters – Perhaps one or more of your characters are flat. Maybe they’re too nice and never make mistakes. Or maybe they’re just not interesting. Consider both their strengths and their flaws and use them against your character. Give them goals, motivations, and conflict. And be sure to show the character rather than tell the reader about your character.
Boring scenes – An occasional slow scene is a good thing for pacing. But too many slow scenes in a row can cause your reader to put down your book. If your beta reader tells you a chapter is slow, consider your options: delete it, spice it up, or leave it as is because the proceeding and succeeding chapters are fast.
Needs rising action – Having your character go from one bad situation to another without the stakes getting higher can be boring. You must raise the stakes with the worst possible dilemma your character faces being toward the end.
Show don’t tell – Don’t tell your readers about your character or about the scene. Show it to them through your character’s viewpoint. For example, ‘Sally was mad’, is telling. ‘Sally clenched her fists and bared her teeth’ is showing the reader that she’s mad.
Point of view problems – Unless your writing in omniscient point of view, make sure your story is told through one character at a time. If you need the story told from multiple characters, separate each character’s point of view by chapter or by a line break.
Choppy writing style – Vary your sentence structures. Don’t always start with a subject. Start a few sentences with a subordinating conjunction. And start very few sentences with an adverb, verb, gerund, infinitive, or coordinating conjunction. Also look at your sentence lengths. Your sentence lengths should vary. Don’t write a bunch of short sentences in a row unless the action of the scene calls for it.
Same mistakes over and over – Your beta readers may point out that you overused certain words. Words like was or that, or even smiled or nodded can be way overdone. Or maybe you don’t use your commas properly or you start every sentence with he or she.
As you review the feedback from your beta-readers, keep in mind that not all feedback is created equal. Some feedback might be opinions you don’t share. Some feedback might be wrong. Don’t despair if your manuscript comes back with a bunch red lines and comments. Not all will apply, and these corrections are a learning opportunity. Rewrite your novel knowing that each change is an improvement.
Tell me about the feedback you’ve received from beta readers and how it made you a better writer.
You’ve heard the phrase, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” This is why it’s so important to get feedback on your novel. Would you rather get negative feedback before publishing or get it after?
You’d think getting feedback would be easy to do. Maybe it is. But getting the right feedback is not. The biggest issue is reader bias. The next concern has to do with the potential costs. I’ve put together some ideas on how to find beta readers as well as a list of things to be aware of when getting feedback from your beta readers.
Where to Look for Beta Readers
When Reviewing Beta Readers
Finding the right beta reads to give me feedback on my novel has been a trial and error process. Some were too lavish with praise and others were too critical. Many gave sound advice, but personal preferences occasionally seeped in. One of the hardest things, though, was finding people who have the time to give me feedback. Providing a detailed review of someone’s writing is hard work. So if you get someone willing to do this for you, be sure to thank them profusely, don’t take advantage of their hospitality, and offer them something in return (such as an exchange review, their book cover design, marketing for them, or any other service that you have skill in).
How do you find good beta readers? Do you have any other advice to offer when it comes to getting or giving feedback on a novel? I’d love to hear from you.
What?! After all that hard work I put in, now you want me to rewrite? WTH.
Before you get angry with me, ask yourself if you are truly ready for a stranger to read your novel and post a review. Chances are the answer is no.
You wrote the first draft of your novel in step two. If you’re the type of writer who likes to take their time making sure every sentence and every scene is perfect, you may not have to do much when rewriting your novel. The more time you spend writing the first draft of your novel, the less time you will need to spend on rewriting the novel.
Since I like to write the first draft quickly, I spend more time on the second draft. Here are some of the things I do in this second draft:
Sometimes when we write, we’re so caught up in writing the action and dialog that we forget to flesh out the scene. When you read your rough draft, look for places where you told the story rather than showed it. Look for places where the mood of a scene can be improved. Where is it taking place? What does this place look like? What time is it? What are the characters doing? What are they wearing? How does the point of view character feel about what he or she is doing? How do they feel about where they are? How do they perceive the other characters?
There are a myriad of questions to ask when fleshing out your scenes. But don’t get too caught up in it. For one, you don’t want to make the scene too boring by adding too much detail. For another, not all scenes require a lot of description. If you’re writing a high action scene, for example, your point of view character wouldn’t take a lot of time noting what the scene and the other characters look like. And If you’re character wouldn’t do it, neither should you.
A story doesn’t always come out right the first time you write it. Does a scene contribute to the plot? Is something missing? Is something not working? Is it too long or too short? Is the transition from one scene to the next too jarring? Are the events in the proper order? Does the plot make sense? Is everything too easy for your character?
Add scenes – Sometimes you find you need to add characters, events, or other elements. Perhaps after you wrote your story, you realize how cool it would be to add a sub-plot. Or maybe you realize you need another character to help push your main character along or complicate things for him.
Delete scenes – Don’t be afraid to remove what doesn’t work. You might love a particular scene, but it doesn’t contribute to the plot. Or maybe you realize one scene is too much like another scene, and one of them needs to go. If you hate the idea of deleting, copy and paste it into a new document and save it.
Switch scenes around – Maybe you realize your protagonist needs to meet your antagonist earlier in the story. Or maybe your character faces the hardest part of their journey too early. Your character’s journey should get increasingly difficult. Sure, he can solve a problem and be in his happy place somewhere in the middle of the story, but something worse needs to follow. And make sure his worst moment is near the end. A subplot might be another reason to switch scenes. Maybe the subplot concluding after the climax drags out the end of the story and needs to conclude earlier. The more subplots you have, the more you may realize scenes need to be switched.
Change scenes – Maybe you want something different to happen. Maybe instead of robbing a bank, you want your character to rob a jewelry store. Maybe your character’s friend Jan as a side character is too boring and Tabitha would be much more interesting. Maybe the stakes are too low and you need to jack things up.
Don’t get too bogged down with editing. Chances are after you get feedback on your novel in step four, you may have more rewriting to do. Simply read through your story and fix the things that stand out the most.
I spend more time on my second draft than I do any other draft. I want to make sure I have all the story elements right before I let beta readers or developmental editors read it. You might be different in that your first draft took longer. Either way, it is a good idea to do a first and second draft before you let anyone read your novel.
Can you think of another reason why you might want to do a second draft of your novel before letting anyone read it? Can you think of other elements you may have to rewrite in a second draft? I’d love to hear from you.
There are many steps to writing and publishing a novel. The first step is the outline, which you can read about in last week’s post. This second step of actually writing the novel is by far the most enjoyable. It’s the step where your imagination gets to take flight and come alive. So sit your butt down and write! But first, here are a few things you can do to stay on track and keep motivated.
Write up a document that establishes your goals. Start with a broad goal, such as “I will finish this novel by April 1st”. Then break the goal down into parts. Ask yourself, “When will I write?”, “Where will I write?”, “How many days a week will I write?”, and “What times will I write?”. Finally, set milestones. You can aim for words per week or day, or pages or chapters per week.
One thing about goals is to remember they are flexible. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t reach a goal. Life happens. If you don’t make a deadline, it’s not a big deal if you push back the timeline. Or if your initial plan was too ambitious, it’s okay to make a new plan that gives yourself room to breathe. Remember, you only fail if you give up.
Some people are good at accountability while others need help. If you’re someone who does better when you have to answer to someone, consider these options:
Do you think you will be better motivated by rewards? Consider your guilty pleasures—the things you don’t get very often but enjoy. Those things can be food, drinks, material things, or activities.
Base rewards on your level of achievement. A candy bar might be rewarded for reaching 5,000 words while dinner at your favorite restaurant might be when you reach 25,000 words. The more you’re motivated by rewards, the more reward milestones you should select.
Consider the consequences of not achieving your goals. Let’s say you didn’t write as much because you spent too much time playing a video game or watching Netflix. Grounding yourself from those things are excellent consequences. If you’re not reaching your goals because of work, school, or family, do not ground yourself from those! Rather than establish a consequence for normal life things that keep you from writing, re-align your goals to be more realistic instead.
There are several ways to maintain inspiration. The number one thing I like to do is review why I want to write in the first place. I write because I want to get the story out of my head, because I like the feeling of achieving something worthwhile because I like the escape that writing offers, etc. Other inspirations can be searching for inspirational quotes from your fellow social media writers, creating a Pinterest board of images that relate to the story you’re writing, watching a movie or television show that inspired your story, and more.
This first draft of your novel is not supposed to be perfect. Don’t get too fixated on editing typos or grammar, or even wording. Just write and get your ideas out. My rough drafts are so rough that I talk to myself in my writing. For example, I might type:
Okay, I might have a plot issue here. I realized that I forgot all about the clue I planted back in chapter two. Review this and consider either deleting the clue-plant or implementing its reveal.
I usually put these blurbs in the document with parenthesis around them and in red-colored text so they stand out. If your writing goal is based on the number of words, it’s up to you whether you want to count these blurbs. Personally, I count them because they are still related to my story.
Writing a novel is not easy. You might see a lot of people in your writing groups who want to write a novel, but most of them don’t get beyond the first draft. So if you can finish the first draft of your novel, congratulate yourself on beating the average. What have you done to keep yourself motivated to write? Are you goal-oriented or do you need outside encouragement? Are you motivated more by rewards or consequences? Explore the many possibilities!
There are several ways to outline a novel. Some writers already have the story in their head and don’t need to do a formal outline. Others like to create a formal plan. For those of you who map out your story before tackling the writing part, here are some ways you can do it.
It helps to start with a plot structure. There are several different plot structures to choose from.
The 3-Act Structure
Freytag’s Pyramid
The Heroe’s Journey
The Fichtean Curve
In Medias Res
7-Point Story Structure
The Plot Dot
Do your research to determine which structure is best for your story. I prefer the Plot Dot method. You can google it or read my blog post about it here – The Plot Dot
Using a plot structure doesn’t mean you can’t add subplots or deviate a little from the hard outline. Doing a basic outline using a plot structure helps you get the essential parts of your novel in order.
If you’re like me and want more detail, start with the plot structure then add chapters to each plot point. The number of chapters for each plot point can vary. You generally want to reach the inciting incident quickly, but the number of chapters leading to the final battle can be many.
I sometimes use notecards to outline my novel. I use white notecards for the main story and colored notecards for the subplots. Notecards help make it easier to switch, add, or delete scenes (but then again, so do the cut and paste options on digital documents).
A storyboard can help you visualize your novel. You can also find storyboard worksheets online. These worksheets can help you establish the setting and characters for each scene, as well as the events that take place.
There are also some great online writing tools and apps that can help you outline your novel. I’ve heard a lot about Scrivener. I’ve also heard about Trello and XMind. Googling “tools to help you outline your novel” can help you find more. Some are free and some you have to pay for.
Don’t get too caught up in creating an outline. Your outline is a guide to help you stay on your main path. An outline that’s too detailed might limit your creativity. Create an outline for your novel but stay flexible.
Are you a pantser or a planner? Do you know of any other plot structures to use for wring a novel? How do you outline your novel? I’d love to hear from you.
How many steps are there from writing a novel to self-publishing it? I’m sure the answer varies depending on your skill, writing process, and resources. For me, there are fifteen steps from the initial planning of the novel to publishing and marketing it. Some are easy, some are hard, and some cost money.
You can either outline your novel or wing it. Some people (called panters) enjoy the freedom of winging it. It can lead to some interesting surprises. I prefer outlining my novel. I generally already have a good idea of what I want to happen in my story and outlining helps me keep the story on track. You can make your outline as generic or as detailed as you want.
You can either try to perfect your novel in the first draft or write a rough draft and reach the goal of writing an entire novel. I write my entire novel during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which is in November. Since my story is written quickly, it is an extremely rough draft that probably shouldn’t be submitted to anyone for reading.
Whether you tried to perfect your novel in the first draft or wrote an extremely rough draft, you will want to give your novel a read-through and fix any issues you find before you submit it to people for reading.
Find beta-readers or other writers who are willing to give you feedback on your novel. This is not always easy. You could end up with people who tend to always give good feedback for fear of hurting your feelings. You could get someone more focused on grammar or punctuation errors (which is okay but not needed yet). Or you could end up with people who give feedback that does not really apply to your style or preferences. If you’re lucky, though, you can get some insightful information that will help make your story better. I am currently in this step for The Dragon Emperor: Book Two of the Dragon Spawn Chronicles.
The feedback you get in the previous step could point out issues you never thought of. Some of those issues could be small while others could be huge. Either way, it is likely you will need to do some rewriting.
I know this step can be pricy, but I would not recommend skipping it. You don’t know what you don’t know. A development editor can help you learn. Would you rather have a professional point out some serious story problems, or have readers so put off by your errors that they leave you negative reviews? You owe it to yourself and to your readers to have your work looked at by a professional. A development/content editor can help you find plot holes, make sure your writing style is consistent, point out places where the writing could be improved or clarified, and more. Take the time to find a development editor who knows your genre and whose editing methods you admire.
The newer you are at writing, the more a development editor is likely to find. But even experienced writers will have things they need to fix. We writers tend to be so close to our story that we forget to put some of the things in our head into the story.
A copy editor will look for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Don’t hire this type of editor until you’re sure your story is as close to perfect as you can make it.
Fix the spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors of your story.
There are several ways to market your book. There are too many to be covered in this post, so look for a follow-up post later. If you’re new to writing, you may want to start your marketing by building a social media following before you write. Twitter, for example, is a great place to find both aspiring and successful writers who are happy to support a new writer.
You can design your own or hire someone to do your book cover. If you design your own, make sure you do not take images from the internet without permission. Create your own images from scratch, look for images that are public domain, or buy images at a reasonable price from sites like 123rf.com or bigstock.com. If you hire someone, do your research and make sure the artist is not backlogged and knows how to format their work for self-publishing. Fiverr.com can be a good place to find someone.
You probably wrote your novel in Word, Google Docs, Scrivner, or other places. But just because you used these platforms doesn’t mean your document is ready to be uploaded to a self-publishing platform. You may need to format chapter headings, font types, spacing, indents, paragraphing, and even page numbers. Follow the instructions of the publishing platform carefully and be sure to do a review before you hit that publish button.
Publish immediately or do a pre-publishing campaign.
Use all your social media and marketing platforms to announce your new novel.
This is an ongoing process. Keep up with your social media sites and continue to market.
Does your head hurt from all this information? You thought writing would be easy, right? These steps can be daunting, but take it one at a time and you’ll do great!
Did I forget anything? If so, please feel free to comment below. And feel free to share your experience with any of these steps.
StarFire Dragons: Book One of the Dragon Spawn Chronicles, now on Amazon.
