Revising a manuscript – three strikes and you’re out

You’ve been wanting to finish that book for ages. Finally, you’ve just typed the last page. Yippee! Now what? Do you reveal your MS to the world, or at least an agent or editor you’d like to woo?

No. By which I mean NO!

The key to polished work lies as much in the rewriting as the writing itself. And here’s the awkward truth – you only have a limited number of passes to get that thing into as perfect a state as possible. Every time you reread something you’re ticking off one of those opportunities. At some point you’ll become word blind to your own work, unable to spot the errors and deficiencies. Plough on trying to fix them and you’ll make things worse and, before long, begin to think the whole thing may be rubbish.

Your mileage may vary but with me the limit is three. Yes, three times I can reread and rework a MS before my mind starts to go blank. That’s why I’ve developed a very set revision structure over the years to try to make the most of the process. It’s based on the idea that each pass of the work must be viewed from a different angle and attacked in a different way. Like this…

Step one – the author’s pass

This is the simplest one to understand. It’s also the only step that happens at the computer. Usually, if I’ve used another app to write the original piece, say Scrivener or Ulysses, I will have exported it into the final format for delivery, Word. That way I know I’m editing the same file that will eventually go to the publisher. I will, of course, have kept a duplicate of the original in case I need to go back and refer to that if I’ve made a change too far.

The author’s edit is a straight read through on screen where I will try to fix obvious errors. The kind of things I’m looking for will include repeat words, repeat physical directions (did someone pick up that coffee twice in a scene), poor word use, unsatisfactory scene conclusions (which I will often have noted during the writing process) and clumsy or overlong sentences. Simple things – contractions, when should ‘you will’ be ‘you’ll’ and consistency of place and character names. I will also be cutting out anything I think isn’t needed. Writing is often best improved by cutting, not addition.

Step two – the editor’s pass

Here I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of an editor seeing the MS for the first time. How will they do this? Once upon a time by sitting down with a paper printout, and if you’re so minded you can still do that. But most editors now will be working with some form of tablet, usually a Kindle. Whatever you use – I prefer an iPad or Remarkable because you see something like an A4 page – it’s important to step away from the computer. You can only write and edit at the same time during the author’s pass.

I can’t stress how important this is. You need to get into the mindset of someone reading your work and thinking about what’s on the page, not, in the first instance, the actual words needed to make it better. What am I looking for here? Breaks in narrative logic. Things that are unexplained and shouldn’t be. Timeline and continuity issues – are the voices of characters consistent, their descriptions, the locations clear and convincing. What’s missing, what can easily be taken out.

Often I will just make simple notes in the margin pointing out the problem, not offering a detailed solution. An editor is there to edit, not write your prose for you. Repetitions I will highlight in yellow. Suggested deletes are a highlight in red. When I’m finished I’ll go back to the computer, back up the original file, then start on the edits. After that it's on to the last chance I’m going to have to improve the thing. Meet…

Step three – the reader’s pass

Here’s a simple truth about every MS I’ve ever produced. When they come out in book form you will always spot something you wish you’d changed, and you can’t believe you never noticed it until now. Why is that? Simple. It’s now in its final form, single spacing, short lines, book font and pages, not the A4-style format you’ve been working in so far. Seeing your work in this form changes the way you read and analyse it.

There’s an obvious solution to this problem. For this final edit you need to attack your work in the form a reader will see it, as a book. In the old days I used to print out this final version as two-up book pages and very fiddly it was too. Now there’s a simpler solution: export your MS as epub and load it into a reader such as a Kindle or Kobo.

If you work on a Mac the easiest way to do this is to open your Word file in Apple’s own word processor Pages and export it from there. If you’re on Windows use the free app Calibre for the job. Once it’s on your reading device your MS will appear as a finished book. It will, I promise, allow you to make one final pass of your work from a new perspective, and pick up errors and, particularly, repetitions you’ll kick yourself for missing in the previous two passes.

How long will this take? I can’t say. That’s up to you. It varies with every book in my experience. But don’t rush. I work to delivery deadlines usually, and you need to know how to handle them. If you’ve finished your first draft ages before deadline then the best thing to do is to leave it to mature for a month or two before looking at it again. That will improve your ability to improve it enormously, since you’ll be seeing it without too many preconceptions in your head.

There’s precious little point in delivering a manuscript way ahead of deadline. Your editor will usually have set aside time in their schedule based on that timing, and may not be minded to put aside other, more pressing work just because yours turned up early.

Patience is the key, and the more hours you can devote to the process the better. Remember: if you’re a beginner, you have just one chance to get the attention of an agent or editor. Take your time and make the most of it.