Editing a Novel by Marilyn Levinson

I like editing. The way I see it, the hard work of creating my novel is done. Now my job is to make my manuscript read as smoothly as possible so that no error or inconsistency pulls my reader out of the story.

Before I send my manuscript to my editor, I go over it three times. The first read-through takes the longest because I'm constantly making corrections. While I both add and cut words in the process, I end up having more words than I started with, which is fine. The next go-throughs move more swiftly, but there are always sentences that require changes and edits. Here are my recommendations of what to keep in mind as you edit your manuscript.

1. Make sure that Tuesday follows Monday. When writing a novel, I sometimes forget to make note of which day a scene takes place and move on, losing track of the dates. This can present a problem when you discover it's Sunday in your novel when you need it to be a weekday. This is especially true when you have a big event at the end of the book and you've mentioned how many days away it is from your opening chapter.

2. Be sure you don't change a name mid-stream. Sounds silly, except I've done it, and I was lucky that my editor picked up on all the incidents of the "new" name. Once I even wrote Sammy, my cat's name, instead of Smoky Joe, a character in my series.

3. Speaking about names, make sure your characters' names aren't too similar. Some people say you shouldn't have names that start with the same letter, but I don't think that's a rule you must follow, especially if they have a different number of syllables. Also, using simple names like Bob and Don might confuse some readers as they are both one syllable and share a vowel. In one mystery I included a list of characters because I introduced many characters at the beginning of Chapter One.  

4. Make sure you're consistent. Novels, especially mysteries, have complicated plots and often an incident or piece of information is repeated in the text, perhaps referred to by another character. Make sure the information is the same throughout, unless you're deliberately changing it. The same goes for descriptions of your characters, their ages, and what they're wearing that day.

5. Remember when and where your scene is taking place. Some scenes are longer than others and require several pages. Always check back to the start of the scene to make sure you know the time of day and where your characters are when you began so you don't have your character leaving work when she's home.

6. We all have favorite words and phrases. Check to see that you're not overusing them. My favorite is "just." I think it often expresses just what I want a sentence to say.:)

7. When you make a change, for example, in your murder weapon, be sure to make this change throughout your manuscript. Be consistent.

8. When going farther back in time, past the past tense, remember to use the past perfect tense, at least in the first few sentences of the paragraph. e.g. She had seen him a few times before she returned to work.

9. Check your punctuation. For me, this usually means making sure I've closed quotation marks. This is also a good time to check your commas. Frankly, I find myself less certain than ever when to use commas. I know one is no longer needed before the word "too." Comma-wise, I usually defer to my editor and copy editor.

10. Is it a compound word, a hyphenated word, or two words? Again, I defer to my editor and copy editor.

11. Going through my manuscript a second time, I occasionally find a better word than one I've written. This is especially true when I'm trying to avoid using the same word in a paragraph. 

12.  I try to read my third go-through slow enough so that I'm reading every word I've written. Our mind is very helpful and fills in missing words, something that isn't helpful when it come to editing. Reading your manuscript aloud helps find any missing words. Also, beware of having written "their" when you meant to write "there," "it's" when you meant "its." This can happen if you mentally hear your words as you write them.

Do you have any other suggestions of what to look for when we're editing a novel?