Editing - Steps to take when editing!

You finished writing your book, and you wonder what's next? I am here to help you take your book to the next step and start editing!

    

    I struggled a lot before I learned the best way to edit my book so I wouldn't struggle as much as used to. 

    I heard many times that pantsers have a bit more work to do when it comes to editing, unlike plotters. But, I believe that with the steps I will enlist you will edit your book with ease!

First Stage

• First step

    The first thing I do when I finish my manuscript (the way to call your unpublished book) is that I alter it.

    This is what I usually go through that you also may have experienced - I don't focus too much on the grammar when I am writing. I am more focused on the execution of the story so that any idea wouldn't leave my mind when I am inspired. That being said, there are always so many words that weren't spelled right, there are sentences that I change, sometimes there are paragraphs that I want to change, etc. So, how do I actually do it? There are two ways: 

    You can either print it or you can edit directly from your computer. Both have their pros and cons. 

Printed version:

    Pros - It is better for your eyes! This is very important because it can take you a long time to read if you have a lot to do besides writing and if there is a lot to alter. We as writers spend a lot of time in front of the screen because we are writing, and you should try as much as you can to reduce time looking at the screen.

    Cons - After you finish you have to bring everything that you altered into the computer - more screen. So basically you feel like didn't do much about avoiding the screen, but you still look less at the screen when you are editing like this. Let me explain - You have your printed book in front of you; you have read it and altered it and now you need to bring all the alterations into your computer. You don't read whole pages, you are just looking at the altered words and sentences. 

So basically, it can take a lot of time if you are a perfectionist like me and look twice or more at the page to make sure that you haven't missed anything. That is also a con, it takes a lot of time... First you are reading and altering with your pen and then you have to type it into your computer. 

    Why I usually print my book and edit is because I  don't have a laptop and therefore it is very tricky for me to read on my desk computer even though It can take me a lot of time to edit. 

That leads us to the second way of editing - directly from your computer:

Computer version:

    If you don't have a problem with reading from your desk computer or you have a laptop which can help a lot, I would suggest reading your book from your computer. 

    Pros - You don't have to go over it twice like with the printed version. Everything you alter you alter directly and there are no two parts of it like with printed vision. 

You have a laptop; you can lay in your cozy bed, read, and edit. That is all, nothing more to be said here, because comfort is very important! 

    Cons - as previously said screen can be a problem 🥺 but... what about the yellow screen that you can set on your computer? The one for the night I believe is called - Night Screen - that can help you a lot because your eyes would get less tired and therefore you can read more!

• Second Step

    Really import part is NOTES 📓

    After you decided which method of editing works best for you, I will now tell you how you can take notes while editing. 

    If you prefer a printed version of editing the best way you can take notes is to write them on margins or to have sticky notes. Sticky notes can be better because you know that they are notes and you can easily see them when shifting through the pages of your book. Taking notes on margins is less useful because it can happen that you miss them while shifting through the pages. The reason why I believe you can miss them is that they are not too distinct whereas for the sticky notes they are bright colored and just can't miss them! 

    If you prefer a computer: whether you use Word Document or WPS (Both will be discussed in the future post) You can incorporate comments. You can use the option "Comment" to make yourself a note for your book. How that works is that you can select word/sentence/paragraph/page/more pages and leave a comment. When you get to that page and click on the comment, what you selected will be highlighted. So, whether you prefer a computer or printed version at first, comments as notes will still help you. For example, I choose the printed version at first, but after I have to use my computer anyways. And while I am putting all the alterations into my document I sometimes see something that I want to make sure I don't forget so I leave a comment. 

    I hope you understood everything I wanted to say, if something is unclear please make sure to let me know in the comment section.

    Before we go to the second stage of editing, I would also like to mention more versions of where to edit your book. 

    So, besides printed and computer versions you can also use your phone or tablet. Personally, I don't have a tablet, but before I started writing I had it and we had the case with a tiny keyboard. So my advice for you, if you have a tablet, is to buy, if you can, that case with a keyboard - that can help you a lot if you don't have the laptop. 

    And second - phone. You can also edit from your phone if you find it convenient.

    So, here is the video of how editing may look like on your phone. 

    As you can see from my video, I use the Grammarly keyboard. I use this keyboard when I am writing something in English. This keyboard is super cool, and I warmly recommend it, because it is super helpful. You can download it from Google Play Store. You can always switch from this keyboard to your standard keyboard from your settings.  

• Third Step 

    There is one more thing you can do while editing at the first stage. Either printed version or computer version you can highlight something important with a sharpie (printed version) and the highlight option on a word document (computer version).

    You can do this in various colours so that every colour means something. This way, when you see a specific colour you now what is selected paragraph or sentence about or why is it important. 

Second Stage 

    Now that you are finished with basic editing, comes the part of the editing that is very important for the story. What I mean by that is that you know have to make sure that everything in your book matches. Sometimes can happen that in the beginning, we mention that someone's car is red and in the other part of the book we say that is blue - that would be the basic explanation of what I am trying to say. 

    This is how I do it. You have to read your book again! While you are reading you can do two things out of which one can be done later. 

First:

    So, the most important thing about the second stage is what I like to call an "outline". For my writing outlining means that you go over your book and write down everything important for the story. 

    I use blank white sheets and every sheet is something different. Every character has it's own sheet.    There can be a sheet about the general plot, about the descriptions of the places that may be important, etc.

    I use a few colours to help me when I am writing down notes on those blank sheets. For example - for every character description I use blue colour, for everything that is important for the plot I use pink colour, etc. You get the idea. 

    You can use different colours for whatever you want to group together (orange - appearance, blue - important for the plot, pink- description) this way when you see a certain colour you know what is it about. 

    And just one more thing, you can have blank sheets or a notebook, whatever works best for you.

Second:

    This is what you can do in the second stage or you can do it later - it really depends on you and your preference. 

    Let say that your book has around 300 pages and

24 chapters. You can write down what happens in every chapter in just a few sentences. This, I believe, would be a great help for you when you are writing because sometimes it can happen that we need something that we know happened earlier in the book but we are not sure in which chapter. With this quick summary, you can more efficiently find what you need. 

    I use a notebook for this because I am working on the book series so I want every book summary in one place. But you can choose to write it down wherever you want - blank sheets, notebook, word document... 

Third stage

• First step 

    Every comment and every highlight that you made you now have to go through. What this means is that you now have to decide on what to do if you left some answered questions for yourself. For example, you highlighted a sentence that you weren't sure about, or you left a comment that you aren't sure that particular paragraph matches with something that has been already said previously. 

    I believe that you should do this in the third stage, after doing your outline, because with your outline you can more efficiently and with more certainty go over comments and highlighted words/sentences/paragraphs...

 

• Second step

    In this stage, you want to make sure that everything works - meaning that you'll need to read your book one more time using your outline. 

    I don't believe there is much to do in this stage of editing because you just have to make sure that everything in your story matches and works perfectly. So, all you need to do is read and use your outline.

Fourth Stage

    This stage of editing is optional and it represents just READING. My advice is to go over your book as much as possible, but don't go overboard. What I mean by this is that you should read it until you feel like your story is ready. Don't go over it like 15 or 20 times, because it can happen that you start changing things that shouldn't be changed. 

That concludes today's topic. If you want more information on how to write, please make sure to let me know down in the comment section!