It doesn’t matter whether you are writing a novel or a short story; it can be extremely frustrating to receive negative feedback from your beta reader.
Suppose you want to become a professional writer and make your hobby of creative writing your ultimate career. In that case, you need to understand that you should know how to self-edit your document before submission.
Simply put – as an aspiring writer, you need to work on your editing and proofreading skills, especially if you opt for the traditional publication route. Your potential literary agent might reject you based on grammatical and other errors.
Editing Your Manuscript is Essential
As an aspiring writer, you will need to understand that editing and proofreading your manuscript are essential parts of the entire writing process.
Although you can hire a professional editor and proofreader – but – at the end of the day, it will come down to you as you will have to sit down to do the work and revise and adjust the manuscript according to professional advice.
It is essential to mention that editing and proofreading aren’t the same. During the editing process, you re-read your draft and check for plot holes, organization of the content, and layout. When it comes to proofreading your document, you recheck your manuscript for the last time before submission.
At this stage, you are focusing on language use, grammar, and writing errors.
Understanding the Editing Process
Now that we have established the importance of editing and proofreading your manuscript, we can talk about the editing process. Editing is a skill that all writers should have. If you don’t know how to start – we are here to help you.
You might want to visit PDFescape to make editing easier when you have written your manuscript in PDF. For editing, you will want to ensure a clear transition between the paragraphs and clarity in sentence structure.
With that said, in the editing process, you will want to focus on the following three things:
- Organization & Layout
- Clarity of Main Idea
- Sentence Structure & Correct Use of Technical Terms
Understanding the Proofreading Process
After you have thoroughly edited your manuscript, you will want to focus on the proofreading process. Now, usually proofreading is the final stage before submission or publication. During the editing process, your eyes go through the manuscript a couple of times – if you are writing a novel – then more than ten times at least.
Now, if you think of it, then your eyes are probably used to the written content, which is why you will want to get a break and not look at your manuscript for at least some time – let us say, two weeks. After taking a break, you will want to integrate a systematic approach and start proofreading.
The editing and proofreading process will help you improve at writing and effectively use language. The trick is to read the manuscript out loud to increase your focus. And take your time while you are going from one chapter/ section to the next to avoid getting overwhelmed with the proofreading task.
