If you missed my post yesterday about editing, you can read it here: The Importance of Good Editing.

First the meaning of First Draft: The version that has never been edited, just written without thought of little else but getting the words down on paper. Mind you, after all these years of writing, I try to write correctly the first time. In other words, I properly edit and spell on the fly as much as I can. Don’t confuse this with rereading passages to edit before proceeding to the next scene. I’ve met writers in the past who don’t perform basic editing while writing, simply write incomplete sentences with very little punctuation. This makes editing the manuscript that much more labour intense. If you know quotation marks go there, put them in as your write.

As promised in yesterday’s post here are the steps I take to edit my manuscript after I’ve completed the first draft.

1. Read the manuscript for consistency, to see how it feels as a whole story. I ask myself the following questions:

• Does it make sense to me and will it make sense to readers?
• Does the time frame work? In other words, is a character five years old in one paragraph and eight in another even though only a few weeks passed? Or is it snowing in one chapter and summer in the next with only a few hours passing?
• Is every character necessary, are they consistent and are their names correct? I don’t want the side-kick to be called Freda in chapter one and Betty in chapter six unless there is a darn good reason for it.
• Is there enough action/plot/character development for it to be a complete, interesting story?
• Do the chapter divisions make sense?

If I find issues with any of these items, I fix them before moving on to Step 2.

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