By ALCG Books
July 17, 2023
Perhaps your earliest experience with editing was in elementary or middle school when you revised a draft of your book report. Later on, possibly in high school or college, you received detailed feedback from your teacher or took part in a peer-editing workshop that involved editing a classmate's work and receiving feedback on your own. You then revised your work with the new suggestions in mind.
While your early experiences with editing (also known as revising) may have occurred in a different context, the process of editing a creative project you have produced--without prompting from a teacher--is fundamentally the same. On a big-picture level, you want to ensure that your themes are clearly conveyed, that your story structure supports the kind of story you want to tell, that your characters are interesting and dynamic, and that your plot keeps readers emotionally invested. You also want to check your writing style, which includes language mechanics (grammar, clarity, word choice, etc.), and if you're writing a literary novel, check your use of metaphor, symbolism, allegory and other tools to enhance the aesthetic quality of your work.
Bearing this in mind, we recommend taking the following steps before submitting your work to agents and publishers for consideration.
First, take a break. Writing even the shortest stories requires a level of subjective focus that dulls the technical judgment required for editing your work. After all, only writers led by a creative vision that stays clear and subjectively focused enough to lead them to the final page end up finishing their stories.
Close the file and save it on your cloud or desktop -- however you like to keep it, or print it out and stick it in a desk drawer. Just don't look at it for a couple of days. While on hiatus, read other stories and write a marketing pitch or query letter for your work. Those 2 - 3 days of distance from your work will give you the bit of levity you need to see it from a slightly newer perspective and identify areas that need improvement. Writer Zadie Smith put it aptly in her 2008 essay, That Crafty Feeling: "The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer." Give your mind the time it needs to transition from thinking as a writer to thinking more technically as a reader of your work.
Start by assessing the big picture. After putting your story aside for a few days, read as much of it as you can in one sitting and take notes as an editor would. Does the story have a clear structure with a strong beginning, middle, and end? Are the characters interesting, and do their goals and growth feel authentic? Is the conflict engaging, and does each scene serve a clear purpose? Take note of any gaps or redundancies in the plot or pacing.
Then shift to the details. Once the structure feels solid, evaluate your work for clarity and impact. Look for moments where dialogue can be sharpened, descriptions made more vivid, or unnecessary words trimmed.
Share your work with a trusted friend, a writing group, or a professional editor. After making these changes, share your work to gain fresh perspectives and uncover blind spots you may have missed. Focus on incorporating feedback related to structural elements first—like plot, character development, and pacing—before addressing finer details such as grammar or punctuation. When you edit the big-picture issues first, you're in a better position to strengthen the foundation for your story. That way, you can avoid wasting effort on revising sections that might later be edited or deleted.
We wish you well in your editing process, and of course, if you find this information useful, forward it to a friend, share it on social media, and follow us on any of our social media channels.
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