From first draft to published deal: What changed when I learned to self-edit

Though I started and stopped many times, it wasn’t until the year I turned forty that I actually completed a whole novel. After consulting the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, I sent it out to six agents. One of them got back to me almost immediately and asked to see a full copy of my manuscript. For the next three weeks, I was floating on air. I thought I’d made it.

When the reply came, it was a pass. Although the agent liked the premise, and my writing, the novel itself needed too much work for her to offer to represent me. I came back down to earth with a big bump. Then I read her email again. Alongside the ‘no’, she’d given me some detailed advice about what the novel needed and she’d been really encouraging to try again.

That’s when I realised that the real work comes in the editing.

Over the next eighteen months, I took the Self-Edit Your Novel course with Jericho Writes, read books and blogs on novel writing, pulled the whole story apart and put it back together again with all I’d learned. This time, when I sent it out, I got an email from Bookouture within two days and – a week later – signed my first three book deal.  From that process, and through working on another eighteen novels with Bookouture, these are five things I’ve learned about self-editing.  

Begin with a Bang

The first chapter is so important for hooking your reader and giving them a taste of what they can expect from your story and writing style. Before sending off a manuscript, ensure that your first chapter is your best foot forward. Have you started in the right place in the story? Is there enough action? Are you hooking your reader with a question they will want answered? Is there a promise of conflict? An element of mystery? A protagonist they will enjoy spending three hundred pages with? Is it clear what your character wants to achieve?

Up the stakes

Once your reader is clear what your protagonist wants, they will need to know what the consequences are if they succeed or fail in achieving it. The bigger those consequences, the bigger the impact on the reader. When you are editing, ask yourself how you can increase the danger for your protagonist. Where is the jeopardy? When will the reader be shouting at them to do, or not do, something? Raising the stakes will elevate a good story into a great one. Consider the threats to your character’s survival, relationships, security and sense of self.

Hit the beats

Writing two books a year, I find it hugely helpful to have a detailed plan for my story before I begin. If you’re more of an organic writer and prefer to build the story as you go, it will be during the editing process that you wrestle your manuscript into shape to ensure that your story is hitting the beats in the right order at the right time. This is vital to avoid having ‘saggy’ sections in your novel which might cause readers to stop reading. The two books which have taught me the most about story structure and the beats of story are John Yorke’s ‘Into the Woods’ and Jessica Brody’s ‘Save the Cat Writes a Novel’ and I still refer back to them both for every book.

Cut, cut, cut

Stephen King wrote that you need to ‘kill your darlings’ if they don’t serve the story. When you know you’ve spent hours (Days? Weeks? Months?) of time on a scene and you’re really proud of the prose, it can be very hard to cut it. But readers want a plot that keeps moving, characters who keep evolving and everything has to serve the theme of your story. Take each chapter in turn and ensure that the reader learns something new in that chapter or that it moves the story on in some way. If not, it needs to go.

Polish your Prose

Look for unnecessary filter phrases – she thought that, he knew that, they believed that – which can create distance between your character and your reader. Be vigilant for any ‘tics’ that your characters have developed – nodding heads, rolling eyes, lumps in throats all lose their impact if they’re repeated – and any that you have as a writer. I know that I have a tendency to overuse the words ‘so’ and ‘really’ in my dialogue. So, I really make sure I check for that. (That one was on purpose.) All of these can creep into a first draft without you realising it.

Feeling inspired? Join our best-selling Self-Edit Your Novel course with Debi Alper on the 16 June. Last few spots available!