3 Self-Editing Tips to Catch the “Little” Things
I’m opening up sales for my all-new product, “The Complete Self-Publishing Toolkit: Easily Format & Publish Your Book for Print & Kindle” so I wanted to bring you a few editing tips.
When I was in the middle of editing one of my books, “Pitch Your Tent: A family’s guide to tent camping” I paid special attention to the “little” things that can mean the difference between a professional manuscript and looking like an amateur.
See if you can spot the problems:
- Most public campgrounds in have paths between sites to the bathrooms, trash, etc.
- When the sun begins to sweat you’ll get a chill.
- Fist Aid Kit
- I recommend packing in a duffle big.
- And never underestimate the importance of a pair of slip of shoes.
None of the sentences (or chapter headings) above have any grammatical error that will be caught by a spelling or grammar checker. It’s up to a real editor who carefully reads each sentence to find them.
So how do you spot things like this in your own writing?
1. Read the manuscript backwards. I start with the last sentence (reading it from start to finish). And then the second to last sentence; the third to last sentence, etc. By reading the manuscript this way, I’m able to focus on one sentence at a time and my brain isn’t “assuming” it knows what will come next.
2. I print out the entire manuscript, grab my tea and red pen and go to town. Looking at the project in a different format really causes errors to jump out at me.