After Camp NaNoWriMo: How to Create Your Self-Editing Roadmap

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. ProWritingAid, a 2021 NaNo sponsor, helps you turn your rough first draft into a clean, clear, publish-ready manuscript. Today, Hayley Milliman, Head of Education at ProWritinAid, shares some tips on how to successfully edit your own manuscript:

So you’ve finished Camp NaNoWriMo. Congratulations! Finishing a challenge like Camp NaNoWriMo is no small feat and you should be proud of yourself.

After the excitement of finishing the challenge wears off, you might be wondering, “What comes next?”

If you have a complete (or nearly complete) manuscript on your hands, the next step in your writing journey is editing. But unlike the writing process which has clear start and end points, the editing stage feels murky and confusing for many writers.

Where should you begin? How will you know when you’re finished? Do you need to hire a professional editor or can you edit effectively by yourself? If you need to hire an editor, where do you find a good one?

In this post, we’ll break down the key editing stages all writers should focus on, as well as help you create a roadmap for completing these edits yourself.

The Key Stages of Editing

Writing a book is like finishing a race: there’s a clear start and end.

Editing is less straightforward. While there might be a clear moment when you start editing, there often isn’t a specific time when you know you’re done.

So instead of thinking about editing as going from Point A to Point B, it can be helpful to think of editing as following several connected circular paths. You might take multiple laps around each path or you might decide to go through each path in order. It’s up to you!

The “paths” in editing break down into the following stages:

Content editing: Also known as developmental editing, this stage happens after you have a completed manuscript. During content editing, you’ll look at your manuscript holistically to see overall trends related to plot, characterization, scene, and pacing.Copy editing: After you finish looking at the content of your manuscript, it’s time to look at the copy. During the copy editing stage, you take a microscope to your word choice and sentence structure to make sure you’re using your sentences as effectively as possible. Copy editing is sometimes known as line editing. Some people refer to line editing and copy editing as separate stages, but for the sake of simplicity, we’ve combined them into one path where you take a deep look at your use of language.Proofreading: The final editing stage isn’t really editing at all. Proofreading is when you examine your manuscript and try to ensure consistency for the next phases of your publishing process. You’ll look at formatting, grammar, and spelling to make sure everything appears polished and consistent.

Before publishing, you should take your manuscript through one complete cycle of all three stages of editing. You may choose, however, to complete two content edits or four copy edits or three rounds of proofreading. You might decide to complete all three phases of edits by yourself or you might bring in a professional for one or more stages. As we mentioned, there’s a lot of flexibility in the editing process.

Why You Are The Best Editor for Your Writing

One of the most common editing misconceptions is that you need to hire a professional editor to improve your manuscript. That couldn’t be further from the truth!

In most cases, you are the best editor for your writing—at least for the first few rounds of edits. Working with an editor can be expensive and time-consuming. To get the most value for your money, you should edit your manuscript yourself at least once before engaging with a professional editor. That way, you don’t waste the editor’s talents on fixing simple problems like spelling mistakes, passive voice and repeated words. Save your editor for the high value suggestions!

How to Approach Editing Your Own Manuscript

If you do choose to engage with a professional editor, it’s important to polish your manuscript before you send it off.

During your content edit, you should examine your plot, characters, settings, and scenes. You may ask yourself questions like:

Are my characters’ motivations clear?Do my scenes have a clear arc?Are my settings vivid and memorable?Does the plot of my novel progress at an engaging pace?Are there any places where I need to cut information or add more information to make the reader’s experience better?

When it’s time to complete your copy edit, you need to closely examine your word choice and sentence structure. Many writers find it helpful to use an editing tool while they complete their copy editing.

Software like ProWritingAid makes it easy for you to copy edit your own work. ProWritingAid has more than 20 writing reports that highlight everything from overused words to misplaced commas to confusingly constructed sentences. These reports make editing simple and fun, not to mention more effective.

Many writers struggle with assessing their own writing. That’s where software can come in. You might not realize that you’ve repeated the word “sapphire” fifteen times on one page, but ProWritingAid can highlight such stylistic errors with the touch of a button.

Let’s take a look at how one of ProWritingAid’s most effective reports, the Sticky Sentences report, can help improve your writing.

Every sentence is made up of two types of words: working words and glue words. Working words are the words that carry meaning in the sentence—nouns, verbs, adjectives. If you changed them, the meaning of the sentence would change.

Glue words, on the other hand, are words that make the sentence stick together—conjunctions, articles, etc. Glue words are necessary, too, but if your sentence has too many of them it can become sticky. And sticky sentences create a negative experience for your readers.

Compare the following two sentences:

Sticky: I went over to my cousin’s house after school and then we just kicked the soccer ball around for a really long time.

Glue index: 61.9%

Rewrite: After school, I walked to my cousin’s house and we played soccer for hours.

Glue index: 33.3%

The second sentence is much clearer. By removing the glue words, the sentence becomes less confusing and more engaging.

Fixing stylistic errors like sticky sentences can drastically improve your writing. But these errors can be hard to find on your own, so using a tool like ProWritingAid to supplement your writing process can help your self-edit progress more effectively.

What’s Next?

The editing stage might feel intimidating, but it’s full of possibilities. You’ve completed your manuscript—now it’s time to really make your book shine!

By approaching editing in clear stages, you can address all the necessary areas to make your work live up to its true potential. Start by examining the content of your manuscript, then zoom into your word choice and sentence structure (with the help of a trusty editing tool like ProWritingAid). Finally, polish your manuscript in the proofreading stage and it will be ready for whatever comes next: more edits, self-publishing, querying, or something else entirely.

The possibilities are endless!

As Head of Education at ProWritingAid, Hayley focuses on building engaging, helpful learning content for the millions of users who rely on ProWritingAid to make their writing clear and effective. Hayley has a robust writing portfolio and has written for dozens of publications on topics related to education, marketing strategy, history, entrepreneurship, and more. She has also published several books related to writing and history, one of which hit the Amazon bestseller list. When not working, Hayley loves hiking, skating of all kinds, and correcting people on Star Wars trivia.