Polishing your manuscript (part 2)

Following up on some advice from an editor, I thought I’d share what my current workflow is for polishing my manuscript,  I’m chagrined to say I have not always been so disciplined in my editing and polishing.  I’m also certain that there are other, better ways to approach your own work, but this works for me.  Feel free to share comments on your thoughts to this approach,

In the beginning – I typically work my first draft and ideas in a pure text editor.  This allows me to get ideas down quickly without worrying about grammar, spelling, etc. and to focus on the idea.  It also allows me to use certain software development tools such as Git for version control and tracking changes within the draft as well as easily spotting changes in the manuscript with tools like diff or FileMerge.Into Word – Once I have the bones of the idea captured in pure text I’ll open the text file in MS Word (part of Office 365).  Yes, there are free tools out there for word processing and I feel I’ve used many of them over the years.  I keep coming back to Word for its ability to handle very large manuscripts and the powerful tools it includes for spelling, grammar, and polishing my tales.  A key feature for me is the ability to define and apply styles easily.  I like to start with the Amazon Kindle defaults for style.Spelling & Grammar – I like to use the auto-highlight features and the Editor panel in Word to perform an initial review.  I start at the beginning and work through in straight order.  I try to avoid significant editing during this pass and focus only on correcting mistakes.  I do make notes on possible changes such as continuity issues, levels of detail in descriptions, dialog, etc.

The next steps don’t have to happen in the order listed here.  Oftentimes I’ll run individual chapters through each of these steps before moving on to the next chapter.

Read-aloud – Word has strong text-to-speech features and I use them on the next review, having my computer read the story to me.  This helps identify clunky phrasing or unclear descriptions and actions.Dialog review – I re-read the dialog of the story, focusing on ensuring the reader can clearly identify the speaker and that I’m not using too much of the same “said-isms”.  Descriptions – I read all of the descriptions for characters and scenes and make sure they are providing enough clues to bring the reader along with the setting, characters, and action occurring.  I tend to take a minimalist approach on descriptions, favoring action and just enough detail to engage the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks.  I don’t know if this is more about my preferred style or just letting the reader contribute themselves to the scene, but It seems to work for me.  

Once a chapter-by-chapter review is complete, I’ll revisit the entire tale to check overall continuity and structure.

Continuity of Plot – This is where review the logic of my structure and story.  I try to ensure I’m staying true to the main hero’s journey for the story.  Am I moving the character through their journey?  Are the settings and actions mapping along that journey?  Is it clear to the reader what a scene or exchange conveys relative to the journey?  Continuity of Characters – Do the character arcs come through the story?  Does the main character especially grow in a way engaging for the reader?  Does the character development ring true with life experience to create affinity with the reader?  Will the reader care about the characters?  I don’t necessarily want readers to love all of my characters, but I do want them to understand what drives them and have a desire to see how they will resolve the conflicts I place them in.Final formatting – I will review the textual styles, cover art, copyright notices for the book as well as the cover art, table of contents refresh, inside notes, and back-cover synopsis to be ready for publishing the ebook format.  I also make certain to commit this version into my story version control (Git) locally with an online back-up. I will then create version for other formats as needed, such as print.  Note: this step is where I add the ISBN to the manuscript; one ISBN per version (ebook, print, etc.) 

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