A Few Thoughts on Self-Editing

Good day (or night) to everyone! This is going to be an interesting post—filled with real experiences, questions, tips, and steps, as well as . . . mayyyybeeee some special, never-before–seen snippets from my recently finished novel!

Let’s start out with this—yes, I did finish my novel! This project has been in the works since August of 2023, and I’ve been drafting it for the last three months. While I’m not going to talk in depth about that process (it was a process), I’d like to jump to where I am now and talk about my steps going forward.

The other day at my work (the day I finished drafting my project, actually), I told my coworker that I was hopefully going to finish my book after I got home. Her face lit up with a smile, and she asked me, “So, are you going to send it to a publisher, then?”

Well . . . no, not quite. You see, when going into the publishing industry, there are a lot more steps in there that nonwriters don’t know much about. Actually, I didn’t know much about them at first either. When I started writing, I knew I wouldn’t be sending off my first draft to a publisher yet, but . . . if not, when?

In the Author Conservatory, there is a lot of talk and prep for this. I can’t share all the details since it’s a paid program, but I’d like to share a few details in my own journey.

I have finished the first draft of this novel. In fact, it’s barely a novel at all, since it’s just 500 words above 50k. That’s okay though—I’ll expand it in later edits! But while we’re thinking about that, how do you go about editing?

Here we get to the meat of the next steps. There is a whole process in the Author Conservatory for editing, but it all starts with what are called self-edits. You don’t want to send a raw first draft to a professional editor, because they’ll have to wade through a bunch of things that you could have fixed yourself. You don’t want to waste their time and your money on them doing those small edits.

A few helpful steps:

So going into self-edits (today was my first day of that!), here are a few of the things I’m looking out for:

1. Things that I need to add. Details, characters, interactions, foreshadowing—all of it. I’m not actually adding it as I go, though. I’m reading through the entire novel first and leaving comments like crazy! I got through the first half this morning, in just two hours. 
2. Things I need to cut. Unnecessary scenes, scenes that can be combined, info-dumping—all that lovely stuff. There isn’t actually as much as that in my draft because I’m what’s called an underwriter—I have a really hard time adding all the detail I actually need, so it’s even harder to add stuff that I don’t need. XD
3. Character arc and plot pieces that need to be moved around or fixed.

That last one is the main issue in my project. My arcs are really messy, so they’re causing a ton of issues and making the actual plot not work right. I knew about halfway through my story that this would be the case, so I’ve been dreading it for the last month or so as I finished drafting.

(But you know what? Knowing that I needed to fix them didn’t stop me from finishing the draft in the first place. I didn’t stop and go back to fix things. I needed to get everything written first before I could fix it.)

A tip:

One thing I’ve learned from the self-editing process (both preparing for and actually doing it) is that I shouldn’t worry about it unless I’m working on it. This is HUGE for me. I think about my story every waking moment—or at least, it feels like I do. So just letting go of the story while I’m not actually at my computer is a big thing! It makes me feel so much less stressed and helps me focus on other things as well.

It helps me sleep better too. So many nights I’d lie awake scheming on how I was going to pull off the next scene or what plot things needed to be moved around . . . and then a friend reminded me that I needed to actually rest from the project sometimes! 

I’ve been trying to let God handle it, and so far it’s been working really well. When He’s holding it, when I sit down at my computer I don’t suddenly forget all the things I need to do. I can remember them in time, and it’s a ton easier to sit down and work on it in a given amount of time rather than all day long.

So to wrap up: publishing doesn’t come right after the first draft. There are many more steps after this, and self-editing is just one of them! There are usually a lot of things that need to be fixed, but that’s okay—if you’re in this situation right now, I know you can do it. Hopefully my small list above gives you an idea of things you need to look out for, and you can dive into self-edits with a will!

And even if you aren’t sitting on a finished first draft and wondering what to do with it, hopefully this post will give you some idea of the process needed for later too. 😀If you aren’t a writer at all—well, thanks for reading anyway!

Without further ado, I give you two random snippets from my story that I found today while reading through it. Enjoy!

.

Here’s the first one . . .

.

He smiled, pulling off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Victrola, you can count on it. I wouldn’t leave for anything.”

I laughed, pointing to his glasses. “I thought you can’t see without those on?”

“Oh, I can see up close things. Sort of.” He put them back on, adjusting them. Then he looked at me again. “Jiminy Cricket, she was crying this whole time!?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “That was not nice!” But he was laughing too, so I knew it was meant to be a joke. “It wasn’t very funny, either.”

“Ah, but you’re laughing, aren’t you?”

.

And the next one!

.

Loryn explained all about codenames and why we needed them, even going so far as to suggest that mine be “Miss Music” (because my name was Victrola) and his be “Glasses” (for obvious reasons). But I wasn’t so sure.

“Why do we need to be undercover at all? Everyone in town knows who we are anyway. And I don’t think anyone would try to hurt us. Do you? I don’t think whatever this is is anything that big. Ma investigated things like property management and taking care of the animals and environment. Not Evil Overlords and Kidnapping Gangs or what-have-you.”

.

That’s all for today! Thank you so very much for reading my rambling thoughts, and have a blessed rest of your day.

~Janet