Popular media often depicts writers in a state of ecstatic inspiration, but in reality, this kind of writing usually produces something closer to word porridge, which must be refined through extensive rewrites and revision.
Even great writers wrestle with the limitations of language. Ernest Hemingway rewrote the ending of A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times before he was satisfied.
As the poet Robert Graves observed: “There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.”
Once you’ve finished the sandbox stage of your first draft, you can begin shaping the manuscript into a clear and compelling storyline. In this article, I’ll share some tips and an editing checklist, plus a Story Weapon to remind you of what elevates your editing to the realm of art.
Transforming a rough draft into a polished manuscript requires a shift from creative inspiration to strategic refinement, which is where an editing checklist becomes an essential tool. By following a structured approach to how to edit a book, you can strip away the “word porridge” to uncover the clear, compelling, and musical human truths at the core of your story.
✅ Take a break, but only if you need to
Some writers say that the moment you finish your rough draft, you should hide it away for a month, and return with fresh eyes to begin your edits. And for many writers, this may be exactly what your brain needs after the long haul of getting down the first draft.
But this is subjective, and a personal decision. It also may vary from project to project for you. If you are eager to keep working and want to revisit the story while your energy is still high off the excitement of writing “The End,” then by all means you should do so.
Whether you step back from the story right away or want to keep on writing through your second draft, this can be a great time to take a macro-approach to the story.
✅ Do a new outline
Before getting too granular with your rewrite, it is helpful to ask yourself two questions.
- “Have I said everything I set out to say?
This involves doing an inventory. Make a cup of tea, get comfortable, and write down anything that might have been left unsaid in your first draft. And now, armed with this material, ask yourself . . .
- “Have I said it in the most effective way?”
This exercise will lead you to do a new outline of your story. The key is to do the outline as if you did not write your first draft. Give yourself the freedom to imagine the most dynamic and compelling way to tell your story.
Now that you have more clarity on what the story is about and how it wants to be told, you can start to get into the weeds.
✅ Pare it down
In the rewrite process, the delete key is your greatest ally. Highlighting obtrusive words or passages and hitting delete can be both painful and liberating. This is sometimes referred to as “killing your darlings.”
Oftentimes, the writing that helps you understand the scene — describing every gesture, or minute details of a room — is not the same writing that best serves your reader.
The trick is knowing which portions are truly unnecessary. If you pare down a work to its bare essentials, you may lose some crucial color by the end.
Where to start
- Make small changes at first. You don’t have to delete every word that doesn’t progress the plot, some of which may play a less obvious, but still crucial role. If they help support the flow of the sentence, or the mood of the scene, they’ve earned a place.
- Experiment. Try removing a word, a line, or an entire paragraph, and see if the story still works. You might even end up removing an entire page or multiple pages if they are not truly in service to your story.
- Always keep a saved version of your rough draft manuscript. This way you can compare changes, and restore what you need if you find that delete key got too trigger happy.
✅ Read it aloud
Reading your work aloud is one of the most effective editing techniques, especially for passages that feel awkward or unfinished.
In many ways, writing is an aural medium. Language has a musical quality. You can find it in the voice of your favorite authors and the rhythm, flow, and cadence of their words. Shakespeare’s sonnets endure, in large part, because they sing.
Music and language are part of the same processing area of the brain. When editing, remember to trust your ear.
At the same time, sound isn’t the only consideration. Written prose is also a visual medium — both in the images it evokes in the reader’s mind, and the physical layout of the text on the page.
✅ Line edits and formatting
Take a quick scan of the page, and notice any formatting issues that stand out.
While there are no rules, you may not want large blocks of text that make your reader’s eyes glaze over. Unless it is intentional, long paragraphs can sometimes slow the momentum of your story, simply because they take longer to read.
The process of rewriting involves finding your voice. Remember, you are making art. There are no rules. The goal is to become conscious of what you did subconsciously in your rewrite. You may not want your paragraphs to be too short and choppy. If they’re composed exclusively of one or two sentences, it may make the work feel weightless. And yet, there are always exceptions that prove the rule.
The experimental writer, David Markson, wrote a novel called Wittgenstein’s Mistress in a series of short tight paragraphs that brilliantly captured the first-person voice of his narrator.
Writing often flourishes when the sentences and paragraphs are more diverse. Consider changing the length up often enough to keep the reader engaged.
✅ Look for common pitfalls
Many writing missteps fall into a few common categories. If you learn to spot and transform them into stronger phrasings whenever they appear, you can boost your writing by a few easy points in the editing process.
Filter words
Don’t use too many cognitive processing words to describe a scene, such as “saw,” “heard,” or “felt.”
- Instead of I felt the ground rumble beneath my feet, try: The ground rumbled beneath my feet.
Edits like this bring the reader more directly into the story, and remove layers between them and the action. You can read more on filtering here.
Passive voice
This shifts the focus from the person performing an action, to the subject being affected.
- Instead of The window was shattered by the explosion, try: The explosion shattered the window.
Repeated phrases
Editing is where you discover your habits as a writer, and any crutches you may tend to use.
If you notice multiple characters “rummaging through” something, “shaking their heads,” or “locking eyes across a room,” it can be helpful not only to revise these phrases, but to recognize the pattern for your future projects. Then you can avoid the phrases when they come up again.
✅ Zoom out
The rewrite process involves expanding and contracting simultaneously. While you are editing, you are also, at times, generating new material. It is important to keep your outline handy so that you can consider big-picture questions about the work as a whole:
- Is a certain character really necessary, or could they be combined with another?
- Did the protagonist resolve their dilemma in a satisfactory way that will resonate with your readers?
- Did the story meet your original vision, or did it drift? Has it morphed into something new?
After living inside the story for months, an overview of your key story beats can reveal things — good or bad — which you might have missed while working in the weeds.
Your story weapon: Good vs great editing
Great editing is more than deleting the wrong words, and making sure the pages don’t look crowded.
At its best, editing is about teasing out the human truth you were trying to convey. It’s about getting as close to the core idea as beautifully and smoothly as possible.
One perfect example is the “tears in rain” monologue from Blade Runner.
Compare the original:
I’ve known adventures, seen places you people will never see, I’ve been Offworld and back . . . frontiers! I’ve stood on the back deck of a blinker bound for the Plutition Camps with sweat in my eyes watching stars fight on the shoulder of Orion . . . I’ve felt wind in my hair, riding test boats off the black galaxies and seen an attack fleet burn like a match and disappear. I’ve seen it, felt it.
To the final, iconic version:
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time . . . like tears in rain.
Notice how the revision preserves the original meaning, but heightens the euphony –– the musicality of its language –– while also conveying the speech’s intention with greater economy and emotion.
It’s no easy task to create beauty from an idea, to tease out the silver thread which makes a story ring true. In my experience, greatness is rarely discovered. It is uncovered, one careful pass at a time.
Keep your editing checklist close, but don’t let it become the point. The point is your story.
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