Writing is Re-Writing

I think I did about two dozen edits of my manuscript. And then I had it reviewed by a developmental editor and we shook the whole thing up! Changing the starting point and ending point of my story made it so powerful! And once we got the structure down, it was time for – you guessed it EDITING and re-writing!

The last task was something called a side-by-side rewrite. I nearly had a panic attack when it was described to me.

“Open a new document on your computer. Leaving the manuscript open in another window, go to the new window and start at the beginning, re-writing your entire book.”

“Can’t I copy and paste?”

“Nope. Re-write it.”

I was stunned with the results. The act of re-writing brought forth descriptions and thoughts I didn’t know I had. And it made my book so much better and stronger.

The final step was ‘polishing’. Once we were sure we had the story we wanted to tell my husband and I set about taking turns reading the manuscript out loud.

Every. Single. Page.

We found phrases that sounded wrong, words repeated in several sentences in the same chapter, and some things that sounded just plain ridiculous!

FINALLY. We were ready for beta readers – who, you guessed it, gave us more edits and insights.

People who know you and your story will give you glowing feedback. But it’s the beta readers, who know nothing about you or the story, that will find the gaps.

Don’t sell yourself short and try to skip a step.

Writing a book might take you months. Rewriting and editing it should take you the same amount of time at least. Polishing should take several weeks.

Don’t try to shorten your time commitment by rushing a story to print long before it’s ready. Take the time and give the world a story they’ll want to read.