Novel Writing: Basic Editing Tips

Now that most of us write on computers, we have some easily accessible tools to edit language. As I explained in my first Hub on editing, your first task is to check your spelling and grammar. But they are far from the only things you can check using your word-processing program.

One of the first things to do is search for "ly" as part of a word. Words ending in "-ly" are usually (but not always) adverbs.

Go to some writers' circles and you'd think all adverbs were the work of Satan, but don't fall for it! You'll create a lot of needless work for yourself, and your writing will be the poorer for it. There are times when adverbs add value and perfectly correct. The real reason they get a bad press is that they can be a sign of lazy writing.

The thing is, a good descriptive verb will almost always be more powerful than an ordinary verb with an adverb.

Say you want to describe your heroine making a desperate dash to save her child. Saying "she sprinted headlong towards the park" paints a much stronger picture than "she ran quickly towards the park", doesn't it? You could also have used "raced" or even "hurtled".

It takes time to think of these more expressive verbs, and we often opt for the verb + adverb option because it's less work. Going back over the manuscript at the end and checking every "-ly" word may sound tedious, but it gives you a chance to check you haven't been lazy! You may be surprised how often you have used them.

Another good word to search on is "was" and "were". Once again, there are lots of situations where "was" is appropriate. However it is a boring little verb which you can often replace with something more interesting. More importantly, this search will also pick up any places where you have used Passive Voice.

If you don't know what Passive Voice is, Google it and you'll find lots of definitions - but basically, Active Voice is where your character is doing something, whereas Passive Voice is where something is being done to them.

Active Voice always sounds more positive and lively whereas Passive Voice sounds - well - passive. For instance, it sounds much better to say, "The concierge opened the door as Katie approached" instead of "The door was opened as Katie approached".

Another little thing that a "was" search will pick up is "slow verbs". I'm sure you can hear that "I was walking" sounds pedestrian compared to the brisker "I walked". You want to keep the action moving along, so the second option is usually better. However, sometimes the "slow" verb is essential, to describe something that was going on at the time e.g. "I was walking the dog when I bumped into my friend Sandy", so don't be too quick to consign your slow verbs to the dustbin!

To be sure you've captured all your slow verbs, you can also do a search for "ing".

There's another mistake you can catch by searching for "ing" - incorrect use of the construction "doing one thing, he did another".

For instance, you'll often see sentences like, "Putting down his coffee cup, he opened the door" or "Pulling on her skirt, she set off for work". Both are wrong. This construction describes two things happening at exactly the same time. The trouble is, many writers use it to describe two things happening one after the other, as in the examples above.

Now, readers may not be able to tell you what's wrong with those sentences, but they will have a moment's confusion. It's clearly impossible (or unwise) for someone to pull on her skirt while she's on her way to work, so it will take only a fraction of a second for them to adjust - but you've made them uncomfortable. Do that too often and they'll stop reading, even if they can't tell you why.

Quite often, writers resort to this construction because they're trying to avoid starting sentences with "He" or "She" - which is unnecessary. Contrary to what some people may have told you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with starting a sentence with "He" or "She". What you should avoid is several sentences in a row, all starting the same way. So if you have a sentence starting with "She", the next sentence should start with something else. Then the following sentence can start with "She" again.

Finally, its worth noting that some "-ings" have nothing to do with either of the above, or I'd be in trouble twice in just this one sentence!

We all have our favorite words and expressions. We like them so much we don't notice them, but frequent repetition of a word or words can be annoying for your reader.

If you know what your favorites are, use the Search function to find them, then go through and try to find alternative words for at least some of them.

If your word-processing package has a Word Frequency Checker, use it. It will give you a league table of how many times words appear in the manuscript, starting with the most used. This may highlight words you didn't even know you were over-using.

Some other words to search for:

• "Then" a surprisingly unnecessary word. Wherever you find it, try deleting it and see what happens. Most of the time, you don't even need to replace it with anything!
• "That" - similar to "then" above. Often superfluous, you are better off without it.
• "Suddenly" - one of those "-ly" words and one of the most over-used words in novel writing!
• "And" - there's nothing wrong with "and" where its needed, but often its used to connect two sentences that don't need to be connected. Try taking out the "and" and see whether the two statements stand on their own. If the only reason you joined the two sentences together was to avoid starting with "He" or "She" twice in a row - dont be so lazy, rewrite one of the sentences!

There is one final word to search for - "said". Not because its bad in itself: in fact it's the one speech tag you should use! (for those who don't know, a speech tag is, "he said", "she said", "he shouted" etc.).

Once upon a time, we were told to think up clever alternatives to "said" (he replied, he retorted, he interjected etc). Nowadays, that's taboo!

"Said" is now regarded as the best word to use because its an "invisible word" - readers gloss over it without even noticing it. You should only use an alternative word if you want the reader to know how something was said (e.g. he whispered, he shouted, he muttered). However, even though "said" is invisible, it's still better if you can avoid using a tag altogether - and that's the reason for the search. See if you can do without a tag by using context to make it clear who's speaking.

For instance if you're writing a paragraph from your hero's point of view, you don't need a "he said" because the reader knows who's speaking. If there are only two people in the scene and the other person speaks, you don't need a "he said" for that one either, e.g.:

Nathan handed Katie the documents, reflecting that she was looking as cute as ever. If only he could trust her. And where was her partner in crime? It was well past their appointment time. He crossed to the window and leaned out.

"Where the devil is he?"

"How should I know?"

"He's your business partner, isn't he?"

As you can see, it's obvious who's talking.

If it's a longer conversation, it's a good idea to drop in the odd "he said" or "she said" occasionally. Or even better, use a beat (a short description to show what the person is doing while theyre talking), e.g.

"Where the devil is he?"

Katie shrugged. "How should I know?"

"He's your business partner, isn't he?"

These edits will improve the flow of your dialogue and add movement to the scene.

Now you've done all that, you can congratulate yourself - but you're not done yet. The work you've done so far is just basic housekeeping. You've done a great job of clearing out the basic mistakes and flaws, but the real editing is yet to come.

There is absolutely no substitute for getting impartial help to edit your manuscript. Whether it's a professional editor or a writers' circle, you need other people's opinions, and you need to be willing to accept their criticism. That's probably the hardest part of the whole novel writing process!

The good news is that now your manuscript is as clean as it can be, that part of the process will go faster, because your editors or critics won't be distracted by the small stuff.

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Text copyright Marisa Wright. Photo by Mike Licht