Worth the Climb: Self-Editing Secrets That Actually Work

Big-Picture Editing: These edits will focus on the building blocks of your novel—your plot, story structure, characters, and conflict. This is when you’ll look at whether your story is delivering on its promises and working as a whole, along with making sure there aren’t any gaping holes or story-breaking problems to address. You’ll want to get the

the rewrite that follows is technically draft five. This rewrite is solely character.

this book will focus on hunting down the flaws in your story and developing a structured game plan to fix them. The challenge will then periodically pause for you to put this plan into action, before continuing on to the next day.

At this stage in the editing process, you’ll want to find and work with a developmental editor. We’ll be shifting focus to your prose soon, but for now, this round of feedback is about ensuring your story and storytelling are as strong as they can be—and hiring a developmental editor is the fastest way to do that.

Grammatical mistakes Tense skipping Passive voice Formatting issues Sentence structure Rhythm Scene breaks Other Typos