CREATIVE WRITING
Editing your novel
WRITE FOR SUCCESS!
In the first of an essential series, Sara Grant, author of a new guide to editing, sets out the vital questions you need to address in the process of transforming your first draft into a publishable manuscript
I hated editing my work. For me, the joy of writing was discovering my story and committing it to the page. When I finished the first draft, I’d know it needed work. But I had no idea how to improve it. I’d be stuck in an endless loop of editing – reading my novel from start to finish again and again and hoping that what wasn’t working would magically reveal itself.
I’ve spent the last 20 years developing a series of practical exercises and interrogations to transform my works-in-progress into manuscripts that can hook agents, editors and ultimately readers. I’ve collected everything I’ve learned through this long and intense process of trial and error in The Ultimate Guide to Editing Your Novel: A revolutionary approach to transform your writing – published in June by Bloomsbury.
The book asks you more than 20 big questions about you and your novel and includes approximately 45 exercises. My step-bystep approach includes how to:
• test your idea
• analyse and improve every character
• fine tune your plots and subplots
• subtly weave your theme throughout your story, and
• craft an appropriate and unique voice.
My process helps you review your novel chapter by chapter, scene by scene, sentence by sentence and ultimately word by word. In this series for Writing Magazine, I will share a selection of my favourite questions and exercises from the book.