The Self-Editing Checklist for Novelists
A checklist for reading your own finished draft the way an editor would: from the largest problem to the smallest, one layer at a time. Every item is a question. None of them has a right answer, and none of them gives you a number. They are the things Edith asks of a manuscript at each of her six stages, put in your hands first, so that whatever you can fix yourself is fixed before anyone else reads it. If you are still working out which kind of edit your book needs, start with what kind of editing does your book need, and if the hard part is getting a straight answer from readers, see how to get honest feedback on your novel.
In short
Self-edit in the order editing happens: structure, then character, then pacing, then the sentences, then correctness, then a final proofread. Work through one layer at a time on the whole book before moving to the next, because a change at a higher layer throws away work at a lower one. Answer honestly, note what you find, and fix it in your own words. When you have taken it as far as you can, that is the moment for an outside read.
Structure: is the book built in the right order?
Read the whole draft once, start to finish, before you change a word. Then ask:
Character: do they want things, and do they stay themselves?
Pacing: where does the book breathe, and where does it stall?
Line: do the sentences do their jobs?
Only once the layers above are settled. Then, chapter by chapter:
Copy: does the book agree with itself?
Proof: the last clean read
Last, once nothing else will change. The full version is the proofreading checklist.
Want it as a printable page?
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When the checklist is done
You will have fixed the problems you can see. What is left are the ones you cannot, because you know what you meant to put on the page and you read it into the gaps. That is the moment an outside read earns its keep, and the cheapest honest one is Edith's Editorial Review: she reads the whole manuscript, up to 150,000 words, and writes you an editorial letter on what is working, what is holding the book back, and where to start, for $15. It is yours to keep, and credited toward the complete edit if you continue.
If you want the reasoning behind each layer of this list, the developmental editing, structural editing, line editing, and copyediting pages explain what each stage looks for and why it comes where it does. And if you are still not sure whether the draft is ready for any of this, how to tell if your novel is ready for an editor has the signs.
Frequently asked questions
When you have taken it as far as you can
Edith reads the whole manuscript and writes you an editorial letter on it: what is working, what is holding the story back, and what to fix first.
On a phone? Edith works on your computer. We’ll email you a link.
Email me the link to start
Edith reads your first 10,000 words and writes you an editorial letter, no credit card needed. The whole book, with every point open to discuss, is $15. Never used to train anything, and yours to delete.