How to Revise Your Manuscript.
- Read through your manuscript. If you can, print it out. Then mark up any weaknesses.
- Weaknesses include flabby writing, misspellings, grammatical errors
- Check the narrative. The reader should be hooked by your writing from the start. If your writing is deviating too much, chop out the boring bits and get back to the golden seam of the narrative. It’s a good idea when chopping to paste the ‘dull bits’ into an offcuts document so you can re-use them later if necessary.
- Keep going over the manuscript until it sings. If a sentence is overlong or ungainly, re-cast it until it scans. You may have two or three good tight sentences lounging around in a flabby one.
- Remember, your manuscript doesn’t have to be perfect before you send it to us. But it should be as good as you can reasonably make it. Professional writers revise their work many times. But then they finish it and send it to a publisher.