Interestingly, I’m just working on a piece about that very thing right now. In my opinion (and in my experience), taking a B to an A rarely happens in one edit. It’s a long road, but well worth the effort.

Well that’s because it’s maddening, lolol. I’m working through my dev editor’s letter now, brainstorming possible solutions. I did a comparison of my first draft and what I turned in to her. 3,726 changes!!!! And 68 hours of tracked time, probably 75-80 hours total. It IS overwhelming when you think about it, but so SO important. Especially if you’re paying out of pocket for edits. You want them to take your B to an A, not you D to a C+.

LOL I do that too, but that’s an eyesight issue rather than an editing one. 🙂

Oops! I don’t know why I said “I like to edit at 40-50%.” I meant I enlarge the size of the doc to 140 or 150 percent so it’s easier to spot errors when the font is enlarged.

Ah, the Read Aloud feature is a great idea. I expect we do fill in things that aren’t there. Never thought of that. Thanks for the tip!

I like your suggestion to read the whole novel out loud, but I think most writers, when doing that, will unconsciously add little words that are in their brain but not actually on the page, or miss extra little words that need to be deleted. I like to edit at 40-50%, then my final pass is to use Word’s “Read Aloud” feature, which reads only and exactly what is on the page, not what the writer thinks is there.

Awesome article! I’ll be sharing it.

Yes! And yet, it’s the most crucial part of the writing process. It took me a long time to figure that out, though. Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say it took me a long time to accept it. Haha.

My pleasure. Revision can be overwhelming. I know that’s how I feel when I first receive a feedback letter from an editor. But once you let it settle and take it piece by piece, it turns out to be not as scary as you first thought. And it ALWAYS makes the work better.

You’re most welcome. When I first started writing, I didn’t realize how important it was either. I figured you move a couple of paragraphs around and then you’re good to go. Needless to say, I did not sell the first two novels I wrote. Once I fully embraced the process of developmental editing, I had to work so hard at it I thought there was something wrong with me! It was a comfort to discover this IS the process—for everyone.

Thank you so much. I’ve been working with Save the Cat Writes a Novel and just love it. It’s so helpful. Glad you enjoyed the blog post.