So you’ve written your book and revised/edited it, probably more times that you can count. Then you sent it to a professional editor (if not, you should), and incorporated their changes. Finally, you’ve given it to one or more proofreaders to catch the annoying little typos that your spell checker will never find. Now what?
Put it aside for as long as you can, and then pull it out for a final read through, your mind fresh and hopefully detached from your work. Let’s look at why this final step is vital.
I recently came back to my debut novel after it had languished in my computer for several months. This was to be my final read through before publishing. I’d been writing my second book all that time, so I had a very fresh perspective to my original work.
First, don’t rush this final step. I recommend a chapter or two per session – don’t try to do too much. It helps to read aloud and listen to the sound of your words. If you trip up on a sentence, then it might need simplifying. Take it slow and pay attention to every word.
If you’re like me, you’re going to find a couple of mistakes on almost every page, either a missing word, or the wrong word, perhaps a ‘She’ that accidently became a ‘He’.
Pay attention to the flow. I caught several cases where a sentence broke the flow of a particular thought, perhaps a character reaction that fell at the wrong place. It’s easy to just relocate these sentences, moving them to the beginning or end of a paragraph.
Reading aloud gave me a final take on my dialog, and allowed me to chop or change a few words that sounded stilted or out of character.
Most of my changes were to break up the repetitive sentence construction of ‘She’ this and ‘she’ that. It reads flat to have every sentence start this way, but it’s very easy to fix and makes a paragraph flow more naturally.
After a long period away from your book, this is a great time to get as close to your reader’s perspective as possible, even though you know the entire story inside and out. Maybe an idea that you considered obvious, just isn’t, and it needs more clarification, but don’t be heavy handed. On the flipside, maybe it reads as too obvious, and you can chop a sentence that pushes the idea too hard. I also took this opportunity to weave in a few new sentences about the setting, adding some minute detail where I felt it would enhance the scene.
Check for consistency: During previous edits and drafts, you may have undertaken some severe editing: changes to plot arcs, character traits, etc., and now you might find some residuals that you missed the first time. I had changed a character’s name in an earlier draft, and found at least one reference to the old name. Shock, horror, but easily done. And don’t blame your editor or proofreader, since they are only human like you. I also found one place where time jumped backward, because I had shuffled a few scenes and missed a reference to the time of day.
The secret of editing on the final read through is to be surgical. Make small changes – hopefully you don’t discover a major problem at this late stage! Most importantly, analyze your changes extremely carefully to make sure you’re not adding typos. We’re tweaking, not rewriting.
Don’t skip the final read through. None of us can guarantee a perfect manuscript, but we owe it to our readers, and our own self-esteem, to take every opportunity to polish.
What are your experiences with your final read through? How long did you leave your work before going back to it?