My Post-Editing Checklist
You’ve finished the latest draft of your novel. It’s looking good, and you’re itching to send it to your beta readers… but is it really ready?
Utimately only you can answer that question. I personally think my edits are never quite perfect, but if every writer waited to get their draft juuuuuust right, I doubt we’d have many books in this world at all. So here’s the checklist I created for myself to cover the “basics” of readiness. If I can get through the first 3, I’ll send to my readers.
As always, this is simply what works for me — and I definitely tweak things as I go, so take it with a grain of salt:
Review my chapter endings to assess their “cliff” factor. Does this ending propel readers right into the next chapter? Does it end on a softer emotional beat? One is not necessarily better than the other, but for my current project, I want a solid mix of the two: enough to keep the reader interested but also let the story (and the reader) breathe a little bit.
Consult Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. I’ll look to the beat sheet to see how my manuscript matches up with Brody’s excellent outline, and determine if there’s anything serious that I need to rework in another edit. I’ll also consult the query outline towards the end of the book as I prepare to draft my query letter.
Run my manuscript through a word-checker. The two main things I’m looking for: word frequency and phrase frequency, to give me an indication of most-used phrases (and the opportunity to adjust any oft-repeated words). Sites like wordcounter.net work well, also showing the estimated reading time and reading level of your work.
Send my manuscript to beta readers.
Draft my synopsis and query letter(s). While my manuscript is off with beta readers, I’ll sit down to draft up a short synopsis (about 1 page) summarizing the main plot points from beginning to end. I’ll also work on a few versions of a query letter using the Save the Cat! template.
Other things I’ll do: firstly — celebrate!
Secondly — consult my agent spreadsheet. Since I’ve queried in the past, I have a solid spreadsheet to work off of already. I’ll do research to update it and check on the agents that I haven’t queried before to see when/if they’re open to submissions. This merits another, much more in-depth blog post… more on that to come!