1.
Print out a hard copy of the complete manuscript. Words look different
on a computer screen. Holding the manuscript in my hand, I invariably
find a host of errors I missed when reading off the computer. Next,
find a comfortable chair, grab a big glass of water or cup of tea, a
stack of sticky notes and colored pens.
2.
Read through the manuscript out loud. Listen to your words. Reading
out loud is the best way to catch awkward phrasing and repetition.
Stilted dialogue becomes painfully obvious when read aloud. For now,
resist the temptation to fix the errors you find. Mark them with a
colored pen or sticky note and forge on. After your first read‑through,
go back and fix all the areas you marked previously. You may need to
print out another copy before you go on to step three.
3.
Take a closer look at descriptions. Do you have long passages of narrative
that could bog down the story? Or do you have the opposite problems,
with scenes and people so sketchily described the reader has no sense
of what anyone or anything looks, sounds, smells or tastes like? Have
you made good use of all five senses in your descriptions? You don't
want to go overboard, but the judicious use of odors, sounds and sensations
will bring your story to life.
4.
Now study your transitions. Does the story move smoothly from scene
to scene? Are point‑of‑view changes clear?
5.
The sense of time in your story is related to transition. Do you provide
enough clues so your reader knows when scenes takes place in relation
to each other? Do the hero and heroine discover the clue to the villain's
identity two days after the ball or two weeks later? Has enough time
passed for events to realistically take place in your story? I often
find it helpful to draw a time line, upon which I plot pivotal scenes
in my book. This visual picture of the story line helps me keep things
straight.
6.
Re‑read your chapter endings. Do they propel the reader on, urging
them to read 'just one more chapter'? Or does every chapter end neatly
with the close of day or the resolution of a problem, making it easy
for the reader to set the book aside for another time? Consider ending
chapters on a suspenseful hook, or an enticing question, or even in
the middle of a scene, to keep the reader
turning pages.
7.
Now go back and re‑read the beginning of each chapter. Do your
beginnings hook the reader right away, pulling them into the story?
8.
Clean up dialogue tags. Can you eliminate some tags? Do you need to
add others in order to help the reader know who is speaking? Replace
awkward tags with a simple 'he said' or 'she said.' Try to eliminate
descriptive adjectives that describe emotions, such as angrily, wearily,
happily. Instead, use your character's actions, facial expressions,
or words themselves to convey emotion.
9.
Re‑consider your use of character names. Every time you use a
character's name when you are writing in that character's point of view,
you take the reader out of that person's head for a moment and remind
them that this is a fictional story. It's similar to being in a crowded
room and suddenly hearing your name. Your attention is diverted from
whatever conversation you might have been having. Instead, replace
character names with he and she, as long as it's easy for the reader
to keep track of who the pronouns represent. Likewise, in real life,
people seldom use names in conversation, except for particular emphasis.
Don't have your hero and heroine constantly addressing each other by
name in ordinary conversation.
10.
Eliminate or replace weak words. Reading aloud, you may have noticed
a tendency to use 'favorite' words. Two of mine are 'just' and 'really.'
Every time I finish a manuscript, I do a search for these words and
cut them whenever possible. Some other weak words to look for: all,
maybe, sometimes, slightly, seemed, that.
11.
Delete unnecessary adjectives and adjectives. I used to have a habit
of using double adjectives. A beautiful house wasn't enough for me;
it had to be grandly beautiful. Now I know it's better to say the place
was a mansion, or that it rivaled Buckingham Palace for elegance, or
that it was the kind of place that made the cowboy want to scrape his
boots good and doff his hat before he
stepped over the threshold.
12.
Vary sentence beginnings. Look at your sentences. Does every sentence
begin with he or she? Use different sentence structures to add variety
to your work and improve the flow. For instance,
instead of writing "She pulled on her coat and followed him out
the door" you could write "Pulling on her coat, she followed
him out the door."
13.
Hone in on emotions. Emotion is the heart of romance. Readers want
to be swept up into the feelings of your characters. Have you dug deep
enough to find the true emotions your characters feel? Have you used
the five senses to add verisimilitude to your scenes, so that the emotions
seem real? Are your character's emotional reactions appropriate? For
instance, if your hero has just witnessed the death of his best friend,
do we find him joking in the next scene? If we do, you must lay the
groundwork early on for this to be a believable response for this character
to have to his loss.
14.
Eliminate anachronisms and inaccuracies. Now is the time to check your
facts, whether historical or contemporary. Consult a Webster's ninth
dictionary to verify words that are appropriate for your time period.
(For instance, while writing Patchwork Hearts, which is set in 1867
Texas, I learned the term hairdo didn't come into use until 1932. I
had to substitute the word coiffure.)
15.
Final polish. Run a spell check, make sure your format is correct,
with each new chapter beginning 1/3 to 1/2 way down a new page and approximately
25 lines per page, in an easy‑to‑read font. If possible,
set the book aside for a week or three, then print out a fresh copy
and do another read‑through. Chances are this time you'll find
only a few minor corrections. No book is ever completely finished,
but if you follow the above steps, you will transform your rough work
into a polished gem.
