Level Up Your Personal Editing Game

level up your personal editing game

Looking for practical ways to improve your writing skills? When you concentrate on building your skills with sentence structure, phrasing, and word choices, you can make your writing punchier, more uniquely your own, and also cleaner—which saves on line editing and proofreading time and pricing. So, it’s well worth learning how to add a little polish to your story yourself before submitting your manuscript to our team.

Here are a few of our favorite, practical things you can do on your own to make your writing sparkle.

 

1. Ensure There’s a Purpose for Every Sentence

In the drafting phase, authors don’t typically do in-depth editing—and honestly, you don’t have to. Getting your ideas on paper in a rough fashion is the first step, and many writers enjoy doing that without worrying about every word and each comma. 

Once you have finished a draft of the scene, you can pay added attention to the specifics. Each sentence in that scene should need to be there, with a clear purpose in terms of moving the plot forward, providing essential details, setting the tone, or helping readers understand the characters and their choices. Any sentence that isn’t pulling its weight either needs to be made to do more—or it needs to be cut.

Each sentence should have a clear purpose: advancing the plot, developing a character, setting the scene, or creating mood. If a sentence doesn’t add value, consider cutting it.

 

2. Use Sentence Rhythm with Intention

Sentence structures allow for so much variety in writing, so if you’re not taking advantage of sentence variety, you are missing out. Mixing it up keeps readers interested and requires them to pay attention and think about what they’re reading, while the same feel repeatedly could invite them to tune out.

That said, sentence structure can be deliberately used to create a certain feel for readers. Short sentences move fast. They drive the action forward. They’re great at building tension—or recreating sharp, staccato moments. On the other hand, a lengthy, complex sentence structure, since it may take time to read and ponder, can slow the pace, allow readers to consider details and descriptions, and invoke thoughtful reflection. Intentional repetition of sentence structure can mimic the sleep-inducing rhythm of a train in motion. 

To make the most of this aspect of your writing, read your scene out loud, paying attention for anything that stands out as awkward, choppy, or unintentionally repetitive.

 

3. Focus on Making Sentences Clear and Strong

Clarity is often overlooked, especially when you’re drafting. But the simple ability to make your writing clear is one of the most important ways that you keep readers hooked. Sentences should make sense on the first read, and if they don’t, you should rephrase them. Look for convoluted, overly complex, or awkward phrasing that could be misinterpreted. 

Likewise, strong word choices both make your ideas clear as well as vivid, so that each sentence catches attention and moves the story forward. Don’t overdo your adjectives and adverbs, especially if there’s a strong noun or verb that will do the job better. Eliminate filler words like really, very, just, kind of, and that (unless they’re essential). 

 

4. Enhance Your Word Choices

Replace vague words with precise, evocative ones that create a clear, specific vibe for each scene. If you spot clichés—which often crop up in a first draft—turn them into fresh, unique phrases that let you express your personality and narrative voice. 

Pay attention to repeated words, and decide whether the repetition is essential. If repeated words aren’t serving a purpose, use synonyms or streamline your phrasing. (But keep in mind—you don’t need to do that for dialogue tags, which you want to be as simple as possible. He said, she said is fine for dialogue, as often as needed to keep the speakers clear.)

 

5. Study Great Writing and Learn All You Can

One of the best ways to improve your own sentences and word choices is to study at the feet of the experts. Choose some books by great writers, and analyze what they do. When do they use short sentences vs. long ones? What types of words do they choose? When do they lean into repetition? How do they create tone with words? How does each sentence fit within its paragraph?

Play around with imitating their style by writing a scene as if  you wanted it to sound like they wrote it. You don’t have to use the experiment in our manuscript, but the exercise will be instructive. It’ll help you appreciate how to apply what you learn to your own style of writing, and make you more aware of how your sentences sound.

 

6. Invest in Some Handy Writing Guides to Grow Your Skills

It’s helpful to have books on style, sentence structure, word choices, and grammar on your shelves. That way, you can dig into them and research any question you have, anytime you’re looking to fix a sentence that’s just not working. A few of our favorites include: 

 

7. Call on the Experts

At some point, every writer needs input on how their manuscript is working. After all, your eyes start to miss things as you’ve been writing and rewriting scenes for a long time. That’s where pros like Two Birds can help. Reach out anytime for a sample edit to gain suggestions and input on next steps that can move your book from good to great. We’re here for you!

 

Have questions about the editing process? We’d love to chat with you and help you figure out your next steps. Contact us to set up a free sample edit.

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