One of the difficult things about writing a book is knowing when it’s finished—or at least when it’s ready to be edited by someone else.
Never submit your first draft! The first thing to say is that you should never submit your first draft of anything to anyone. Not university assignments, not books, not poems, not cover letters. Nothing. Heck, even give your emails, WhatsApp messages, and social media posts the once over. We seem to have reached a point where spelling mistakes are accepted as okay in messages and on social media, and while you don’t need to be the kind of patronising sod who corrects people’s spelling in obscure comments sections, checking your own writing for typos is still a great habit for a writer to develop. If you’re working on a book and you’ve reached the end of your first draft, then the best thing to do is to leave it for at least a couple of days (which I know is very frustrating if you’re anything like me and just want to get your ideas finished and out there rightnowthisinstant), and then start going back through it again. I promise you, you will instantly spot typos, omissions, repetition, ideas that don’t quite work, things that could be worded better, all sorts. I must have gone through my latest novel at least 10 times over the course of almost two years. The first few edits required a lot of changes. Passages were overlong, sentences were too rambling, the plot contradicted itself, jokes weren’t funny, and so on. By the end, I was still finding errors (usually where I’d edited something but forgotten to fully delete the original wording), but it was far more a case of tightening up sentences and images here and there. Was it boring? Yes it was. But it was necessary, and some of the best parts of the book came right at the end of that process when, after much revision, everything sounded as tight and effortless as I could make it. Some writers, such as Jack Kerouac, rarely edited their work, believing that the first thought was the “highest”, purest thought. I tend to disagree. The spirit of what you want to say might come with the first draft, and of course there will be those magical flashes where the words arrive from nowhere, perfect and fully formed, but often, as many writers will tell you, working to refine and improve your words is where a lot of the gold is found. 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, as someone once said. Know when to stop The flipside of this is knowing when you’ve done all you can. It’s theoretically possible to tweak a book forever. There’s always a different adjective that could be used, or a different simile you could employ. You can reach paralysis through analysis and never get anywhere (you might also be avoiding the potential rejection and judgement that come with finishing a book and showing it to others). I remember a Zadie Smith quote about how part of being an author was being disappointed with your work (or words to that effect), and it’s very true. Even when your work is done, in print, 100% typo-free and grammatically correct, there will always be something, however trivial, that you wish you’d done differently. At some point, you have to know when to let go and say, “This is done.” When to call an editor in So you reach the stage where you’ve written something from beginning to end, and you’ve been back over it a few times. It has a shape and a structure, and you’re done with tweaking it. Is it finished and ready to be published or submitted to agents? Not yet. Sorry. When you reach that stage, the point where everything seems to be present and correct, there are still a couple of potential pitfalls lurking that it’s wise to be wary of (and which even the most writerly of writers can fall into):
Both of these reasons are why investing in a professional editor or proofreader is worth it. When I published my first book, I didn’t do that. I was convinced that Word’s spelling and grammar check and my own talents would see me through. The result was that I spent over £1,000 on books riddled with typos, none of which I could alter. I sold all the books, and it was well received, but I knew that it wasn’t the best reflection of my writing because of the mistakes. Had I spent an extra few hundred pounds on getting someone to proofread it, I would be much prouder of it than I am. It was only when I put out a revised second edition five years later that I was able to correct those mistakes, but those original 1,000 books are still out there, in circulation, with my name on them. Once your book has been properly proofread and/or edited by a second pair of eyes (if you’re unsure of the difference between proofreading and editing, you can find out here), then yes, theoretically, your book is finished and good to go. I write these blogs on a timer to stop me from spending all day on them, so sorry, there’s no big, clever finish. But if you’re open to getting your writing proofread, then please get in touch by phone or email. Until next week!
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AuthorI'm a writer and editor from Birmingham. Nothing fancy about that! Archives
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