You’ve Finished Your Rough Draft. Now What?

You got your booty in the chair and filled a Word document with 30k+ imperfect–maybe confusing–words and ideas for your rough draft. Now what? 

Here’s what you’re not going to do: book a professional editor . . . yet. 

You’ll get one eventually but you’re not ready. Now is the time to sort.

Your rough draft is like pouring puzzle pieces onto a table. The next step–self-editing–is turning over all the pieces, finding the corner and edge ones, and putting them in the right place. You must install the structure before you can build the rest. 

You’ll need several rounds of self-edits, starting first with the big pieces. Is each chapter clear? Does it lead well to the next one? Are the stories in the right place? Do the stories set the right tone? Etc. 

Just as with the rough draft, don’t aim for perfection. Just make this as excellent as you possibly can. 

After a few rounds on the macro level, you’ll move more granular, inspecting your sentences for the right verbs and strong words. The final round will be cleaning up your grammar and punctuation. 

Once you’ve gotten it so clean you don’t think anyone could ever find any errors, then you’re ready to send it off to a professional editor. 

Now, if all of this has made you hyperventilate, take a deep breath with me because I’ve got something to help you: a free self-editing checklist.

This checklist walks you step-by-step through the exact process professional editors take when reviewing a manuscript. It won’t replace the eyes of a professional but it will make your manuscript better, I promise.

Download it here.