Revising And Self-Editing

Revising and Self-Editing

I’m currently revising and self-editing my mermaid x human boy romance novel, so I thought I would share some resources that may help other writers revise and/or edit their stories.

A list of resources to help you during the revision process or when you’re self-editing your story.

Editing and Proofreading An article written for college students from The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina. While most of it applies to writing academic papers, it has helpful tips (under the section titled “Some tips that apply to both editing and proofreading”) that can apply to any writer who is revising or editing their own work.

Beginning the Awesome Journey of Revision Provides helpful tips on how to get started on revising your story’s draft. The list of additional resources includes a few broken links, but most of them work.

How to Survive the Editing Process Provides tips and suggestions for how to get started on revising or editing your story’s draft and what to look for when editing.

The Big Bad Guide to Novel Revision A lengthy, comprehensive guide to revising and editing your story’s draft. Explains in detail the elements to consider when going over the story, the characters, and grammar. Includes a few broken links, but the guide itself is helpful.

When to Say You’re Done Revising Offers realistic advice on how to know when you’re done revising and editing (or how to know when you’ve edited your manuscript as much as you possibly can).

For a more thorough guide on editing, check out my post The Different Types of Editing, which also includes links to even more resources on editing.

I’m a writer, poet, and editor. I share writing resources that I’ve collected over the years and found helpful for my own writing. If you like my blog, follow me for more resources! ♡

Excellent tips and habits for writers

The advice I've given before is to write every scene you think of, no matter if it gets used or not. Its always a great idea to go back every once and a while and edit these scenes, or revise them.

Never force inspiration or a scene. If it isn't coming naturally, take a break and come back later or the next day. it's important to give yourself time to think. use your break to day dream about your story and what could come next. if your brain is happy, this should be relatively simple. If your brain isn't happy, then you need to take a longer break, stop writing for the day all together, or write something else.

if you're a pantser, like me, and it's hard to plot. You can practice reverse plotting, and plot your story as you go. make notes of things that happen in your story, changes in a character, changes in the plot, changes in the setting, dates for events, timelines, important information that's been revealed, anything you deem important to your story.

always reread what you've already written. don't try to edit it. turn off your editor brain and reread your story so far before you resume writing, so you can get into the voice and tone that you've already established.

if you're finding it difficult to start writing or keep writing. try turning off your internal editor and free write. it's good practice to be able to write down your unfiltered thoughts or daydreams without having to stop and edit while you're writing. it helps with your writing flow, getting the scene down onto the page, and increases your writing intuition.

before you write, always take time to daydream or think about your story beforehand. it helps things go much smoother in the long run.

if you've been working on something for a long time, don't pressure yourself into confinement. if you want to work on something new but you're worried about what you've been working on, don't. stop worrying and write what you want. forcing yourself to keep writing something when you don't want to is just going to make you burn out faster.

don't be afraid to create visuals or playlists that help you with what you're writing. It's an enviable talent to be able to write something off a photo you saw on pinterest, or a song you really like.

if you find yourself in a mood where you want to write really badly, but you have no idea what you want to write, and none of the prompts you find are appealing enough. find an activity you use to destress, whether its listening to music, listening to asmr, doom scrolling on social media, or browsing pinterest. go do that. chances are, you'll find something that will inspire you what to write when you're not looking for it.

FAQ Masterpost:

WRITING TIPS:

How To Stay Positive

Write Stories That Are Problematic

On Being Distracted By Your Phone

How To Write a Synopsis

Quick and Easy Writing Tip for Social Media

8 Tips to Get You Through NaNoWriMo

Top Ten First Page Turn Offs

How to Limit Hand Stress (EDS oriented)

How to Write Dragons

How to Write ESL

How to Choose a Story Idea

“Help! How do I connect a plot hole?”

How to Stick to a Writing Schedule (and Keep It)

The Importance of Exposition

8 Ways to Get Past Writer’s Block

^^^ Video Version

Writing a Sword Fight Scene

Why You Should Write Horribly

Finding Your Audience

5 Ways to Write Solid Description

How to Make Your Readers Cry

Scrivener PSA - a Great Writing Software

Creating a Language

CHARACTER TIPS:

How To Write Characters Outside of Your Identity

5 Ways to Develop a Convincing Character

How to Write Strong Dialogue

POV Writing Exercise

How Do Characters Bond?

How to Choose Your MC’s Personality

Writing a Mute Character

How to Write a Bisexual Character

How to Avoid Insta-Love

Writing Gray Characters

How to Write Believable Romance

EDITING TIPS:

Stuck? Do this

How to Use -, –, and —

How to Read Like a Writer

For Writers Who Edit When They Should Be Writing

Getting an Editor - Yes or No?

How to Up Your Editing Game

NETWORKING:

How to Find Beta Readers

On Paying Beta Readers

How To Find a Critique Partner

What To Expect From A Critique Partner

When Considering Feedback

How to Enter Into Contests/Magazines

How to Write a Query/Cover Letter

Marketing Tips

How to Make Connections

WRITING INSPIRATION:

How to Find Inspiration to Write

If You Write Fanfic, Are You a Writer?

If You Need Someone to Tell You to Write

How to Stop Being a Beginning Writer

Stop Feeling Bad

Read Your Old Work Like This

To the Writers Who Don’t Write

On Cliches

The Steps of Writing

Why You Should Keep Writing Anyways

Do YOU Deserve Support?

Feeling Anxious About Writing?

Reminder About Writer’s Block

Need a Pep Talk?

WRITING FUNNIES:

America’s Next Top Writer

The Five Types of Writers

Need a lol? Have a meme

And another. Because commas are terrible

On writing fight scenes

On plot twists

On story ideas

On writer’s block

Writers: What They Say vs What They Mean

How to Kick Start a Writing Session

Writing and Friendship and Sacrifice

Fun Fact

15 Things That Make Writer’s Anxious

First Drafts Suck

Funny with a twist (also my most popular post ever)

Search “writing humor” on my blog for a ridiculous amount more

FIRST SENTENCE FRIDAY (FSF):

On My Opinion

Submitting BEFORE/AFTER Friday?

How to Write a Good Sentence

CLOVER RAINE AND THE BLACK DRAGON:

Synopsis

Prologue

Chapter One

Mood Board

World Building

Excerpt

Comic

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!