By Emma Heggem
A lot of new writers finish their first draft and immediately start correcting typos. After all, they are eventually going to have to show their writing to other writers and even editors. They don’t want to have any embarrassing mistakes.
So I’m officially, as an editor, giving you permission to have typos. Spell like crap, have run-on sentences, and don’t worry about dangling modifiers. That all can be dealt with later.
Further than giving you permission to have mistakes, I’m begging you to ignore them in your early edits. There’s no reason to look up the rules for semicolons when you might end up deleting that whole sentence or even the whole chapter. In fact, the more time you spend trying to polish up the little details, the harder it will be to make those deletions when the time comes. Don’t do that to yourself.
When you read through your first draft, focus only on the plot.
This is probably going to be tricky. It’s much easier to tackle a single page of text and worry about the words you can see than it is to consider your entire manuscript at the same time. But if you are going to turn your first draft into a submission-ready manuscript, you need to start with the big picture.
Rather than trying to perfect your whole manuscript all at once, the best way to start editing the big picture is to focus on just three elements: the main character, the climax, and the goal.
You probably already know who your main character is. Just for fun, write their name down. After all, it is easier to look at words on a single page. If you make a page of notes to keep next to you while you read through the rest of your manuscript, you can be sure your edits are pointing you in the right direction.
The next thing you’re going to write down is your climax. If you aren’t certain what your climax is, find the last big dramatic thing that happens in your book. Even if you know what your climax is, make sure to go through and read that scene again. This will be the first place you want to start checking for edits to your plot.
Your climax should be a moment of conflict, whatever that means for your genre—a battle, a heist, a date with the love interest, or an interrogation of a suspect. If the type of conflict in your climax doesn’t match the genre you are writing, that will be the first thing to edit.
The next thing to check in your climax is the role of your main character. What do they do during your climax? Do their actions make a difference? If your main character doesn’t play a crucial role in the outcome of the climax, it will be very unsatisfying to readers. You’ll want to fix that before you change anything else in your manuscript.
Lastly, identify the goal your main character accomplishes during the climax. The goal should be something specific and clearly defined. Something should change for your main character when they achieve their goal, something that will make their world forever different. Add that goal and the way that the character achieves it to your page of notes.
You should now have three things written down on your page of notes: the main character, their goal, and the way they achieve that goal. Once you know what those three things are, you are ready to begin editing the rest of your draft. You’ll want to experience your story in the same order your reader will; but unlike your reader, you will have that ending sitting next to you as your read. Check that each scene in your manuscript is working for your plot by pointing towards the things written on your page of notes. This will allow you to determine if each scene is helping or hurting your story and what type of changes you need to make.
Here are some connections to the main character, goal, and climax that should exist in the rest of your manuscript:
- Your opening scene should emotionally connect readers to the main character.
- The early chapters should establish the stakes that drive the main character towards their goal.
- Somewhere in the first third of your book, your main character should have a moment where they become determined to achieve their main plot goal. It may start off as a question such as “Why do the wraiths want my uncle’s ring?” that later becomes a more tangible goal. But it needs to start early on in the story so readers know the story is going somewhere.
- The middle of your book needs to very purposefully guide your main character towards achieving that goal or answering that question. Each decision they make should be a step closer to the climactic moment.
- If you have a scene that drifts away from that goal, there should be an obvious, urgent, and compelling need to deal with another problem first before returning to their main quest. And that scene should cause lasting effects on the rest of the story.
It can take a few passes before all of these things are fixed in your manuscript. You may have to delete chapters or write new scenes. But if you can keep the main character, goal, and climax clear in your mind, you can solve any underlying problem you might discover in your manuscript. Losing focus on those three plot points accounts for most meandering beginnings, sagging middles, and unsatisfactory endings. Keeping them in mind each time you read through your manuscript will help you tighten up your book and create a strong, well-paced plotline.
Happy editing!
Emma Heggem is a content fiction editor who specializes in science fiction and fantasy. She has worked closely with publishers and frequently speaks at writing conferences in Utah. You can learn more about her and her plot editing advice at www.editsbyemma.com.