After printing the entire novel manuscript again, I dug out lots of articles on self-editing, and saved them in my Evernote for a read on the bus. All the tips were kind of vague, and many were the same: one or two, however, I actually found useful. Some of the websites I paid a visit were:
- Out of Order: A Discussion on Nonlinear Narrative
- Nonlinear Narrative – at Wikipedia
- The Boundaries: Limits of a Nonlinear Structure
- Editing Your Novel – High Level Story Read-Through
- A Perfectionist’s Guide to Editing a Novel
- There Are No Rules
- 11 Resources to Make Editing Your Novel Easier
- Book Editing – Top 10 Tips
- How to Revise a Novel
Novel-Editing Advice from Twitter
@jessmaybury Instead of seeing the entire book, take one character at a time, beginning with the protagonist/narrator and only edit that.
— Val B Russell (@valbrussell) February 17, 2013
“When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” Raymond Chandler.
— Colm Keegan (@Colm_Keegan) February 12, 2013
All of this became rather much. It was like being babbled at by a crowd of people, all at the same time.
I guess the main advice I can give you, having trolled through all this other advice, is…
Just do it. Make a decision and do it. Stop talking about it or thinking about it or strategising about it…just start editing. You’ll find your own way. Do whatever you have to to get the novel finished and clean.
DRINK TEA WRITE WORDS 