A 10-Point Self-Editing Checklist for Your First Draft
There is a particular tiredness at the end of a first draft. The story exists, it has a beginning, a middle and an end, and for a day or two you feel pleased with it. Then you read it back and find a character whose eyes change colour, a subplot that goes nowhere and a middle act that deflates around chapter twelve. That is normal. It is not a sign that the book is broken – only that it is unfinished.
Self-editing sits between "I wrote a book" and "this is ready for a reader". Done properly, it sharpens the manuscript and makes any professional editing you commission better value, because an editor's time is not spent on problems you could have caught yourself. Ten points follow. Work through them in separate passes rather than holding all ten in your head at once; you notice far more when you are looking for one thing.
Start with a Read-Through, Not a Red Pen
Before you change a single word, read the whole manuscript the way a reader would. Change the format first: a different font, a tablet, a printed stack of paper. Keep a notebook beside you and record reactions rather than fixes. Bored here. Confused about the timeline. This scene does the same job as the last one. Resist correcting typos as you go; there are later passes for that.
Then, before the detail work begins, hold the ten points in mind:
- Read the whole draft without editing it.
- Check that every scene changes something.
- Test whether the plot runs on cause and effect or on coincidence.
- Confirm your protagonist wants something in every scene.
- Check that each character sounds like themselves.
- Watch the point of view.
- Hunt repetition: words, gestures, sentence shapes.
- Fix grammar, punctuation and tense slips.
- Check continuity of names, dates, objects and descriptions.
- Read it aloud, leave it a week, then proofread.
Plot, Structure and Pacing
A scene earns its place by changing something: a relationship, a plan, a piece of knowledge, a physical situation. If you could cut a scene and the next chapter would still make sense, ask what quiet work it is doing. Sometimes it is doing none, and it is filler.
Then look at how scenes connect. Early drafts lean on coincidence: the letter arrives, the stranger walks in, the phone rings at the right moment. Coincidence can start a story; it should not solve one. Where a convenient event pushes your plot along, look for a decision your character could make instead. A protagonist who chooses is more interesting than one rescued by the post.
Pacing is easier to judge from a summary. Write one line per chapter on a single sheet and read down the list. Where does the momentum drop? Where are two chapters doing the same job? Scenes that drag are often starting too early and ending too late: cut the greetings, begin at the argument, and leave the room before the conversation finishes.
Character, Voice and Point of View
Characters convince when they want something and are willing to act on it. In each scene, ask what your protagonist is trying to achieve, however small the goal. If the answer is "nothing in particular", the scene will feel slack however graceful the prose.
Voice is the other half. Cover the names in a stretch of dialogue and see whether you can still tell who is speaking. If everyone shares the same rhythm, vocabulary and dry wit, you do not need accents; you need to change what each person notices and how bluntly they say it. A retired nurse and a sixteen-year-old will describe the same waiting room differently.
Finally, check the point of view. A scene should usually stay inside one character's perceptions. Watch for slips where you describe another person's feelings from outside, or mention something your viewpoint character cannot see.
Sentence-Level Checks
Repetition you cannot see
Every writer has crutch words. Search the draft for the usual suspects – just, really, suddenly, a little, somehow, began to – and delete three-quarters of them. Do the same for repeated gestures: nodding, sighing, shrugging, raising an eyebrow. Filter phrases such as she saw, he felt, she realised often go as well: "She saw the door open" becomes "The door opened", and the reader moves closer to the moment.
Rhythm
Count how many sentences in a paragraph begin the same way, or run to the same length. A page of medium-length sentences is flat; a long sentence followed by a three-word one is not.
Grammar and punctuation
Check the things you already know but stop noticing in your own work: dialogue punctuation, a new paragraph for each new speaker, tense drift, comma splices, its and it's. Whichever speech-mark convention you choose, apply it consistently, and make sure capitalisation of names, titles and places does not wander.
Continuity and Consistency
Readers forgive a great deal, but not a character called Catherine in chapter three and Katherine in chapter nine. Keep a style sheet as you read – a plain document listing every name, place and invented term, plus your choices on hyphenation, numbers and dates. Then check:
- Names, nicknames and titles, including how characters address each other.
- Physical descriptions: eye colour, height, scars, ages.
- Timeline, seasons and travel times between places.
- Objects that appear and disappear: keys, phones, coats, letters.
- Facts about jobs, locations and period detail.
- Style choices: -ise or -ize, "okay" or "OK", how you format a text message.
Read It Aloud
The last pass is the simplest. Read the manuscript aloud, or have someone read a chapter to you. You will hear missing words, sentences that run out of breath, dialogue that sounds like prose in quotation marks, and paragraphs that begin three times before they start. Mark what snags and fix it afterwards.
Knowing When to Stop
Returns shrink at some point. You will still find things to change on the tenth read, and that is not evidence that the book is bad – only that you have read it ten times. Leave the manuscript for a week, then work through the checklist once more with fresh eyes, aiming for clarity and consistency rather than perfection.
When the story is settled and the sentences are clean, hand it over. Structural editing, copyediting and proofreading are separate jobs and work best in that order, because there is little point polishing sentences in a scene you may later cut. Send your editor the clean manuscript, your style sheet, a short synopsis and a note of what you are least sure about. Take the feedback seriously without treating every suggestion as an instruction. It is your book, and your job is to make it the clearest version of what you intended.
Photo: BRRT / Pixabay
