8 Ways to Improve your Novel
To protect myself in 2024 I decided that I’d start charging for my ability to developmental edit a manuscript. After ten years of editor feedback, working with professionals, getting and giving constructive feedback, and the finalization of my Post Graduate Certificate of Creative Writing, I was ready.
But how do I keep helping? Simple. I give you the tools that I started out with.
That isn’t going to be entirely possible in one blog post but I’m going to give it a good crack.
- Have I left space to reflect?
The last thing you want to do is dive right into edits after you’ve finished your first draft or even a revised draft. You want it to sit and stew for a bit, give it a week or two, even a month to emotionally distance yourself. More importantly reward yourself. 97% of people who even start a book never finish it, let alone all those who don’t even get pen to page. Spoil yourself.
When you are ready, come back to it with a clear goal of what you want to do with this story, start thinking about where you want it to end up, and can do your research with more confidence of where your story fits and what it’s future looks like.
2. Am I ready for this stage?
I see a lot of people thinking their story is ready for a developmental edit, but what they haven’t done is greater story structure because writing a whole novel and getting all those ideas to fit can be difficult. Have you got a soggy middle? Does the story start in the right place? Does the ending drag out or happen to quickly?
Often when you come back to the story to review it, and can be more objective, you may find that you need to do more revising to help eliminate plot holes or fix character arcs by adding scenes or deleting info dumps. This way you can move ahead confidently with your story being the best you can make it.
- 3. What can I do myself?
This seems like the most basic thing, but it is the easiest, cheapest, and MOST efficient way of eliminating all kinds of errors. Go to the word function, or find the function in whatever writing program you use, and use the read aloud function.
This is so simple yet so many people don’t do it and end up with sentences that sound clunky. Word use that doesn’t flow and isn’t appropriate. Flat dialogue and cliché expressions.
I find the flat automated voice removes the emotion of the story so I can just listen to what the voice says, and focus on that. I will often not look at the screen, I’ll be doing something with my hands that requires no focus, like fidget tools, and I might right notes or questions, but I can always stop the text, do a quick fix and move on.
- 4. What are my best resources?
When it comes to writing please don’t underestimate tools like the autocorrect, but also others like Grammarly and Prowriting Aid. My favorite is Prowriting Aid, but I find it difficult to use with whole novels so it’s better to break it down to chapter at a time.
There are also other programs that are free to use like the Hemmingway editor but then that becomes a sense of style too. Sometimes you want a longer sentence because of what it is conveying.
Don’t forget too you can get a lot of great books on the subject that won’t hurt your wallet (too much). Save the Cat Writes a Novel is a great book, and I recommend it particularly for my neurodiverse and pansting writer friends to make sure you are thinking about your story structure and genre expectations. Then there are others that are more inline, like the Chicago Manual of Style which can help ensure you’ve line edited as much as you can.
- 5. Who can help me?
Now we’re ready to start showing our book to others!
Where are you going?
Come back here this isn’t that scary! Ok, yes it’s a bit scary. Because after all that work you worry about whether or not it will be “good enough.” I have to confess, having just read several books that I either DNF or got bored of and gave a very low review after Tiktok told me I’d love it that I’m over “good enough.” People used to say “some books just aren’t for you” and I resented that a lot because I loved a lot of books. I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter. There are SO many books out there you will never have time to read them all.
That means for you that “publish and be damned” is the new mindset. So with that in mind how do you find beta readers? A lot of people will call out to their writing communities for help. There are forums and exchange programs. The most recent one I saw was the creators on Tiktok called Crab and Bell – but there are heaps of others.
While there can be some fear about readers, those initial voices who are people who read but aren’t necessarily editors isn’t a bad testing ground. They are going to indicate to you where your story fits. Is it perfect or did they have a few problems with it. This is a good point to work out do you need more help? Is this the point where you start to look into developmental editors?
Much of the time if you haven’t written a book before you are going to need someone with that level of experience, and while it can be intimidating both from a cost front but also a feedback front, you don’t just learn ways to fix this book; you learn how to write better books.
- 6. How do I take criticism?
This one is a dozy to say and very hard to do.
You need to not take it personally. This isn’t every facet of your story, this is someone who comes at the story as a reader and helps point out inconsistencies – but they should also be pointing out stuff they love!
Every relationship can come with difficulties and being constructively honest in your feedback as well as taking it as constructive and not critical is hard. One of the ways I do this is think about the work objectively by asking the following questions;
- Have I not explained this thoroughly?
- Is this an aspect I need to delve into further?
- Have I placed this in the right spot?
Then there are other questions you can start asking yourself to make sure you are on the right track, and not just worrying about making it perfect by changing things you might not have to change;
- Does this resonate with my fears?
- Is the feedback encouraging me to work on this?
- Am I afraid and feeling like giving up?
These are hard emotions to navigate and its important to understand where these answers come from, and are they about the work, how we feel as people. This is where it’s a good idea to take in that feedback, but take another break to help get that emotional distance so you can tell the difference.
- 7. Am I being critical or damaging?
It can be very easy to fall down a slippery slope of getting feedback to imagine that the WHOLE story is garbage, this was a waste of time, and you should give up. That’s when you need self care, but also establish whether you are close, or is something true in this feedback?
One of the ways I started to distinguish between feedback was when beta readers said the same things at particular spots, and when they differentiate. I had a moment writing my first male POV where I wasn’t sure where to go with his emotions and I wanted to have a more sensitive side to him because he was sensitive.
The three bits of feed went from “I love this” to “I don’t care” to “this isn’t right.” All three gave their reasons and in the end I decided to leave it. You don’t have to accept the feedback that isn’t right for you, as long as you are being honest with yourself about that feedback.
Is it that it doesn’t suit, or have you not relayed this information correctly for the reader?
This doesn’t mean give up on writing or the book, you may just have to go back through and analyze it more carefully to make sure those aspects are what you and the reader wants them to be.
- 8. How am I feeling?
This is the part where often the response is like garbage, and if you do really feel like that, then that is valid. You shouldn’t try to push those emotions away because maybe they are telling you something very important.
Maybe you aren’t ready to write this story yet. Maybe you don’t have the skills, or even the story itself isn’t ready. Sometimes no matter how hard we try to force our imagination, some stories may end up sitting in a folder.
That’s OK.
One of my favorite stories that everyone loves the concept of had some difficult and sensitive aspects to the characters and I didn’t know how to fix it because it was so deep in the plot, and I recently worked out how I may navigate around that without having to set the whole thing on fire.
Only it took four years to realize this.
The other thing to remember is that fellow authors, readers, writers, beta readers, critique partners, and even editors will all have different opinions on your work. Find the ones that don’t just offer honesty, but help and encouragement too.
The ones that make you believe that while there are things to fix that you can do this.
And remember that this is one book. Chances are you have more than one and the next book will be better for the lessons you learnt from the last one. It’s all a learning process, and feeling like a failure can be part of that too, as long as you know that there are people who feel like that too.
You aren’t alone.
I’m open to manuscript submissions for development editing from May onwards. If you’d like me to look over your novel reach out to me on my contact page. If I can’t help, I’ll try to find other ways to get you what you need to help your story shine.
E. J. Dawson 