Although we're thinking about self-editing in this series, that doesn't mean you need to completely go it alone.
It's often very helpful to get other people's feedback on what you're writing -- whether it's a short blog post or a full-length novel.
You'll want to consider:
What Type of Feedback Do You Want?
You could opt for a beta-reader (which might be someone you pay or a writing friend who you swap manuscripts with), or you could find a professional editor.
You could get a structural edit, focusing on things like plotline and characters (in a novel), or a line-edit that focuses on things like sentence structure and over-use of words.
How Will You Get Responses?
If you're asking several people to read your work (which might well be the case if you're working on, say, a blog post or a short story with the help of your writing workshop group), then you'll need to figure out how you're going to get feedback.
Possible options are:
- Through an email (or other written feedback)
- Through comments on a Word document or Google doc
- Through a survey or feedback form
What Can You Offer in Return?
If someone's providing you with feedback, you'll generally be offering them, at the very least, a copy of the finished thing. You might well also be offering reciprocal feedback.
Of course, if you want a professional-level edit, you'll need to pay actual money. This won't necessarily be practical for every project, but it's well worth considering if you're going to be self-publishing a novel or non-fiction book.
How to Incorporate The Feedback You Get
If you've got a lot of feedback, whether it's from one person or several, you'll need to think about how to work it into your redraft.
I suggest that you:
- Look for points where two (or more!) people agree, or raise a similar issue. This suggests that you do need to make some changes. While it's ultimately your say -- it's your book, after all -- you may find that you haven't been quite so clear as you thought.
- Distinguish between big-picture feedback that requires actual rewriting (e.g. a particular character doesn't have enough of a role and should be cut) versus detailed feedback that only needs a quick tweak (e.g. a line of dialogue is ambiguous and needs changing).
- Correct anything that's objectively wrong! I know this sounds obvious, but sometimes writers pay for editing and then end up leaving in typos or other mistakes that really weren't a matter of opinion. If your editor changes something and you think your version was correct, at least double-check with a dictionary.
If you've got quite a bit of feedback to act on, it's worth creating a checklist to work through, so you can keep track of what you're changing.
While it can take quite a bit of time to get feedback, it's definitely worth showing your work to at least one other person before you finalise it -- however good a job you've done of self-editing, there will be things that you've missed.
