Editing
Editing your first draft
Three passes that turn a complete draft into a book worth handing to someone.
Pass one is structure. Read only the chapter titles and your own summaries. Does the order still make sense? Move, merge or cut before you polish a single sentence.\n\nPass two is scene. Inside each chapter, ask what changes between the first line and the last. If nothing changes, the chapter is information, not story, and it needs a reason to exist.\n\nPass three is line. Now you may fuss. Cut adverbs that prop up weak verbs, delete the first sentence of most paragraphs, and read dialogue out loud.\n\nUse the rewrite, shorten and expand controls in the workspace for chapters that resist you, then edit the result by hand. The best books are always finished by a human.