How to self-edit your fiction book
Editing sucks for the most part. It’s a brain draining effort that can have you feeling like you’re crawling across a hot desert in search of water. But it doesn’t have to be.
The easiest way to make self-editing manageable is to stop thinking of it as one enormous task.
Instead, treat it as a series of smaller tasks. With each task having a specific purpose, and tackling the largest problems before moving on to the smallest ones. We recommend a reward system after finishing each task. A walk outside to get a chai latte, or reading a few (or twenty) pages of a book, maybe even a glass of wine, if you’re that way inclined.
The main thing to remember is the more thorough you are the better your book will be. It’s not a good idea to shirk on some parts of the process, especially in the beginning. Nor the end for that matter. Spending weeks editing only to find a spelling error in the final, printed book, is enough to make you fall down on your knees and beat the earth in frustration.
Let’s look at the best way to proceed if you’re self-editing a manuscript.
A suggested task order
Rest and distance
Structural editing
Character and plot editing
Scene and chapter editing
Pacing and tension
Point of view and narrative voice
Line editing
Dialogue and description
Fact checking
Copyediting and consistency
Proofreading
You don't necessarily need ten separate readings. Some of these can be combined, particularly for shorter manuscripts. What matters is that you're looking at different layers of the book rather than trying to fix everything simultaneously.
Do this before editing the manuscript
Put Some Distance Between Yourself and the Manuscript
You know the story too well. You know what you meant to say, what happened off-page, what a character was thinking and which detail you intended to explain three chapters later. Your brain will happily fill in gaps that aren't actually present on the page.
Take some time away from the manuscript if you can. Even a couple of weeks can help. If your deadline doesn't allow that, switch projects, read something completely different, or work on your synopsis and character notes before returning to the manuscript.
When you come back, try to read as a reader rather than as the person who wrote it. Your first task isn't to change anything. It's to diagnose what the manuscript gets right and wrong.
The first-read questions
As you read, make notes rather than constantly stopping to rewrite sentences.
Where did I become bored?
Where did I become confused?
Where did I want to keep reading?
Where did I stop believing the character?
Where did the story feel rushed?
Where did it drag?
Which characters did I care about?
Which characters seemed unnecessary?
Which scenes do I remember?
Which scenes have already disappeared from my mind?
Are there questions the story raises but never answers?
Does the ending feel earned?
Don't fix everything immediately. Make a list of problems first. That list becomes your editing roadmap. This list is also a good one to share with your beta readers, or writing critique buddies to gather useful feedback.
1. Start with the structure
Structural editing is the most important place to begin because structural problems can make everything you do at sentence level irrelevant.
There's little point spending an hour perfecting a paragraph in Chapter 8 if Chapter 8 eventually needs to be deleted.
Developmental editing looks at the architecture of the book: plot, character, pacing, structure, point of view, chapter order, narrative gaps and the overall reading experience.
Make a reverse outline
If you didn't create a detailed outline before writing, make one now. A reverse outline is simply a summary of what actually happens in your finished manuscript.
For every chapter or scene, write down:
Chapter/Scene
What happens?
POV
Character goal
Conflict
What changes?
Keep each description short — one or two sentences.
The point isn't to produce beautiful summaries. The point is to see the shape of your novel from a distance.
You may suddenly discover that:
nothing important happens for three chapters;
the protagonist disappears for 80 pages;
the villain appears too late;
two scenes accomplish exactly the same thing;
an important subplot vanishes halfway through;
the climax happens too early;
a character knows something before they should;
the protagonist's biggest decision comes from nowhere.
These are structural problems. Fix them before worrying about commas.
Ask what every scene is doing
Every scene should have a reason for existing.
A useful scene test is:
Goal
Conflict
Change
Then ask:
what does the POV character want at the beginning?
what prevents them from getting it?
what is different by the end?
If nothing changes, ask yourself whether the scene can be cut, combined with another scene, or rewritten.
Not every scene needs explosions, revelations or dramatic confrontations. A quiet conversation can be enormously important. But it should still alter something: information, relationships, emotional understanding, stakes, plans or expectations.
2. Examining the plot and story arc
Now look at the actual story. Don't just ask whether things happen. Ask whether they happen for a reason.
Strong narrative generally works through cause and effect, looking something like this:
Something happens
A character responds
That response creates another problem
The character makes another decision
The situation changes.
If your plot feels like a collection of events rather than a chain of consequences, this is an area to investigate.
Plot checklist
Is there a central conflict?
Is that conflict introduced early enough?
Does the protagonist have a clear desire or objective?
Are the stakes meaningful?
Does the protagonist make consequential choices?
Do those choices affect what happens next?
Do complications become progressively more difficult?
Are there unnecessary plot threads?
Are all major subplots resolved?
Does the climax directly address the central conflict?
Does the ending feel like the consequence of the story that came before it?
One particularly useful question is: Could the story happen almost exactly the same way if my protagonist weren't there?
If the answer is yes, the protagonist may not be driving the story strongly enough.
3. Editing the characters
Characters are one of the easiest places for fiction to develop inconsistencies. Your character might be brave in Chapter 3, terrified of the same thing in Chapter 12 and inexplicably fearless again in Chapter 18. Or perhaps their personality is consistent — but their character arc isn't.
A good starting point is to create a character editing sheet for every major character.
Some things to include:
Character
Wants
Needs
Fear
Flaw
Strength
Secret
Turning point
Ending
Protagonist
Antagonist
Supporting character
Then compare the sheet against the manuscript.
Look closely at:
Motivation: Does the character have a believable reason for doing what they do?
Agency: Are they making decisions, or are things simply happening to them?
Consistency: Would this character actually say or do this?
Development: Has something changed by the end?
Relationships: Do relationships evolve, or remain strangely static?
Contradictions: Are there unexplained changes in personality, knowledge, beliefs or behaviour?
A character doesn't have to become a better person. They simply need to change — or deliberately refuse to change — in a way that makes sense for the story.
4. Check the pacing
Pacing isn't simply fast = good, slow = bad. Different scenes should move at different speeds.
A thriller may need rapid escalation. A literary novel may deliberately linger over an experience. A romance may slow down around emotional intimacy. A fantasy novel may need space to establish an unfamiliar world.
The question is whether the pace is appropriate for what is happening.
Look for:
long stretches without meaningful conflict;
repeated conversations;
excessive travel scenes;
information dumps;
scenes that take too long to reach their point;
chapters that end without forward momentum;
several emotionally intense scenes in succession;
too much time spent on events that don't matter later.
Try marking each chapter: Fast / Medium / Slow
Then look at the pattern.
A novel doesn't need constant speed. In fact, it needs variation. But if your pacing looks like 200 pages of slow scenes followed by 20 pages of fast scenes, you've probably found something worth investigating.
5. Look at point of view
Point of view problems can be surprisingly difficult to spot when you're the writer because you know everything happening inside every character's head.
Your reader doesn't.
For every scene, identify: Who is telling this story?
What can this character see?
What can they hear?
What do they know?
What don't they know?
What do they believe?
What are they noticing?
Would they realistically notice this particular detail?
Are you accidentally revealing information they couldn't possibly know?
This becomes particularly important in close third person and first person.
For example, if you're writing:
Sarah watched Tom walk into the room. He was worried about the conversation he'd had with his brother that morning.
You have potentially moved from Sarah's perspective into Tom's internal experience.
If Sarah cannot know what Tom is thinking, the narration needs to establish that information another way.
First-person editing
First person creates another challenge: everything passes through the narrator's personality.
A first-person narrator shouldn't sound like the author unless that is deliberately the point.
Ask: Would this person actually describe the world this way?
A seventeen-year-old, a Victorian aristocrat, a cynical detective and a six-year-old child shouldn't all narrate in the same voice.
6. Editing the scenes before the sentences
Once the large structure is working, move down one level and start looking at individual scenes.
For each scene, identify:
POV character
Location
Time
Goal
Conflict
Important information
Emotional movement
Ending/change
Then ask:
Does the scene begin in the right place?
Does it end in the right place?
Are characters entering and leaving unnecessarily?
Does the reader already know information that the scene spends too long explaining?
Is the conflict too easy?
Is the scene repeating information from an earlier scene?
Could two scenes be combined?
Is there a stronger way to enter the scene?
One of the best editing tricks is to experiment with cutting sections from the manuscript and assessing if they are needed, or if they can be cut and the story still makes sense.
7. Editing prose & voice
Only now should you get serious about individual sentences.
Line editing is about more than grammar. It examines clarity, rhythm, tone, repetition, word choice and the effectiveness of the prose. Copyediting comes later, dealing more systematically with correctness and consistency.
Read each paragraph and look for:
unnecessary words;
repetition;
clichés;
vague verbs;
excessive adjectives;
unnecessary adverbs;
awkward sentence structures;
overwritten description;
repetitive emotional reactions;
abstract language where concrete language would be stronger;
sentences that don't sound like the narrator.
When you find a sentence that feels clumsy, don't immediately start changing individual words.
Ask: What am I actually trying to say here?
Then rewrite the sentence from scratch. This is often much faster than trying to fix existing sentences. But be careful you don’t accidentally cut an important piece of foreshadowing.
Watch for filter words
Filter words place unnecessary distance between the reader and the character.
Examples include:
saw
heard
felt
noticed
realised
thought
wondered
looked
They aren't forbidden. Sometimes they're exactly right. The trick is to use them to their full advantage and cut them if they’re making your prose fall flat.
For example, compare:
She noticed that the room was getting colder.
with:
Cold crept beneath the door.
The second sentence places the reader closer to the experience. And sounds more ominous! What else is going to come creeping under the door?
8. Give Dialogue Its Own Editing Pass
Dialogue deserves special attention because fiction dialogue isn't supposed to reproduce real conversation exactly.
Real people ramble, repeat themselves, talk over one another and spend enormous amounts of time saying things that don't matter.
Fictional dialogue needs to feel natural while still doing something.
Ask:
Does each character have a recognisable voice?
Does the dialogue reveal character?
Does it create conflict?
Does it reveal information naturally?
Are characters saying things they would already know purely for the reader's benefit?
Are characters repeating information?
Are there too many dialogue tags?
Are action beats doing useful work?
Does every conversation need to happen?
One useful test is to remove the dialogue tags temporarily. Could you tell who was speaking?
If not, that isn't necessarily a problem — but it may be an opportunity to strengthen character voice. Fiction copyediting also has its own dialogue-specific conventions, which is one reason a fiction-specific style reference can be useful rather than relying solely on a general grammar guide. The Chicago Manual of Style can be useful to keep to a strict dialogue format across your manuscript, but find a style that works for you and try and stick to it.
A great example of differentiating character dialogue can be found in The Lord of The Rings. Legolas has a distinct voice, as do the Hobbits, always talking about food and suchlike. If you’re looking for inspiration, flip through The Two Towers.
9. Fact-Checking Your Fiction
Even fiction needs fact-checking. Your story may be imaginary, but readers will notice when the real-world details don't add up.
Fact-check anything your story relies on, particularly details relating to history, geography, science, medicine, law, technology, politics, professions, weapons, travel and cultural practices. A character who is a doctor, lawyer, police officer or scientist needs to behave within the broad realities of their profession, even if you take some creative liberties.
Fact-checking is also important for seemingly minor details. Check whether a particular technology existed at the time your story is set, whether a journey could realistically take the amount of time you've given it, whether a location has the landscape you've described, or whether a historical person could plausibly have been present.
Keep a simple research log as you edit:
Detail
Source checked
Decision
Some suggested facts to check:
Historical date
Location
Medical detail
Technology
Legal/professional detail
Language use for time period
Clothing in your time period
Magic systems
Fighting methods
Travelling times
You don't need to turn your novel into a research paper, unless that’s the style you’re going for. It could be an interesting format to visit.
The important point to remember is to know which details need to be accurate, which can be adapted for the story, and which are deliberately fictionalised. For anything particularly specialised or consequential, use a reliable primary or expert source rather than relying on a random search result.
Self-Editing Checklist
Before you consider the manuscript ready for beta readers, an editor, an agent or publication, ask:
1. Story
Does the novel have a clear central story?
Does the plot develop through cause and effect?
Are the stakes clear?
Are the major conflicts resolved?
Does the ending feel earned?
2. Characters
Does the protagonist have agency?
Are motivations believable?
Do major characters change?
Are relationships developed?
Are character voices distinct?
3. Structure
Does every chapter earn its place?
Does every important scene create change?
Are subplots necessary?
Are there structural gaps?
Is the climax in the right place?
4. Pacing
Are slow sections intentional?
Are action scenes understandable?
Are there unnecessary scenes?
Does tension increase appropriately?
Do chapter endings create forward momentum?
5. POV
Is the POV consistent?
Does every scene have a clear POV?
Does the narration stay within the character's knowledge?
Does the narrative voice suit the character?
6. Prose
Have you removed unnecessary repetition?
Are verbs doing enough work?
Have you checked for clichés?
Does the prose have rhythm?
Does the voice remain consistent?
7. Dialogue
Does dialogue sound natural rather than scripted?
Does each character have a distinct voice?
Is exposition being dumped into conversations?
Are dialogue tags and action beats necessary?
Does every important conversation change something?
8. Continuity
Are names consistent?
Are dates and ages correct?
Are locations consistent?
Are character details consistent?
Does the timeline work?
9. Final technical pass
Have you used a consistent style guide?
Have you created a style sheet?
Have you checked spelling?
Have you checked punctuation?
Have you checked formatting?
Have you read the final manuscript in a different format?
Have you proofread after making your final changes?
When Should You Stop Self-Editing?
There is always another sentence you could change. Eventually, self-editing can become a way of avoiding the terrifying moment when you have to let another person read the book. The goal is to make it the strongest version of the story you can create on your own.
A good self-edit should leave you with a manuscript that has a coherent structure, purposeful scenes, believable characters, controlled pacing, consistent point of view, deliberate prose and a clear sense of its own identity.
Then let someone else read it.
A professional editor, beta reader or trusted critique partner can see things you can't — particularly after you've lived inside the manuscript for months or years.
Self-editing doesn't replace editorial feedback. It makes that feedback more useful because you're handing over a manuscript that you've already gone through with a fine tooth comb.
A final tip: Save the proofreading and polishing until the ready end, in case you decide to remove a chapter or paragraph. That way you’re making the best us of your editing time.
