You have written a story – short story or novel, it doesn’t matter. Now it is time to self-edit it. It is easy to find flaws in other people’s work, but quite difficult to recognise them in your own.

There are three components of self-editing:

1. line/copy-editing,
2. sentence editing,
3. content editing.

Line/Copy-editing

A point to remember, whilst the spell check in word processors will identify some misspelt words, you should never rely on it when self-editing as they do not pick up words that are correctly spelled but used in the wrong context (such as to, too, two, their, there, would, wood).

However, you should use the ‘find and replace’ function to check the following:

Sentence Editing

Once you’ve completed the basic line/copy-edit to correct spelling and grammar, you will need to examine your sentences and the words used. Ask yourself these questions:

Is the language specific, strong?
Do your words allow visualisation?
Is the main character well developed, convincing?
Will the reader sympathise with the main character?
Is there jargon or cliches that should be removed?
Are you too wordy or concise?
Is the word choice supportive of the setting?
Is the tone consistent?
Are there shifts in tone, tense, style or voice?
Is the dialogue convincing?
Does the dialogue move the story along?
Does the dialogue reveal character, conflict or emotion?

Content Editing

The course tackles this last but I feel this should be the first thing you do as major changes could result which may mean the work you’ve already completed in the line/copy-edit and sentence edit has been wasted.

Some more questions you should ask yourself:

What is your story about?
Can you sum up, in one sentence, what you story is about?
Are you saying what you want to say?
What does the main character want? Is this clear from the start?
Where is the story set? Is it important?
Will the reader relate to the main character?
Does the story have direction?
Is there a catchy beginning?
Is the conflict clear from the beginning?
Do the characters face interesting obstacles and make difficult decisions?
Does every action have cause and effect?
Is the main character well developed and interesting?
What is the character’s ruling passion or fatal flaw?
Does the character struggle, grow, change, make a stand?
Is the right character telling the story?
Does the setting create the right mood, have a strong sense of time and place, further the theme and plot?
Is there continuance, consistency and credibility?
Has the point of view or tense changed?
Are the characters believable?
Is the narrative voice right for the story?

Professional Presentation

Once the story has been written, rewritten and edited until it is the best it can be, it is time to take steps to ‘present’ your work in a professional manner.

I would recommend you using William Shunn’s Proper Manuscript Format Website as a guide, but here’s a quick checklist:

• Use A4 good quality white paper
• Use no less than 12 point black font
• Never use colour ink
• Use double spacing for manuscript content
• Use a title page, or more often these days, insert the following onto the first page of the manuscript:
  story title
  author’s name
  approximate word count
  full name, address and contact details
• Insert into top header, except first page, right aligned, in the following format:
  story title/ author’s surname / page number
• Left justify content.
• Make sure there is no extra white space between paragraphs and the first line of each paragraph is indented up to five spaces (3 is a good number).
• Never bind pages.
• Always keep a backup copy on disk (or, do what I do, email yourself a copy for safe keeping).
• Most important, always read the publisher guidelines and do as directed. Always!

The current unit is hard, taxing on the brain, challenging. My initial thought, “this will be easy!” was totally incorrect. So far, this unit has proved I’m not only stupid, but I’m incredibly slow.

Talk about falling flat on your face! I’ve done that and it hurts.

My vocabulary is shot – and, by the way, I can’t even say the word out loud without stumbling. I’ve been advised to read the dictionary more often. And then, at work, I’m told I’m too quiet and must stand up and speak out more often (in fact, to back this up, my team leader has informed me that I’ll be ‘heading’ the next meeting…brilliant!)

These situations have done nothing to improve my confidence. However, I’m not a quitter (well, not for long anyway) and I have forged ahead with the unit (I’m hoping my team leader will forget his threat about the meeting). I’m still only half way through the unit but I’ve written the required short fiction. Literary fiction! Again, I feel out of my depth. I write genre fiction, not literary (yet another word that doesn’t come to my lips easily).

The course tells me literary fiction is easy to write, genre fiction is difficult. Sorry, my experience is the other way around. Anyway, I was required to fictionalise an event from my past. Luckily, I have five decades of the past to choice from so it was easy to come up with ‘an event’ that could be made to sound more interesting than it actually was.

I finished the story yesterday, so on Monday I’ll return to the unit and see if I can move forward with it, at last.

In other news, the final edits of the manuscripts for Hope have been done and the stories will be submitted by the end of next week. And, a new printer has been found in Australia and contracts have been signed. This is an exciting time, but it also means my work load will double in coming weeks so don’t be surprised if I disappear for a while.

OK, my whinging session is over. You can go back to what you were doing now.

I’ve heard that some people only read in the summer and others love to read in front of a warm fire during winter, so it seemed appropriate for me to add my ebooks to the Smashwords July Summer/Winter Sale July 1-31 because as Smashwords have so rightly acknowledged, “It’s summer in the Northern Hemiphere, and winter for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere.”

And if people really love to read then why not give the ebooks away for free!

So that is what I’ve done. You can get a copy of Cat’s Eyes and/or Speculative Realms: Where there’s a will, there’s a way right now for free. But this deal is only valid until 31 July 2011.

Click on the book covers above to be taken to the ebook of your choice. Or, grab a copy of them both. Membership to the Smashwords website is free, so it will cost you exactly nothing but a few minutes of your time.

If you enjoy the ebooks, please take a moment or two to write a quick review. It would be much appreciated.

And while you’re there, don’t forget to see what other free ebooks you can find.