Our first article, iUniverse shows you How to Proof your First Draft – Part 1, looked at screen revision or print out, revision completion date, and starting your revision. In this second editorial we take you further into the processes needed to complete your first draft in a timely and hassle free manner.
Where to place your corrections
Using double-lined and good margins around the proof will give you plenty of space for amendments and reminders. Use the margins for dialogue which is vague or a prompt of how a character looks. Larger ideas can go in your notebook.
Red ink is best for deletions, blue for insertions and the other two colors as a day by day swap, making it easier to see each day’s changes. Use the same colors in your notebook for improved changes to the storyline.
Combining scenes or characters
Sometimes to make your story flow in the first draft you might have added a scene or character which later you wonder why you did it. If this occurs try and take out the scene or combine it with another. If a character is not relevant to a situation, why is he/she/it there? A solution is to expand the character, use him/her/it as a bystander or delete completely.
Completing your revision
After going through the manuscript and having incorporated your changes you may feel it’s now finished. Not yet!
You took time to revise your book, reducing the word count by 25% and adding substance and worth to each scene and character. You even found spelling mistakes a word-processing software did not pick up. So let’s do it all again.
This time print it out in a smaller typeface, less line space and tighter margins. Proofing takes a lot of paper, toner and time, but it’s worth it.
With the previous revision beside you run through the changes made. Look for mistakes which probably have crept in to the new inserted sections. You may even find a different way of relating a piece of dialogue or looking at the interaction between characters. Whatever it may be, check, and check again.
The Ending
As a writer you have nursed your book through its birth, its youth and into its mature years. You gave your heart, soul and every waking and sleeping moment to it, and probably neglected your immediate family for this chance of bringing your baby to fruition. So the final suggestion to end this tale is to take hold and throw it as long and as far as you can into the iUniverse self-publishing world. The End!
And the beginning…
iUniverse hopes you enjoyed the second and final article in our series, iUniverse shows you How to Proof your First Draft. iUniverse publishing, our team and services are here to help.
To learn more about the role of iUniverse in the successful book publishing revolution. Click Here
0 comments:
Post a Comment