Hi, everyone! This is the last in a 7-part series about how to rewrite, revise, and edit a novel. I love editing a book, but many people find it overwhelming. However you approach it, the key is to break it down step by step.

We’ve talked about (1) clarifying your character arcs, (2) fixing your pacing, (3) increasing your story’s impact, (4) fine-tuning speech and behavior, and the crucial and sometimes scary step of (5) getting feedback from beta readers.

From a copy editing standpoint, we’ve looked at the big stylistic issue of handing (6) dialogue tags.

Today I’m going to share a checklist for smoothing out your writing style even more! Every manuscript has its own strengths and weaknesses, and I can’t promise that if you do all this, you’ll have perfect prose. I canpromise that you’ll have much better prose!

Let’s dig in!