10 Editing Hacks for Non-fiction Writers – Part 1: The Big Picture

You’ve got a finished draft, a freshly sharpened pencil and an impending deadline…

What now?

Pro tip: Muji make the best editing pens

Writer, edit thyself

Developing a solid self-editing practice is essential for any writer. Every time you edit your own work, you become more familiar with your worst habits – the weaknesses in your craft and the irritating peccadilloes you seem unable to avoid. Fun! But knowledge is power, as they say, and the good news is that every time you cross out your overused word du jour, you are training your brain to do better next time.

There are also many occasions when hiring an editor isn’t an option and you have no choice but to rely on your own red pen. And even if you do plan to hand your writing over to a professional, you’re likely to feel more secure in your work and the creative decisions you've made if you've taken the time to refine and polish them yourself. So, self-editing it is.

A mysterious art

But where to begin? Even the most experienced writers can feel intimidated by editorial work, with its arcane rules and secret symbols. Not everyone is as confident with spelling and grammar as they’d like to be. Style guides can be confusing to the uninitiated. ‘Proper’ usage can feel archaic and incompatible with our modern taste for the informal.

Here, I hope to demystify the process and prove that you can effectively edit your own work even if you’ve no idea what a dangling participle is and couldn’t confidently identify an en dash if your life depended on it. Editing is essentially about ensuring that you are communicating clearly with your intended audience; that what you have written is the best possible showcase for the story you want to share. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.

So, today we’re looking at five practical, easy-to-follow hacks (clickbait, moi?) for what I’d loosely term the ‘big picture’ stage of editing – the point at which you’re trying to identify and fix any substantial issues with content and structure. I’ve primarily focused on non-fiction writing – blogs, articles, reports or the first draft of a book – but I hope any fiction writers who accidentally end up here might also pick up a few helpful tips.

In the next part of the blog, we’ll move on to the more detailed work.

Let’s get to it!

1.    Take a break

This is an oft-repeated tip, and I’m repeating it here because it really is that important. No matter how long you’ve spent writing your draft, the chances are that by the time you’ve finished, you’ll have developed a severe case of word-blindness. If you start editing page 1 immediately after typing ‘The End’, you’ll be doing yourself and your work a disservice.

So, take the longest break you possibly can and then come back to the document with fresh eyes. If you’re on a deadline and can only take an hour, go for a walk around the block, meditate or take a bracing shower – anything to freshen you up and provide at least a little bit of perspective.

2.    Go big

Editing isn’t just a one-time deal. Ideally, you should read through your document several times, becoming increasingly laser-focused with each pass. How many times, exactly, depends on how long you have, the length and complexity of the piece and how much of a perfectionist you are, but the general rule is that you should start by concentrating on the ‘big picture’ before moving on to progressively more granular edits. Macro to micro. Plot holes to typos.

Here’s why: it’s a waste of your time and energy to finesse every sentence of your first draft, only to discover further down the line that you need to cut a whole chapter. And if you are making substantial cuts, or moving chunks of text around, a more delicate hand and focused eye will be required to repair the damage. So always aim to cut first, then correct.

3.    Formatting for the win

If you’re fully refreshed after your walk around the block but still not sure where to begin, try taking some time to review and improve the formatting. Procrastination? Yes. But also an important editorial stage that I find it can make for a surprisingly useful warm-up.

Make sure any headings (part and chapter titles, sub-headings, etc.) are consistently styled with clear, easy-to-read fonts. If you've included tables or lists, style them in the same way throughout the document. This is not only aesthetically pleasing but will help readers to navigate the text – particularly helpful in more technical non-fiction.

When you’re done, stand back and consider the balance of your piece. (Sometimes I actually zoom out, for a true bird’s eye view.) Is part 2 significantly longer than part 1? And if so, is that a problem? Have you used regular subheadings in the first five chapters and then stopped? Start to make a list of things you want to address.

4.    Are you content with your contents?

A good way to get a sense of how your piece is working as a whole is to make a list of all your headings – the ones you just styled beautifully. If you’ve already got a contents page, use that. Bingo! There’s your structure at a glance.

First things first: did you remember to include everything you intended to? Sounds basic, but it’s amazing how easy it is to overlook something you really did mean to include in chapter 2. Go back over your notes to be sure. How does what you intended to write match up to what you've ended up with? Plans evolve as you write, of course, but it's a good idea to confirm that you haven't accidentally wandered way off course.

Next, take a deep breath and try to recall what it was that you were trying to achieve when you set out to write this piece. Do you think you've done it? Is there a clear line of logic that flows from chapter to chapter, section to section? By the time the reader gets to the final line, will they have understood everything you wanted them to understand? Will they feel what you want them to feel?

Any issues you identified while working on the formatting should now start to come into focus, as you consider the structure in more detail. If you have ideas about things to cut or text that needs to be rearranged, try working them out on the outline before cutting up the document itself.

5.    Follow-through

We can put it off no longer. It’s time to read. But remember we’re still only interested in the wide-angle view here, so try not to get distracted by looking for typos or that one annoying sentence that you just know you could make better. Their time will come.

I strongly suggest that you read on paper at this stage. Not only will your eye see things that you missed on screen, but there’s something immensely satisfying about striking out whole swathes of text with your pen. Scribble notes. Use highlighters and colour-coded Post-its. Don’t worry about fancy proofreading marks – as long as it’s clear to you, that’s all that matters.

If you have already done the preparatory work I’ve suggested, you’ll be reading with some ideas already in mind. And here’s another task: make a note of every time you introduce a new idea or new theme – big or small. What happens next? Do you develop the idea to its conclusion? Will a reader be able to follow the theme all the way through the manuscript – or at least as far as you intended them to? Don’t leave loose threads – unless doing so is a deliberate creative act, designed to leave your readers wanting more. There’s nothing more frustrating than following a line of thought across several chapters and then realising that the author just… forgot about it.

When you’ve been through the whole document and you’re confident that you’ve identified all the substantial changes you want to make, it’s then time to transfer them onto your computer. This is always dull work, but nevertheless, a useful opportunity to ensure that the edits you’re implementing actually work.

So, there we are. A brisk jaunt through the ‘macro’ stage of editorial work. This is the part of the process that can feel brutal – like you’re ripping your work apart and roughly sticking it back together again. But worry not, in the next blog we’re going to learn how to smooth those jagged edges – and correct your typos.

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A brief disclaimer, because I am scared of the internet: This is my attempt to itemise a process that is pretty instinctive for me, having worked as an editor for the better part of two decades. It’s not meant to be completely comprehensive and I’m sure other editors will suggest all kinds of alternative strategies. That’s OK! It’s worth remembering that every editor works differently – we all have little tricks and techniques that we’ve picked up and integrated into any more formal training we may have had. And, as you develop your own editing practice, you will do the same. You will find a method that works for you – and as long as it does work, it doesn’t matter how bonkers it might look to someone else. So, please feel free pick and choose from the list as you see fit!

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