I'm about to begin editing the rough draft of my first completed novel. Any advice?

Make sure you capitalized the first letter of the first word in every sentence.

If you just finished writing, put it away for a week or so before you start. Editing out own words is exceptionally hard because our mind somehow automatically knows what we meant to type, not what we may have actually typed. Be brutal on yourself. I don’t do fiction but my last NF book went through nearly ten edits, two by professional editors who just happen to be friends, so do several edits, have others edit/proof, and repeat this process several times. An excellent book on this is The Frugal editor by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, ISBN-13: 978–0978515874 I have no connection to the author, have just bought and used the book effectively.

Have a lot of coffee on hand. Go line by line. Use a highlighter. Post-it tabs help with checking consistency and continuity.

Make legible notes.

Back up your files before overwriting.

Take breaks, and go for walks (outside) during them.

rinse and repeat!

Congratulations on completing your draft! That in itself is a big achievement.

Knot is right: back up, preferably to CD. Back up often. Always ask yourself: how much of this do I want to do over?

Before you are through, you will need an editor, just as Alaska says. But first, as you are reworking it yourself, I would offer this: anything you feel nervous about, anything that sounds dumb to you, anything you can’t restate clearly in your own mind because you are not sure what it says, anything that makes you cringe—change it. It will not improve with age.

I used to do proofing for people while at the University. I maked words that were misspelled and sentences that weren’t complete. This was after the writer had proofed it 2 or 3 times. These were techinical papers and real bitch to read and you never got interested in them. The folks above are right. It is very hard to discern errors when you think it says what was in your mind.

I would have a second person proof it for you w/o your help. Let them find the erors and parts that are goofey to the average person.

Good luck!

@queenzboulevard: How long does it take you to come up with in-depth soul searching helpful answers? Kidding, Happy New Year Dude!

I’ve even read mine aloud to the poor dogs to slow down my eyes and still missed things (not to mention bored the dogs silly), so there is definitely a need for fresh eyes editing. Another hint I’ve been given is to read it backward. Not word by word, that wouldn’t work, but by sentences. Takes longer cos it doesn’t flow, so to speak, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s good. All good advice here, btw.

I have handouts from a revising fiction class that I took a few months ago. If you send me a comment with your e-mail, I’ll work on getting you a .pdf. There were a lot of practical tips offered such as editing for one problem at a time and doing them in a specific order so that you end up doing less rework. You’ll have to put up with my doodles, though.

Congrats on the novel! Good luck editing!
I have no advice, really. I’m a terrible writer.

i am still editing my first book. i write, edit, rewrite, post notes, highlight, tweak, etc. it really is a process for sure. i put it down, go back to it next week, put it down, cook dinner, do homework with the kids—it goes on and on.

My favorite author tells me he never has to edit, and writes it all out correctly the first time. When his editor asks for a change, it is like WW3. Personally, I am never satisfied with anything I write, so I stick to short fiction. A novel would kill me, for all the changes I would make. But yeah, reading it out loud, having someone read it back to you, have other folks proofread for you are all good suggestions. I think I’ll try a couple of them next itme.

I have noticed over many years that it’s the real pros who welcome editing. They understand the nature of the collaboration and realize that the editor is their ally. A good editor knows what to leave alone and never interferes with the author’s voice.

Send it to me. Just kidding, though I AM a great proofreader. Look for the basic stuff, grammar, spelling errors, etc. Then give it to several other people to see if they can find any errors. But even in printed books, I often find errors, it’s not too big of a deal. I’m stuck on the 27th page of the novel I’m writing. :(

Before diving into editing typos and spelling mistakes, I’d first read it through and think structurally about the novel. After some time away from it (as AlaskaTundra suggested) read it afresh. What impression does it give you? Where are the biggest structural holes? Do you care about the protagonist’s conflict?

One book I really enjoyed is Sol Stein’s How to Grow a Novel
In there there’s a technique called “triage”, which basically means is: find the weakest scene in your novel, and cut it. Then find the second weakest, consider cutting it, etc, etc as long as it is necessary.

Wow…vanity press. A direct violation of Yog’s Law.

Bad, bad ju-ju.