In last week’s post, Why You Shouldn’t Start Edits Yet, a very natural question arose in the comments section: How do you know if you should bother with editing your book? How do you know if it’s worth it?
That’s a decision that only you the author can make, but I’ll offer my experience and thought process about which books I’ve edited and which I’ve chosen not to. Hopefully hearing my experience can help you decide!
We have to start with goals, I think. What’s your goal for this book and for you as a writer?
My goal with my books is almost always “to publish it.” Most of the time if I choose not to edit a book, it’s because for whatever reason the book is not publishable.
The “unpublishable” verdict doesn’t necessarily mean that I wrote a bad story. For example, I wrote a YA dystopian many years ago (in the height of dystopian frenzy) and a contemporary romance novel a few years back. While I liked both these stories, I knew by the time I finished the manuscript that this genre wasn’t a good fit for me long-term. I had written the book with the goal of exploring a new genre, and I achieved my goal with only a first draft when I discovered, “No, I don’t want to do this.” I didn’t need to edit the manuscripts.
But another time when I wrote a full manuscript exploring a new genre—historical mystery—I absolutely loved it. I had no idea if I could sell it or what my agent would think, but I knew I loved the experience and wanted to try for publication. That book became The Lost Girl of Astor Street.
My first draft was an absolute mess. I’d never written a historical. I’d never written a mystery. Trying to blend two genres I knew very little about led to a chaotic, half-baked first draft. Even though I had no contract lined up, and I hadn’t even told my agent that I was working on this book, I knew I wanted to put it through edits.
Based on that experience, here are some reasons why you might decide to invest in editing your novel:
Reason 1: You still love this book.
When I read through the first version of The Lost Girl of Astor Street, I knew edits were going to be long and involved. The first draft was 20,000 words short of where the book ended up, if that tells you anything. My villain originally didn’t enter the story until 2/3 of the way through the book. There were no classic 1920s moments like a speakeasy scene, flapper lingo, or even a cloche reference.
And yet, I felt excited as I read the manuscript and made my notes. I could see all the problems, but I could see lots of good stuff too.
This is another reason why I’m such a believer in taking extended time away from your first draft. If I’d pulled that awful manuscript out the day or week after finishing it, I think I would’ve read through the story and felt exhausted. I might not have had eyes to see the good stuff.
Reason Two: You can see potential.
This one overlaps a bit with the previous, but I do think it’s something worth noting separately.
When I read through the first draft of The Lost Girl of Astor Street, the problems I made note of were not insurmountable. To me, they felt like potential. Yeah, that character read flat, but I could see that there was potential there. I’d definitely handled the villain wrong, but I already had a list of ways to bring them in sooner.
When you can see not just the, “This is good stuff, and this is bad stuff,” but also the good things that can be made even better and the bad things that can be fixed, that’s a great sign that edits will be worth your time.
Reason Three: Editing Will Help You Achieve Your Goal
Maybe your goals changed as you wrote this book. Maybe you started out just having fun with an idea, and now you’re thinking more about how much you’d like to be published.
Or maybe you’re writing this book as a gift for someone else, or as healing for yourself, or just because writing this story brings you joy.
Whatever your goal is, would editing this novel bring you closer to it, or push you further away?
Last week, I talked about the first time I allowed space between writing a draft and editing a draft. During my 6 weeks off, one thing I did was go to Barnes and Noble, find the YA shelves, and bring home a handful of books. They were the first current YA books I had ever read.
So when I came back to my manuscript, my goal of being published was the same, but I understood better what that goal involved. What quality and depth I would need to be on those shelves with Sarah Dessen, Meg Cabot, and the others I’d “discovered.” Editing that book would’ve set me back, because in my six weeks away, I had grown in understanding of what a published YA novel should be and I knew this manuscript would never cut it.
I didn’t have this language for it then, but basically I had decided that first draft I’d written was a sunk cost. I couldn’t undo writing it, but I didn’t have to invest more time in it. To invest editing that book would’ve delayed writing a new book that could be publishable. (Good call on my part, because my next book evolved into Me, Just Different.)
But your choice isn’t just, “Should I edit this book, or should I not?” There’s also a secret option c. You can decided to not edit right now.
That first draft isn’t going anywhere. There’s no reason why you have to start editing now, or why you even need to decide if you’re going to. If you’re unsure, you could put the manuscript away for a bit, decide to look at it later, and make the decision then. I’ve done that on a number of books that ultimately were published.
I’m interested in what our community thinks about this question. How do you decide if it’s worth it to edit your manuscript?
Also, if editing is something that overwhelms you or you just want to learn more about it, check out Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel by me and Jill Williamson. We wrote it with you in mind!
Thank you for this post, Stephanie! I’m coming up on the end of my first draft for my current WIP, which is very exciting, but then that launches me into phase “edit”. So, here are my thoughts on deciding whether or not a story is worth editing.
I think that sometimes you have to try editing. You have to persevere through it and understand why you might not be enjoying it. I was 1/4 of the way through a Macro Edit, and I decided to put the book aside for a few weeks in order to come back to it with fresh eyes, and with deeper understanding of writing. It is also good to name what exactly is frustrating you and making you not want to edit. For me, it was overwhelm, and naming that was helpful because I understood why I didn’t want to edit and I could decide on taking a different approach to editing in order to fix that.
I hope that helps! Keep up the good work, everyone!
Adi, those are really great thoughts. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed in edits, even after you’ve done them several times. I hope you learned useful stuff that you can apply to your next round of edits!
I love that you mention that option c, because I feel like that happens with many books. I personally have a draft of a book I wrote five years ago. I did edit it and work on it and make it as good as I could back then, but at some point felt tired of it and wanted to try new things. I have written and edited other stories since, but none of them felt as exciting, and I keep thinking about that story. I feel like I have grown a lot as a writer since then, and now I might be ready to pull that story out again and make it even better, after such a long time away from that world. I feel like we sometimes forget that writing is not a race, and even though I am not as excited about my projects in the last years, they still helped me learn and improve. And who knows, I might go back to them one day too!
Wonderful insights, Fraise. It’s not a race, nor is it a linear journey! So glad you continue on.
Sometimes I feel like so many things are swirling in my mind that I don’t know how to write them out in a way that makes sense. This post does that to me.
One struggle (maybe it’s two) I have is I don’t know how to identify what’s good and bad about my writing. I also don’t know how to fix it.
I hear that editing is a different part of your brain so I guess it figures that it needs to be learned just like writing a draft needs to be learned.
You’ve mentioned how there are times we grow so much between the beginning of a draft and the end of it that it’s not always worth editing. I would love that to be what happens with the story I’m working on now but then I think how do I even know if I’ve improved? I just know that I’ve been trying really hard!
All that to say, I’ve been overthinking about overthinking again :/
I want to give you a hug, Tonya!
Yes, just like you have to learn how to write a full first draft, you also have to learn to edit. They are different skill sets, and while they sharpen each other, they each take practice. You will get there. I believe in you!
Sounds like you do have a lot on your mind. But, like Stephanie said, I believe in you!
I’m sure your writing has improved with time and that there are lots of good things about it, even if you don’t see that.
My recommendation is that, rather than focusing on the things that are objectively “good” or objectively “bad” about your WIP, maybe just try and find the things that YOU like and don’t like and go from there. This is, after all, your book, so you have to like it before anyone else can. Maybe go through and make a list of “Things I Like” and “Things I Want to be Different”.
Whatever you decide to do, I’m sure that time and dedication will lead you to where you want to be. You’ve got this!
Thanks, Em! I can definitely say my mind words overtime ? it’s not always fun!
I like that suggestion, Em!
Thank you so much for this post! After reading it, I feel much more confident about the decisions I have and will make regarding when to edit. The aspect of personal goals has opened my mind a wander a little deeper and my eyes to see a bit clearer.
I love hearing that! I’m so glad, Camille.
Great advice! My goal right now (or write now 🙂 is to complete a full draft. I’d also like to see improvements in grammar and keeping the same tense.
When you read those YA on your draft break, did you inentionally study them, taking notes etc? Or did you read them casually & just learn? I’ve been thinking of nerdily 🙂 diagramming my favorite books of their plots & GMC each scene.
Felicity, if I’d known such things existed, I would’ve gotten nerdy with it too! I think that could be really useful. Just so long as you don’t lose sight of your goal! The goal isn’t to analyze the books perfectly, the goal is to learn from them to write your books better.
I’m really close to the editing stage. I know that my manuscript is a mess- lots of foreshadowing that didn’t pan out because the ideas changed, things that didn’t get foreshadowed because I thought of them later, dropped subplots, character development issues, topics that need research, etc. etc.- and yet, I’m so excited to edit. I see potential in my book, and I love the idea of being able to smooth everything out and see it all come together. It’s like the video production class I took in high school. Writing the book was like shooting the footage. Now I just need to cut it all together in a cohesive whole. And I can’t wait!
I’m excited for you!
I was having trouble sticking to an idea long enough to get to the editing phase, I just had so many new ones that I wanted to write, right then and there. I guess that’s not a terrible problem to have, just frusrating when you don’t know which one to choose and they all sound good. But I’m sticking with one project for the 100-for-100. It’s helping me become more disciplined and I can’t wait to edit.
Thank you for this post and wisdom!
That can be really difficult, Alana! I’m glad the 100-for-100 has been helpful 🙂