Spring Cleaning Your Manuscript

by Kristen Weber

Cleaning my home and deciding which treasures I can live with and which I can live without always makes me think about the process of revising a manuscript. We spend so much time in our home (or inside a manuscript!) that it often becomes hard to see what’s really there. For example, I finally tossed a hideous plate that had been living prominently for the past who knows how long on my coffee table. I only meant to put it out when the gift giver stopped by, but that one day turned into weeks and for as little attention as I paid to it, it could have been invisible.

This is what can happen when you’re living inside your manuscript. You’ve been looking at it for so long that you can’t even see it anymore, and sometimes what you do see isn’t even there. As I tell my clients, writing is often like feeling your way alone through a dark cave. I consider my editing – or really any constructive feedback that you get from a neutral and unbiased reader – like giving you a flashlight, so you can see where you’re going that much more clearly. One of my writers even told me recently that my comments were like, “…having a door opened to a new world.” Sometimes you need a big event – like a move or a brand new reader – to clue you into what has been in front of you the whole time.

At the very least before you start to query agents or put your manuscript out into the world in whichever way you choose, you should put it into a drawer for a couple of weeks. Then you should come back to it and read it one more time with fresh eyes. If you don’t want to wait, it can also help to change the font of your manuscript or make the words bigger or smaller. That will change your perspective and help you feel like you're looking at something completely new.

As you go through this final act of spring cleaning, it’s important to know what to toss and what to keep. My husband and I found we were saving a lot of stuff “just in case” – but that “just in case” stuff hasn’t been touched in years and was gathering dust on shelves. It was time for us to toss it. If you don’t want to go as far as completely throwing out your words, copy and paste them into a new document and save them for a new project. You can even do that with entire characters that are well written but don’t necessarily belong in the book you’re dealing with at the moment.

This type of cleaning is a lot of work, but can also be totally reinvigorating. While there might be a lot of junk you need to get rid of, you never know what treasures you’ll find.

Kristen Weber is an independent book editor specializing in commercial fiction. You can learn more about the services she offers here.

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