You’ve nailed your structure. The characters are fully alive. You’re confident in your story and writing style, but the manuscript needs a final polish. What do you do?

Here are 15 things to consider as you edit your prose:

1. Rhythm

All prose needs a balance between long and short sentences. As I write this post, WordPress is telling me that only 25% of my sentences should contain more than twenty words! There’s more room for manoeuvre in fiction, but it’s worth checking that you don’t have multiple long sentences in a row. On the other hand, some writers love using short, succinct sentences to create impact. If you use too many of these, the impact will be pretty minor. Read your work aloud to see if the writing has a good sense of flow.

2. Tone

You’ve probably decided on the tone you want to achieve by this point. Now, make sure it’s consistent. If you’re writing in a conversational 1st-person, look out for overly formal phrasing. For any contemporary fiction, cut old-fashioned language. (I always like to cut those words that you often see in fiction but would never say, e.g., he balked at the incredulous waiter’s exclamation.)

3. Overwriting

First time writers often try too hard. It’s good to put your all into the prose, but now you should cut any sentences that are dramatic, hyperbolic, or stuffed with adjectives. Watch out for mixed metaphors and any figurative language that doesn’t quite make sense.

‘It’s good to put your all into the prose, but now you should cut any sentences that are dramatic, hyperbolic, or stuffed with adjectives.’

4. Clichés

The cat that got the cream. You win some, you lose some. As good as gold. We all use clichés in everyday life and your characters probably will too, but when there are too many in your prose, the writing can come across cheesy or simply a bit tired. Look at a cliché as an opportunity to come up with your own original expression.

5. Specificity

Specific language is what brings writing to life. Replace vague language with specifics: she has a bowl of mangoes (not fruit), is wearing distressed skinny jeans (not trousers), and listening to bass-heavy RnB (not music).

6. Wordiness

When you use more words than the sentence needs, the prose gets baggy and the reader gets bored. Cut instances of repetition and redundancy. ‘She smiles with happiness. She has such a big grin on her face.’ Do these sentences communicate anything that wouldn’t be conveyed by the simple line, ‘She grins’?

‘When you use more words than the sentence needs, the prose gets baggy and the reader gets bored.’

7. Showing/Telling

Hopefully you’ve already addressed the balance of showing and telling in your manuscript. At the final stage, you just want to check for any slips into unnecessary telling. Sentences that scream of the author trying to communicate something, e.g., ‘The rocket would only launch if approval was given by Sumarukova.’ Lazy descriptions, e.g., ‘he looked angry’. Phrases that tell what you have already shown, e.g., ‘He twiddled his thumbs, anxious.’

8. Clarity

It’s hard to tell when your own writing is unclear so make sure you get feedback from others. The more you do this, the more you’ll notice your own habits and omissions and the clearer your writing will become.

9. Clunkiness

‘Clunky’ is how we often describe those sentences that just don’t sound quite right. They might have different parts crashing against each other or it could be an over-thought idea. Almost always, the answer is to simplify the sentence structure.

10. Abstract Language

When writing is full of abstract nouns, it’s harder for the reader to enter the physical scene. Look out for words like ‘hope’, ‘soul’ and ‘hate’ and think of ways to visualise them.

11. Empty modifiers and Adverbs

Words like ‘very’, ‘really’ and ‘quite’ rarely add much to a sentence in fiction. Adverbs are also overused. Always ask yourself if you could cut the adverb and find a more precise verb instead.

‘Always ask yourself if you could cut the adverb and find a more precise verb instead.’

12. Paragraphing

Check if any of your paragraphs are too long, including more than one significant beat, or too short, preventing the reader from getting into the flow of the scene. Make sure paragraphs are consistently indented with a tab (usually above the all-caps key on your keypad) but the first paragraph of each section is not indented.

13. Grammar

If you struggle with grammar, it’s probably worth receiving a manuscript assessment to help with this stage. One easy thing to look out for, though, is the incomplete sentence. Many writers use these as a stylistic device but too many incomplete sentences can become annoying. A complete sentence has a predicate (an action, written with at least one verb) and a subject (the person/thing that does the action). Without these elements, you have a sentence fragment. Use sparingly.

14. Punctuation & Spelling

Have you got a comma on both sides of your parenthetical fragment? Are you combining two sentences with a comma when really you need a full stop? Is your semi-colon doing what it’s supposed to? Punctuation is not the most important thing when it comes to submitting your work, but try to get your manuscript as clean as possible, even if it means using a punctuation guide! Note: exclamation marks are common in blog posts but can make your fiction appear unprofessional.

It’s a good idea to use spell-check too. Just make sure your ‘default language’ is British English, not American, if you’re submitting in the UK.

15. Formatting

When writing your novel, use whatever formatting works for you. Once you’ve completed your final polish, it’s time to put the text into double-spaced Times New Roman, font size 12, and add page numbers. If you’ve used a blank line to separate paragraphs, replace this with indentation. Sometimes, Word will automatically add a small space between each paragraph, so you might need to remove this in ‘Line Spacing Options’.

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How to Polish Your Prose

Tess