The importance of editing in creating a professional quality book manuscript

By Dennis Mellersh

In the art of writing a book it is difficult to overemphasize the importance of editing your manuscript as part of the overall creative writing process.

As writers, we are often too close to our work to see its shortcomings during the initial phase of the writing process.

This is particularly the case in writing a fictional work such as a novel where the size and complexity of the manuscript makes it hard for the creator to see repetitions, unnecessary or overblown passages, or inconsistencies, or problems with the plotting.

Ideally the services of a professional book editor should be sought whose experience can quickly identify shortcomings, which go beyond spelling, factual inaccuracies and grammatical errors.

As a start, before you seek the help of a third party, you may find it helpful to put your completed book manuscript aside for a time, say several weeks, and then revisit it with new perspective.

You may be surprised at how many problems you will discover which were not apparent during the excitement of the early creative process.

A book manuscript, particularly the initial iteration, should always be viewed as a work in progress, with a view to spending a lot of time and effort in the refining process.