Self editing: A guide

So many ways to clean up your writing and there are a thousand ways I could tell you, but most of them are complicated and are very time consuming. This doesn’t go to say that you can do a two-click trick and make your writing as clean as can be, but there are quite a few things you need to look out for because honestly, most clear writing comes down to knowing what makes unclean writing. For this, I’m going to use a few examples to show you exactly what is going on.

Cut the fat

So much of self-editing is knowing when to cut fat. I’m going to tell you some of the words that I personally find ‘fatten up’ writing and make it so the flow is staggered and, in some cases, completely lost me. These words need to be replaced and made redundant from any text unless you need them in there because otherwise the sentence doesn’t make any sense. A key priniple to adhere to when writing in the later stages is make sure every word in the sentence has its place. Some of the most problematic words are below:

That	​ You can almost always take this word out. That thing over there tends to be vague. For example, that jar over there is red. You could be more specific in your language usage, unless you’re trying to direct the reader.
There	​This tends to be the hallmark of messy, underdeveloped writing. You can make it a lot more to the punch with ensuring that this turns into a more active version.

Reframe the senses

I find sense and writing about them to be really hard. For those who need a recap, the five senses are: taste, smell, touch, sight, hearing. These five senses are mostly underused in writing and so you should, to make a painting in the reader's mind and make the writing jump off the page, to describe each of these. I’ll make another post on this topic shortly. To make your writing more effective, you need to be careful with how you word these senses. Here is some of the ways you can cut the fat:

touch	The touch of the characters should try not to be expressed through the phrase ‘he/she/they felt X.’ Instead, it should be expressed through touching the object, as such: ‘the object was rough against his skin.’ Something to this effect helps with writing some of the tricker things to describe through touch.
taste	Taste is the hardest one next to smell. My best advice for this one is what the back of their mouth is like. Figure out the taste of an area – is there, for example fresh bread and consider what language could infer that without telling us that the character tasted fresh bread. Even the phrase ‘taste of’ when used sparsely, works well.
hearing	Describe like you would sight. Phrases like ‘the sound of’ seem clunky sometimes in writing and I would avoid them. Instead describe the ringing in the ear after a gunshot or the screaming in an argument in the next apartment.
smell	​ Smell is hard because some things can smell the same as they feel. Smells such as ash can be smelled, tasted and felt. I’ll go into this more alter and in the post I wrote about the subject. Try to stay away from 'smelled' if possible and use different words if you can.
sight	Sight is easy. Think of the physical environment. Describing things with a visually impaired character is hard, though. You can use images if that’s easier to help with this if you aren’t a visual person. What writers need to know about this is that you need to try and describe the sense itself and not tell us the sense . It’s the building blocks of the show don’t tell trick and can, sometimes, mean that writing feels bloated from newer writers.

Focus on the details

too often writers decide that they should bloat their writing up and make it so filled with uneeded details. Remember the rule of Chekov's gun: if the gun hasn't been fired and killed at least one person, then it shouldn't be there in the first place. Of course if you're trying to use a red herring (a device used ot mislead your reader) and intentionally doing so, then you still need to ensure that you're doing this effectively and efficently. I'll do a post on this and other ways to misdirect your reader.

---

I hope that this post has helped you understand the best ways you can start to trim the fat and make your work better through self-editing. Please remember that this will never replace the work of a professional editor, but these tyingd will help you clean up your writing .