One of the most daunting tasks that faces any writer, no matter their area of specialty, is editing and revising their own work. Many writers tackling their first book or trying to sell their first story or article come to the task with a fear that revision will "ruin" what they have. This leads to uncertainty about how they can clean up their own writing and make sure that what the editor sees is the best they can give. However, there are a few guidelines that can make revision and self-editing as painless as the writing itself.

Editing: Things to Look Out For

Once your first draft is done and you are sitting down to edit for the first time, there are a few things you can work on right away to better bring out the positive qualities of your work.

Remove excess words. If a word is not crucial to the meaning of the sentence, consider striking it. Many small, connective words such as "the," "an" and "a" can be safely struck without negatively impacting the sentence. Many new writers are fond of words like "some," as in the phrase, "this might be the result of some repressed memory in the patient." Words like this become repetitious fast. A good rule of thumb for connective words is: use as few as possible and use them as simply as possible.

Remove excess adjectives. This problem comes up in fiction more often than anything else. Always try to communicate the tone your character is using in the words they say, rather than using adjectives; for example, "Joe said loudly," "Sally said sadly," and "Tom said angrily" should raise a red flag. Your work will read faster if you use your dialogue to convey the feeling of the adjective. Using fewer adjectives, and using them only to draw attention at important points or show contrast, makes each one stronger.

Use active voice. In passive sentences, the subject of the sentence is acted upon; in active sentences, the subject performs the action expressed in the sentence. Writing in passive voice sounds, as the name suggests, formal and slow. Differentiating between the two becomes second nature once you know what to look for. Instead of saying, “This text is being studied by most of the students,” say “Most students are studying this text.”

Beware of dialogue tags: Dialogue tags can be clunky and distracting for the same reason as adjectives. Many professional writers agree that simple dialogue tags such as "he said," "she answered" and so on are preferable over tags such as, "she exclaimed," "he mused," and the famous example from The Red Badge of Courage, "he ejaculated." Verbose dialogue tags can be self-referential and silly. As with adjectives, use descriptive tags rarely, and only when drawing specific attention to something. Like Hemingway, you may decide to omit tags completely when only two people are speaking.

Check for spelling errors: Though this seems obvious, there are many errors that aren't caught by the average word processing program. It is generally easier to find these mistakes if you print out your work and read through it with a pen handy; on a computer monitor, what you expect to see, or remember writing, can make it difficult to catch some mistakes that are right in front of your nose.