Ok. I’ve been scouring the internet for the ultimate editing checklist for editing my novel. That has proven to be harder than I thought. I wanted real concrete specifics, and I kept finding lists of generalities, which while useful were ultimately disappointing.
Even the longest, most complete checklist devoted most of the content to story arc, themes, point of view, scenes and chapters. It’s all good stuff, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.
I wanted a list, a big literal list of mistakes I should make sure I didn’t have in my manuscript. Particularly around my bane in the English language – the comma.
And I wasn’t finding it. So, I did what any hyper-driven, hyper-independent person would do – I made my own.
Is this the final version of all my efforts? Not likely. I’ll keep tweaking this as I find more things to make sure I weed out of my manuscript.
But, even without the final, final, final stamp of DONE I’m going to share it. Because it is a useful tool. It’ll improve and grow no doubt.
Will this list solve all your writing woes? Probably not but it can provide a place to start. If you have a suggestion for another item, or group of items go ahead and drop it in the comments.
Until then, happy editing.