The Editing Process : the first level edit

Over the next week or so I'm going to concentrate on the editing process, talking about the different edits you'll need to do before you send your work out to find a publisher. Begin the first level edit after you have left your first draft aside for awhile, so that you come to it with a fresh eye.

Writers generally use too many words and your job is to read through your work, find and eliminate these. You'll probably find many redundant words; for instance:

an invited guest
a new recruit
usual custom
blue in colour
plan in advance
5 a.m. in the morning
smile on her face
completely surrounded
more superior
really dangerous
cancel out
connect up
merge together

Then you will need to find all those phrases that can be replaced by one word, for example:

a large number of (many)
during the time that (when)
in regard to (about)
on a regular basis (regularly)

There are plenty of good books that will help you with the correct use of words such as, who/that; the/of; as/to/by...and so on.

Make sure that all the words you have used in your story/article are the right words. Do they mean exactly what you want to convey? Make good use of your Thesaurus - an 'almost right word' will not be good enough. When you have all the words right, you will be ready to move onto the next stage of the editing process.