How to proofread and correct your manuscript?

Congratulations, you have just finished the first draft of your manuscript, and you have something to be proud of! 💪

What if now we gave you all the keys to reread and correct it, in order to make it even more perfect? 🤔

1 - Proofreading and correction

When you reread yourself, you should always ask yourself if:

👉 “Do my characters act logically?”

👉 “Does the plot resolve itself naturally?”

👉 “Do my characters have the same appearance, the same qualities and faults, have they evolved in a logical way throughout the story?”

Your rate of corrections can be carried out as follows:

👉 1st rereading: for meaning.

👉 2nd proofreading: for rhythm.

👉 3rd reread: for general understanding.

👉 4th reread: for typos.

👉5th proofreading: for spelling.

👉6th proofreading: for grammar and conjugation.

👉7th proofreading: general proofreading.

This list is only indicative, it is possible to use it in another order, or to add proofreadings.

⚠️ We advise you to quickly reread your manuscript for the first time, from start to finish, in order to take general notes, without making any real corrections, then start following the list.

Be more motivated than Mr. Incredible during your proofreading! 😉

2 - The rewrite

This step is preferably done before proofreading. This is a balancing activity which works on masses and structures and which is divided into three parts:

👉 Cut dialogues that are too long and irrelevant. Do not hesitate to consult our article on how to construct your dialogues to help you.

👉 Use as many synonyms as possible to avoid repetition. You can take help from our article on sites to know when you are an author.

👉 When nothing is working and your text isn't working, you can use creative writing to change your narrator, modify your language or the structuring of your chapters, or develop your characters.

3 - Smoothing

Smoothing no longer affects the background work, nor the overall image, it just serves to “polish”. It consists of four stages:

👉 Check that each location is well defined and that each character can be imagined clearly.

👉 If there are still chapters that are only there to please you, you must remove them.

👉 Your story can be rewritten forever, you have to know how to stop.

👉 At the end of smoothing, your text should be almost “perfect”.

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REMEMBER :

📕 How do you know when to stop? Quite simply when you start to no longer want to work on your manuscript.

📕 Creative rewriting is an extreme solution that we use when we have already tried everything.

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