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Five Steps to Edit Your First Draft

You’ve just done something incredible: written an entire draft of a book! Congrats!

But it’s far from being ready for queries. So, how do you self-edit your first draft?

Let it sit

Undoubtedly you’re excited to get to work, but you need time to gain perspective. Besides, you’re probably a bit burnt out from writing the book. Give yourself some time before editing.

Make a List

Make a list of what you want the reader to take away from the novel and keep it beside you as you read through.

Read Through

Do a preliminary read-through in which you don’t make edits. Instead, create a list of problems and take notes as you go. I try and make at least 5 notes per chapter, no matter how good I think it is! Also, refer to the list from the previous step and be sure you’re successfully addressing these problems.

Work Out Solutions

Referring back to your list of problems, try and craft a solution that doesn’t lead to further issues.

Implement These Solutions

Go back to your draft and work these solutions into your draft.

Are you still struggling after editing your own work?

I’m Jasmina, The Plottery’s editor, and I offer book editing services that can help you take your pet project and make it into a page-turner.

Check out the details on the link HERE or below!

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Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute Characters

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

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The witch is out

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Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

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here have 10 pieces of writing advice that have stuck with me over the years

every character’s first line should be an introduction to who they are as a person

even if you only wrote one sentence on a really bad day, that’s still one sentence more than you had yesterday

exercise restraint when using swear words and extra punctuation in order for them to pack a punch when you do use them

if your characters have to kiss to show they’re in love, then they’re not in love

make every scene interesting (or make every scene your favorite scene), otherwise your readers will be just as bored as you

if you’re stuck on a scene, delete the last line you wrote and go in a different direction, or leave in brackets as placeholders

don’t compare your first draft to published books that could be anywhere from 3rd to 103rd drafts

i promise you the story you want to tell can fit into 100k words or less

sometimes the book isn’t working because it’s not ready to be written or you’re not ready to write it yet; let it marinate for a bit so the idea can develop as you become a better writer

a story written in chronological order takes a lot more discipline and is usually easier to understand than a story written with flashbacks

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My only advice for y'all about tarot is that the fool and death do not mean what u assume they mean and u should relax

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Thinking abt immortality and how meticulously you’d have to keep track of all of your shit so some nosy historian didnt spot your old journal or coat or copy of a book and call an infuriating time-based finders keepers

“It’s two hundred years old” they say. “It’s essentially public property” they say. It’s a letter you sent to your friend and it’s in a museum now and you’re screaming

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Not all character development is positive. Characters can, and in my opinion, should, develop both negative and positive traits throughout the course of their story. As the story goes, they shouldn’t be perfected, they’re people, not artpieces, and so there shouldn’t be a stage where they’ve improved/changed exclusively for the better, to the point where they have no negative traits at all. 

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Scary Signs Pt 2

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I just want to live in a little stone cottage in the mountains that’s so overtaken with plants that it’s unrecognizable as a house until you get close to it and have a small little flock of sheep and some ducks and a couple of giant dogs to keep me warm and I’ll make natural medicinal remedies that I’ll take to town every so often with my big dogs following me so people are intimidated but also oddly comforted and eventually I’ll just become a local cryptid

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dark academia as it’s being interpreted on this website is growing increasingly distant from humanity and misses the point entirely. you can have a compelling story and still have the characters be humane but with ghosts or demons or greek gods and murder. dark academia is not supposed to be turning to rude social behavior and shying away from good things, but is just supposed to be at a basic level scholarly folk tapping into more shady naturalistic shit like summoning devils and etc.

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This week: Form follows function! You can tell a lot about a bird by its wings.

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Some girl in my class was talking about McDonald’s shamrock shakes and this yeehaw dude in cowboy boots said they suck and then he looked me in the eyes and said “what you’re gonna do is go to Arby’s, and get yourself a mint chocolate chip shake.” And he said it with such authority and certainty that I did so as soon as I got in my car

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How to write a morally gray character:

Have their ideals be right but their methods be wrong

Make it seem like their dastardly methods are really the only way to achieve the goal for the “greater good.”

Have them develop from a flat antagonist to a well-rounded protagonist

How to not write a morally gray character

wah my childhood was hard

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all of science fiction: human beings will resent A.I and robots and will never trust them

real human beings: I had to apologize to my roomba for stepping on him today I felt so bad he cleaned my whole house and I just stomped on him