Editing Your Novel for Details

A big question while editing is how many times should I edit my novel. But equally as important is, what type of edits should I do to my novel.

In the editing process, writers are focused on their content, about getting scenes and dialogue right. After that, they try to polish the spelling and grammar to the best of their abilities. Finally, they send out their queries and hope they have made the best decisions for their story and that their work is just what an agent or publisher is looking for.

But when all is said and done, how well do you know your novel? You may have picked it apart on a microscopic level and can broadly describe its plot. But what details have you left in? What has changed from edit to edit? What do you remember about your final cut?

Many publishers ask for these types of details:

• Can you name every character in your book?
• Do you have multiple summaries of your book, from a one-paragraph elevator pitch to a chapter-by-chapter breakdown?
• What are some really good quotes from the book?
• What famous books can you compare to your own?

Few authors can provide these details off the tops of their heads, no matter how many times they’ve written, rewritten, and edited their book. Details fade because we create every element from scratch and change a lot along the way.

That’s why I’m currently editing my novel for details. That way, I can create these lists of this information not only for a potential agent or publisher but for me so that the story stays fresh in my mind and so that I can go on to write my sequels with a clear vision of how I ended up in book 1. Below is my process for editing my novel for details.

Character lists

I’ve printed out my novel and am going through it page by page, as usual. Whenever I see a name for the first time, I highlight it. My main characters are, of course, fresh in my mind, but secondary and minor characters are lost to me. Not only that, but I don’t know any character traits that I may have written about them.

So, I’m highlighting all of the names so that I can compile a full character list along with any traits and backstory I may have given to them. This will help me to catch any inconsistencies and continuity errors and give me an idea of who to develop further in any additional scenes I might write or moments I might change.

Most of my characters are also in elementary school. So, compiling classroom lists are also going to be helpful, particularly in scenes where there are large groups of kids in the school setting.

Once I know what’s in there, I can also create little details in these lists that won’t show up in the book but could potentially add later in another edit or in another book in my series. This allows me to more fully flesh out my characters and make them more real to me which can help them to shine in the limited space that they have.

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A settings list

I like to think of my stories as movies. And movie script scenes start with day, night, interior, exterior, and location. Having a full list of locations that appear can help me figure out how to describe these scenes so that I can paint a clear picture of them in the reader’s head while still leaving room for their own interpretation.

I also like to sketch out these places, particularly homes, so that I have the characters moving through them in patterns that make sense. In one edit of my book, I realized that I had a swinging door between the dining room and kitchen in my main character’s house. In one scene, I had a character peer through the kitchen from the dining room into a back room of the house without a door there. In another scene, the door separated her from hearing what was going on in the dining room.

The first scene ended up getting cut. But it still forced me to decide whether or not a door should be there. Making a list of setting and describing the area becomes crucial for continuity and clarity in this instance. It needs to be crystal clear in your mind before you can describe it for your characters. These settings get highlighted in another color in my manuscript, no matter how big or small.

Editing for descriptions

Pulling out another color of my highlighter, I’m highlighting every details about each character from their clothing to their eye and hair color, what their bedroom looks like, the things they say they love and the things they say they hate.

You can use these details to call back to them and link certain character traits or plot points together. Or it can help you again with continuity. If you highlight that a character has long hair in one scene and 50 pages later, you describe them as having short hair, you might not remember the long hair comment from 50 pages back. So, highlighting them in the moment and then listing them out later is going to help you catch these mistakes.

This will also help if an agent or publisher tests your own knowledge of your book. If they ask you to name your main character’s favorite animal and you have a scene where they tell a meaningful story involving lions at the zoo or dolphins at the beach, you have the answer right there.

But there may also be insignificant details that you write up to fill some space or to make your story more interesting in the moment that you forget about down the line, like a piece of clothing or a song they like. I’ve even made collages of every piece of clothing that my main characters wear in a book by Googling photos and putting outfits together as if I were dressing them for a movie. Then, I make sure to insert descriptions of those outfits into particular scenes and note in which scenes they’re being worn.

Editing for themes

In this particular novel that I’m editing, there is a superhero theme. I want to work in as many superhero references as possible. So, I’ve busted out another color and am highlighting every superhero reference I see, whether it’s the made up characters that my protagonist has created or a nod to a famous superhero.

My main character draws her own comics. So, I’ve come up with a few short comic book stories, one that a 10-year-old would think up. I think they’re a crucial element to the plot and my main theme: bullying and doing the right thing versus the compulsion to do the evil thing when you feel beaten down.

Whenever I’m thinking about editing my novel, I kept reminding myself to keep driving this home through subtle references and images. So, having those areas highlighted can show me where I have this covered and where I have room to work more in. And having a master list to draw from is going to make it even easier.

What types of edits do you do on your novels? What is your process? How do you organize your information? Leave your answers in the comments below!

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