How to Self-Edit Your Novel with the Iterative Editing System

Hey there, fellow scribe!

Recently, I came across…

…an interesting experiment run by author/computer whiz Jefferson Smith.***

On his morning workout on the treadmill, he’d read a novel (typically SFF).

But he wasn’t exactly reading for pleasure.

Because, as he was reading, he’d mark down when he lost his immersion in the story.

Then, he’d put down the novel after 3 immersion strikes (or when his workout was over; the workouts were about 40 minutes long, in case you were curious).

After doing this for a while, he decided to look for patterns.

First, he identified what caused him to lose immersion in the story (e.g. bad pacing, illogical worldbuilding, wrong grammar, etc.).

Then he grouped these causes into 3 categories, based on type; like so:

--story building problems

--story telling problems

--proofreading problems

When I look at this list, I see a list of editing mistakes made at different levels:

--plot-level errors

--scene-level errors

--text-level errors

According to Smith’s analysis, 75% of immersion breaks were caused at the plot level or at the scene level.

75%!

I find this statistic really interesting because there are so many writers out there—perhaps you are one of them—who, when they edit, tinker around with the text.

They definitely proofread, they might rearrange some sentences, but that’s about it.

However, to craft a novel like the ones you find on bookstore shelves—and keep readers thoroughly immersed in your story world—you have to edit at all three levels: plot, scene, and text.

If you’d like to learn how to do that (without losing your mind), then make sure to:

(1) watch my talk on the Iterative Editing System (this will give you an overview of the process)

(2) download my Ultimate Editing Checklist (this will give you a comprehensive list of editing tasks)

Note: The link to download the editing checklist can be found on this page, on my speaker page, on the page with the video for my talk, and on the perks page. (Look for the structure-worksheet freebie; that’s how you’ll also get the editing checklist.)

I’m so excited to share these resources with you because I know that with them, you’ll be covering *all* your editing bases, and therefore, can edit your draft with so much more confidence.

Enjoy!

H. R. D’Costa

Story Structure + Stakes Expert from scribemeetsworld.com

*** Find the details about Jefferson Smith’s experiment here: https://creativityhacker.ca/2014/08/26/the-5-most-common-writing-mistakes-that-break-reader-immersion/index.html