: Re: What are the stages to self editing? I just finished writing my first draft of my novel, and I don't quite know the states of self-editing. Right now, I'm not looking for advice on professional

@Candy753

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I highly recommend The Paramedic Method, which is what I now use to edit all of my drafts. To summarize:

Cut out passive voice. Passive voice is sentences where the subject is obfuscated and there is no clear action, i.e. "The machine was fixed" or "The decision was made." Passive voice makes for weaker, less deliberate writing. After cutting out the passive, you rewrite the affected sentences to use simple, active verbs, i.e. "He fixed the machine" or "I made the decision."
Remove adverbs and unnecessary words. Nine times out of ten, you do not need words like "suddenly," "quickly," "very," "really," etc. Cut them out - they just clutter up your sentences. You can also get rid of unnecessary adjectives. Read through sentences before and after to see if the flow has improved, and make additional adjustments if these changes altered the rhythm.
Remove bad "rhythms" from your sentences. This means removing places in your draft where sentences drag on with no clear direction or are too repetitive - i.e. sentences like "He went to the door, and opened the window, and looked outside." Can you hear the ba-da, ba-da, ba-da? It's boring, and needs fixing to make the sentence more exciting to read.
Keep subjects and objects clear. Make sure your reader always knows who is doing what, or who is saying what lines of dialogue. Don't confuse subjects or make the reader unsure of what is going on in a sentence.
Put the action first, and remove wind-ups. Sentences that take a long time getting to the point are not good for keeping your reader's attention. Make sure the action comes first.

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