I love to hear new strategies for revising a manuscript. Thanks for sharing yours! Like you, I've developed a few tricks that force me to see my words through new eyes -- or ears.
One of the best ways I've found to trick myself into finding errors or disconnects that I might otherwise miss is to record the entire manuscript, chapter by chapter, on my voice memo, and then listen to it back like an audio book. Invariably I discover phrases or punctuation that need fixing when I'm reading it aloud, as well as when I'm listening back. It forces me to use a different part of my brain. I've also used the podcast studio at our local library to record the entire book.
Great advice, though part of me screams EXHAUSTION! 😆 I find it much, much easier to write than to edit. Maybe this would be a work-around for me. I may try that with difficult passages (let’s start small 😄).
Don’t you fear that you end up at a completely different version of your story, if you retype it? Wouldn’t be bad necessarily…
I love to hear new strategies for revising a manuscript. Thanks for sharing yours! Like you, I've developed a few tricks that force me to see my words through new eyes -- or ears.
One of the best ways I've found to trick myself into finding errors or disconnects that I might otherwise miss is to record the entire manuscript, chapter by chapter, on my voice memo, and then listen to it back like an audio book. Invariably I discover phrases or punctuation that need fixing when I'm reading it aloud, as well as when I'm listening back. It forces me to use a different part of my brain. I've also used the podcast studio at our local library to record the entire book.
I love the read aloud feature on Word. I use it often throughout drafting.
Great advice! I'm going to try it out on my (freshly-completed first draft) manuscript and see how it goes.
Yay! Let me know how it works for you Rhiannon!
Great advice, though part of me screams EXHAUSTION! 😆 I find it much, much easier to write than to edit. Maybe this would be a work-around for me. I may try that with difficult passages (let’s start small 😄).
Don’t you fear that you end up at a completely different version of your story, if you retype it? Wouldn’t be bad necessarily…