Yes, we all live in an electronic world these days, untethered by concrete reality, communicating like mad things on various iThingies. Paper is so 2002.
But if you want to do a good job of editing your book, you need to print it out. Yes, I’m serious. Print it on actual paper, seize a red pen, and you won’t believe what you’ll see that you didn’t see before.
As a professional editor, I always do at least one run through major projects On Paper. Sometimes more. Even with smaller writing projects such as a complex proposal or an important email, I will print it out and edit it on paper before I send it to the client. With a very major edit of a book, I have done up to seven passes through a manuscript, On Paper, printing out a fresh manuscript for each new pass. Does this sound excessive? Feel free to ask my clients whether or not they’re happy with the results of such craziness. 😉
The benefits
There are two really excellent things that reading your manuscript on paper will do for you.
1. You see it differently
Seriously. You will notice things that you never saw while reading it on your laptop or iThingy. Not just omigosh-awful spelling errors and punctuation atrocities, but clumsy sentence constructions and repetition and *ahem* boringness. It’s almost as though the change of medium has triggered a whole fresh set of synapses in the brain. There’s a whole New Year’s Eve fireworks special going on in the noggin as you hold that paper in your hand.
Enhance the see-it-differently effect even more by adopting a different posture, going to another room, or even a whole different place. I often loll on the sofa with a clipboard to do a paper edit, or go outside in the fresh air. Sometimes I head to the coast for a couple of days of really intensive work. I know that sounds like a joke, but I’m dead serious!
2. It helps with structural editing
Structural editing can be a nightmare, especially if you are a Detail person. When you want to decide if that chapter belongs before this chapter, and if this paragraph belongs on page 22 or page 28, you need to get a Big Picture.
Small Picture editing is the punctuation and spelling and grammar and general flow of a sentence or paragraph. Big Picture editing is the movement and cohesion of each chapter and the book as a whole.
With a printout of your manuscript, you can flip back and forth between pages 22 and 28, you can lay whole chapters out on a table or the floor in front of you, and you can get a much bigger view than just looking at a little screen. Yes, I know you can do split screen in Word and all sorts of other fab things. This is better than that. Trust me.
The method
There are various intriguing ways to print out your manuscript to challenge the brain to see it differently, and we’ll look at some of those in another post, but this is the time-honoured method:
- Use large margins, about 30mm, more than an inch — it gives you room to write in the margins. It’s a good idea to make a mark in the margin for every change in the text, so you don’t miss anything.
- Use wide line spacing — so you can write between the lines. Traditionally it was double-spacing, but I actually use 1.5 line spacing. It’s still plenty of room to write, but it saves some paper!
- Some people put a space between each paragraph. I don’t. I indent the beginning of each paragraph instead. That shows me where the new paragraph begins, without wasting so much paper!
- Use a serif font (with the little “tails” on the letters) such as Times New Roman. It’s much easier to read in large quantities of text, because the little tails lead the eye into the next letter and the next. It doesn’t need to be sexy, it needs to be legible. And make it a decent size, about 12pt, so you are not having to peer at the page.
- Use a red pen, it’s more visible.
- Keep some different coloured highlighters handy in case you want to highlight different themes.
- Write as neatly as you can. You’ll be glad you did later, when you’re trying to decipher it all!
The resistance
The Small Blue Dog’s reaction to your reasons for not printing out your manuscript
So, how many reasons have you thought of for why you don’t want to print out your manuscript? Let me see if I can do a bit of a psychic job on you. (n.b. I am not in actual fact psychic, I’ve just known a lot of writers 😉 )
- It’s a waste of paper and ink/toner — Possibly, but not nearly as big a waste as printing 10,000 copies of a horrible book that wasn’t edited properly. Print it out.
- A big sheaf of paper is not nearly as portable as my iThingy — I often take a work-in-progress on the train. I put it in one of those cloth shopping bags. Voila! Portable. Print it out.
- My book will only be published as an ebook, so I don’t need to see it on paper — Editing your manuscript on paper is about getting the words the best they can be. It’s an essential part of the quality process, regardless of the final format of the work. Print it out.
- My home-office printer won’t cope with printing so many pages — That’s fair enough. Is there an office supplies store or a quick-print place near you? You should be able to take it there on a memory stick or similar, and they’ll print it in no time for a small fee. Maybe your workplace will allow you to print it there for a small fee. Alternatively, consider investing in a small, cheap, laser printer. The prices have come down enormously, and they are the best type of printer for large manuscripts. They print faster than an inkjet, and you can use a highlighter without the ink running on the type. But either way, get it printed out.
- I can’t afford it — I actually have more sympathy for this excuse. A tight budget can be very restrictive. But do consider the options listed in the point above. Also, perhaps you know someone who has a good printer at home and would be willing to let you use it for printing your manuscript. You might even be able to offer something they need in exchange, such as an evening’s babysitting, or a couple of hours of your professional skills. But get it printed. It’s important.
So, have I convinced you yet?
What are your experiences with editing a printout vs onscreen?
Brenda, well said and I completely agree! Another idea is to print it out in a 2-column landscape format, which reads more like a book. Either way, a hardcopy proofing is a must. And no excuses, paper can be recycled!
Molly, I’m using your 2-column printout format for my current Brutal Edit on my own novel, and it is fantastic. I’m planning to mention it in a future post about how to help your brain see the manuscript differently… and I’ll be giving you a credit, because I got the idea from you! 🙂
Belinda
That’s fine in theory and if you are writing a 60 – 80 thousand word book, maybe a good idea. My wife and I are on the 7th book in our ‘A Vested Interest’ series and approaching 1 million words though. We considered the paper option and rejected it from the point of bulk and cost.
I agree that trying to proofread/edit on a computer screen is not a good idea. You simply don’t notice the errors. You can however, get the computer to read it out to you. We use ‘Text Aloud’ for that. This process picks out quite a few of the errors – and gives us a little light relief over the words it miss-pronounces.
Next step is to convert the document to .mobi format and read it on a Kindle Touch. That gives us the paper reading effect and it can be easily annotated. That’s not as easy on a Kindle or Kindle Keyboard though. The result is also far more portable than reams of paper. Red ink is unnecessary since it’s easy to find your notes on an ebook reader.
By the time we’ve finished editing our books will have been gone through at least five times by three different people. We think we do a pretty good job and the first time they see paper is when the proof copy arrives from the printer. We always get two proof copies and we’ll go through those again before the final printing is done.
Ebook copies are made available at the printed proof copy stage. After all, it’s easy to correct an ebook copy.
I doubt if we’ll ever produce a perfect book though. The more I get to do this, the better I get at spotting the mistakes in professionally proofread and edited books.
John, thanks for your input. You’ve highlighted two techniques that I agree are excellent in the see-it-differently department:
1. Reading it on your Kindle — I do that too, it’s amazing what it shows you, and I’ve been planning to include it in an upcoming blog post.
2. Getting your computer to read it aloud — I’m on Mac so it will do it for me without any extra software. (He’s a slightly odd-sounding dude, but he reads pretty well. 😉 )
But… the electronic options still can’t beat paper for the Big Picture editing techniques. And for a Brutal Edit of the kind I’m currently doing on my own novel (107,000 words), paper just gives me so much more latitude to show it who’s boss. 🙂
Best wishes for the ongoing work in your series!
Belinda
Belinda, great article. I find printing work definitely gives work a whole new look.
John, I like your ideas, will trial them prior to final print,hopefully lower priner costs.
Kudos to Small Dog. Cheers, Mel.
Thanks Mel, and I wish you the very best success with your work.
By the way, the novel I mentioned in that comment, Poison Bay, came down from 107,000 to 90,000 words. There’s no way I’d have been able to get rid of 17,000 words without paper!
OHHHH~~I wish I would have read this last week. I just released my new book, A KILLER OF ANGELS and could not afford a professional editor, so I have a few typo’s and errors. But, it is still good. Thanks Belinda, and I’m bookmarking this for my next book~
You’re welcome Kenneth. And don’t worry, it’s never too late to become a better editor of your own work!
I’m planning to continue adding more free resources here to help those who can’t afford a professional editor, so keep checking back.
Belinda
I wholeheartedly support printing out a manuscript, but I feel as though the novel should be edited on the computer first. Make it the best you can, then go to paper.
Hi Jaret, the best order in which to do these things can vary from writer to writer. Personally, I print out a manuscript several times along the way, and do onscreen edits in between the paper edits. I’m glad that printing it out has demonstrated its value to you!
Ah yes, editing is my forte….except when I’m editing my own work!! So now my husband and I share the editing. Mind you, we STILL find errors just when we are about to hit that publish botton! I’m hoping that if any tiny little ones slip through they may not be noticed. After all, from a grammatical persepctive, when the ABC can’t get things right, perhaps nobody will realise!!
Hi Maranna, it’s always hard to edit your own work (but not impossible!) And every book ever published had some typos in it, no matter the strict quality control it went through.
It’s frequent typos that alienate readers. If you have only one or two in your book, I wouldn’t worry too much. Many people won’t notice, some will notice and think it’s a shoddy job because of just those couple of errors, and others will notice and decide it doesn’t matter because they love the book anyway. You can’t please everybody! 🙂
I remember reading one of the Harry Potter books that had a typo in it–it was almost like an Easter egg because it was the only one I caught and made me feel like a smart kid.
Well spotted, Sam. 😉 Even the most stringent quality control usually misses a couple.
Great advice and I love your blog! I find that printing my texts out help. I haven’t done a full manuscript edit yet, but when I do I will likely print it out in addition to employing other methods of line editing (Pro Writing Aid comes to mind).
Thanks for the lovely comment, Lynn! 🙂
I always print out anything tricky, even just a resume or “awkward” email. It really gives the brain a fresh look at the words. Glad you find it handy too.
Hello, everyone!
Belinda, I could not agree more with your words of wisdom. I have a few unfinished manuscripts hiding in my desk, but I consider myself a real traditionalist: I write everything long-hand, do my first round of serious edits when typing everything to my Word program, then I print the entire manuscript and edit again by hand.
I could never imagine doing it any other way! For those who are on the fence, it is definitely worth the ink and paper to truly see what you’ve written: I highly recommend it!
I wasn’t familiar with the programs that read aloud, but I’ll be checking into that. It seems to be a great add-on as a tool for another layer of editing.
Thanks for a terrific and informative blog!
Cherstin
Cherstin, I remember writing my university papers longhand, back in the day, and then doing a structural edit by cut-and-paste (literally, with scissors!) and a re-edit of the general wording as I typed it up on an electric typewriter, usually about 4am. 😉 (The poor neighbours having to listen to all that clacking…)
I think there’s actually value in those different modes, because it does challenge different parts of the brain. It would be a huge job to do it on a full book manuscript though. Congratulations for being so dedicated! I’m sure it does get you a very thorough result.
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
I completely agree with printing it out, though I find a non-serif print easier to read. I also use a pencil to write notes. No idea why, but I find it easier than a red pen. Maybe it’s a throwback to my school days or something! I tend to print out every draft – also so I can edit somewhere other than the spot I write in… again, it works for me 🙂
Thanks Melissa. There’s a texture to a pencil that you don’t get with a pen, isn’t there? Whatever works. 🙂
Years ago it is the reason that Math Teachers did not allow us to use pens for Math problems. The pencil scratches the paper and the brain is more alert to the scratching than the pen with the quiet gliding motion. The pencil is better for the thinking process. And writing longhand or print hand is better for writing than typing on the computer. It works for me!
That’s great, Florence. Glad the pencil works for you! 🙂
September 12th of 2017 I found your blog on the very question I needed answered. I printed out my manuscript to begin a proper edit. Thank you.
Thanks William – glad it was useful!
I also found that reading the lines from right to left will show up many mistakes. That’s a tip from a job/ company I used to work for years ago.
Yes, I know others who use that technique, too. 🙂