Writing Tips and Techniques (Writing Help)

Editing

Editing can suck, but it has to be done. A true author will find a score of problems, and you'll make yourself go over your story a million times to buffer them out.

Try not to edit until you're finished. Whether it be a chapter or an entire novel, finish what you're writing before editing. From experience, I can tell you it sucks. I used to reread what I had if I was stuck on something and didn't feel like continuing.  It is the worst when you're in the editing groove and then you hit that cliff, and you have to get back into writing. The transition is not easy, and it's better off if you just write and let the mistakes trail behind you. And you will have mistakes. Even when you think you don't, you'll have a "hte" instead of "the" that you totally missed, or use the wrong "there" in an obvious place. It just happens.

Things to look for:

-Misspellings. These are bound to happen, even with spell check. Sometimes it won't pick it up right away or it just won't pick it up at all. If you type "insure" rather than "ensure," spell check won't pick up in it.

-Repetition. Check to see if you use the same word in the span of a few sentences. Words like "the" or "with" are less noticeable but something like "cute" or "delirious" stands out.

-Things that don't match up. Make sure you're keeping all your facts straight. If you said someone has blond hair in the beginning, and later say she's brunette, you're being inconsistent (James Patterson does this in the Max Ride series. He contradicts both Max's hair and eye color. Riordan also does it to Grover in the Lightning Theif series). 

-Awkward wording. It helps to read your stories out loud to find things like this. Reading aloud also helps you find misspelled words and run on sentences.

-Forced words. When you get a new batch of vocab words and cram them all in one chapter. If it doesn't sound natural, scrap it.

-Plot holes. Gaps and inconsistencies in a plot line. Look for things that don't make sense.

-Deleteables. Unnecessary people or events. Everything/everyone in the story should have some kind of purpose. If something doesn't have a reason for being there, delete it.

Also, if you plan on going through the whole story (on Wattpad) to edit it, unpublish the whole thing first. That way, you don't have to worry about the readers seeing all of your terrible mistakes and republishing chapters will bump the story up on the search page. It will look like you're adding to it. Wattpad will think it's being updated and more people will see it. Mwahahaha.