First, the good news: If you're a good writer and you have an interesting story, you're probably gonna make it off the discard pile. Agents want to find good writers and new talents, though after your first series of rejections it may seem like they don't. Now the bad news: Gripping story aside, editing errors can get you dumped into the discard pile really fast. Everybody has a pet peeve with grammar, and agents are no different. They have hundreds, sometimes thousands of manuscripts to read, so in the first round they're looking for any reason to drop you and move to the next one. Don't let editing and grammar mistakes be that reason.
With that in mind here is my extensive (but by no means definitive) list of editing tips and tricks to help you avoid the dreaded discard pile and make it to the second round where hopefully your story will shine.
Editing Tips:
- Saving words in spellchecker - When you run spellchecker it's okay to have words you've made up. Colloquialisms can really make stories feel real (see 'A Clockwork Orange'). Save those words into your spell-check dictionary. Apart from saving you the time to have to okay them each time they appear (think 'uh' and 'eh' and 'meh'), it will also let you know when you have misspelled your own slang.
- That vs. Than - you know the difference between the two, but your fingers don't and sadly, neither does spellchecker. Search for 'Tha' in your entire manuscript. You'll be surprised how often you put 'than' when you meant to put 'that' and vice-versa.
- Read the Manuscript out loud once. Seriously. You will develop a rhythm in your writing this way. It helps the pacing, it helps catch actions and words that are out of character and it helps eliminate unnecessary 'He said' and 'I replied'.
- The 'Suddenly' Search - This one is crazy useful. Search your manuscript for the word 'Suddenly'. It's a cheap word. When you find it (unless it's in a character's dialogue), that means the whole paragraph was written too fast and needs to be cleaned up. You will be shocked, SHOCKED at how many times that word appears in your manuscript, usually at the start of a new paragraph.
Grammar:
- it's vs. its - I will settle this once and for all. It's is a contraction of it is. Nothing else. Its is possessive. Spell-check and correct accordingly.
- Lose vs. Loose - I don't know why I see more of this error nowadays but I do. Mostly I see it a lot in comments from wingnut political commentariat from both sides of the aisle. One loses their virginity or their sanity (often at the same time). One looses the chains of oppression.
- Commas, Commas and Commas - People overuse commas all the time. They are not semicolons (to be used when putting two whole sentences together and overused itself) nor are they necessary when using a conjunction. Many of you would have put a comma in the last sentence. Finally, the Oxford Comma. It's the comma before 'and'. Example: To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God. The use of it here makes it clear that my parents aren't Ayn Rand and God. But it looks awful. What it's really doing is adding clarity to a poorly written sentence. If I write it this way: 'To Ayn Rand, my parents and God' I have eliminated the Oxford comma and the sentence makes total sense.
With these helpful hints, plus your own editing tricks hopefully you can make it off the discard pile and get a shot to impress them. It's so hard to get from story to print, you can't afford to let something like grammar or editing cost you even one chance.