As well as planning for my next project, I have been editing the book I wrote as part of the Chapter Book Challenge. Up until today, I had simply been reading my draft on my laptop with the occasional print outs. I have been reading out loud as well as reading to myself and that has been a great way to get started with editing.
Today, I tried something a bit different.
My sister and her kids were over visiting and I loaded up the Dropbox app on my iPad and opened my draft on there and read her the first couple of chapters. I had thought I’d read those chapters so much that I would need someone else to read it in order to find anything that needs changing, or lay it to rest for a couple of weeks.
I don’t know what it was, but opening it on the iPad and reading it to my sister helped me pick up some things that needed changing – from typo’s to sentences that were a bit clumsy. I only wish I had something to note down those changes… I’m sure I’ll pick them up again.
For any of you reading this who are on to the editing stage of a manuscript, try opening it on a different device, it’s amazing what a different perspective this can give you and how much it can help improve your story.