25 Self-Editing Tips to Polish Your Manuscript Before Hiring an Editor
Self-editing before hiring a professional editor saves you money and gets you better results. Here are 25 practical tips to make your manuscript as strong as possible first.
The cleaner your manuscript before it reaches a professional editor, the better your results — and the lower your editing bill. Editors work faster on clean drafts, which means less time billed and more useful feedback on the things that actually matter. Here are 25 practical self-editing tips that work, organized by editing stage.
Before You Start — Step Away First
1. Take a Real Break
Before you edit a single word, put the manuscript in a drawer for at least two weeks. The longer the better. Distance is the most powerful self-editing tool you have. Your brain has been reading what it expects to be on the page — not what's actually there. Time away resets that pattern and lets you see your writing as a reader would.
2. Print It Out
Reading on screen activates skimming habits your brain developed from years of internet use. Printing your manuscript forces you to slow down and engage with each word. Many authors catch significantly more errors on paper than on screen. If printing a full manuscript isn't practical, at minimum print each chapter before editing it.
3. Change the Font
Another way to trick your brain into seeing the manuscript fresh: change the font before you read. Times New Roman to Arial, or vice versa. The unfamiliar appearance disrupts the autopilot reading mode and helps you notice things you'd otherwise skip.
Pass 1 — Structural Edit
4. Read the Whole Thing First
Before changing anything, read your manuscript straight through as a reader would — no stopping to fix, no margin notes beyond simple flags. You need the full picture before you start making changes. Editing chapter one without knowing how chapter twenty lands is like rearranging furniture without knowing where the doors are.
5. Check Every Scene Earns Its Place
For every scene, ask: what does this accomplish? Does it advance the plot, develop a character, or establish something the reader needs to know? If the answer is none of the above, the scene should be cut or restructured. Scenes that don't earn their place are the most common reason manuscripts feel slow.
6. Map Your Character Arcs
Write out each major character's arc in one sentence: where they start, what changes them, where they end. Then check whether the manuscript actually delivers that arc. Many structural problems come from authors knowing their characters' journeys in their heads without putting them fully on the page.
7. Check Your Opening
Does your first page hook a reader? Does it establish character, stakes, and tone without over-explaining? Your opening chapter is the most important in the book — it determines whether a reader continues. Read it last, after you've edited everything else, and ask whether it earns the story that follows.
8. Check Your Pacing
Read just your chapter endings in sequence. Do they propel the reader forward, or do they let the tension drop? Slow pacing is almost always visible at chapter endings — if too many chapters end on flat notes, you've found your problem.
Pass 2 — Line-Level Edit
9. Read Aloud — All of It
This is the single most effective line-editing technique available to authors who aren't professional editors. Reading aloud forces you to process every word rather than skimming. You'll immediately notice sentences that are too long, dialogue that sounds unnatural, and rhythms that feel off. If you run out of breath reading a sentence, it's too long.
10. Use Word's Read Aloud Feature
If reading your full manuscript aloud feels impractical, use Microsoft Word's Read Aloud feature (under the Review tab) and follow along while listening. Hearing your words in a different voice reveals problems you'd miss reading silently.
11. Cut Adverbs Ruthlessly
Adverbs — especially those ending in -ly — are usually a sign of a weak verb. "She ran quickly" is weaker than "she sprinted." "He said angrily" is weaker than "he snapped." Go through your manuscript and highlight every adverb. Most of them should be replaced with a stronger verb or cut entirely.
12. Cut Weasel Words
Search your document for these common filler words and cut most of them: just, very, really, quite, rather, somewhat, almost, nearly, basically, actually, literally. These words rarely add meaning and consistently weaken prose. Most manuscripts are stronger with 80% of these words removed.
13. Vary Your Sentence Length
Read a paragraph and count the approximate word count of each sentence. If they're all similar lengths, your prose will feel monotonous. Short sentences create tension. Longer sentences slow the pace and allow the reader to breathe. Mixing lengths creates rhythm. Check that you're using both.
14. Find and Fix Passive Voice
"The door was opened by her" is passive. "She opened the door" is active. Passive voice drains energy from prose. Use Word's grammar checker to flag passive constructions, then rewrite them in active voice. There are legitimate uses for passive voice — but most instances in fiction manuscripts should be converted.
15. Watch for Filter Words
Filter words put distance between the reader and the action: "She saw that the room was dark" vs "The room was dark." "He noticed a smell of smoke" vs "Smoke drifted under the door." Common filter words include: saw, noticed, heard, felt, realized, thought, wondered, knew. Removing them pulls readers deeper into the scene.
16. Cut Repeated Words and Phrases
Search for words you know you overuse — every author has them. Also use Word's Find function to search for any word that feels like it might be appearing too often. Repetition within a paragraph or scene almost always weakens the writing.
17. Check Your Dialogue Tags
"Said" is almost always the right dialogue tag. Avoid tags like "exclaimed," "uttered," "declared," or "replied" — they draw attention to themselves and away from the dialogue. If you're using action beats instead of tags ("She set down her glass. 'I'm leaving.'"), make sure they're attached to the right speaker.
Pass 3 — Technical Cleanup
18. Run Spell Check — But Don't Trust It
Spell check catches obvious errors but misses homophones (their/there/they're, its/it's, peak/peek/pique) and words that are spelled correctly but used incorrectly. Run it as a first pass, then manually check for the errors it can't catch.
19. Fix Double Spaces
If you learned to type with two spaces after a period, search your document for double spaces (using Find & Replace) and replace them all with single spaces. Modern publishing uses one space after punctuation.
20. Check Consistency — Names and Details
Make a list of every character name, place name, and invented term in your manuscript. Use Find to check that each is spelled consistently throughout. A character named "Katherine" in chapter one who becomes "Katharine" in chapter fifteen is a copyeditor's nightmare and a reader's confusion.
21. Check Your Formatting
Make sure your font, font size, and paragraph formatting are consistent throughout. Chapter headings should all look the same. Scene breaks should use a consistent marker (three asterisks, a blank line, or a centered symbol — pick one and use it everywhere).
22. Watch for Homophones
Spell checkers don't catch these because both spellings are valid words. Manually search for your most common problem pairs: their/there/they're, its/it's, your/you're, affect/effect, lay/lie, lead/led, complement/compliment.
Before You Submit
23. Get Beta Readers
Beta readers give you reader-perspective feedback that you can't get from self-editing. They'll tell you where they lost interest, what confused them, and what they loved. Incorporate their feedback before spending money on professional editing. See our guide on how to prepare your manuscript before hiring an editor for the full pre-submission checklist.
24. Run an AI Pre-Edit
Before submitting to a professional editor, consider running your manuscript through an AI-powered editing tool like ScribeGlow. You'll get a .docx back with Track Changes showing line edits and proofreading corrections throughout. This serves two purposes: it catches a significant portion of surface-level issues before your editor sees them (which can reduce their quote), and for authors on tighter budgets, it provides a professional-quality edit as a standalone service. Free for manuscripts under 5,000 words.
25. Walk Away One More Time
After completing all your self-editing passes, give the manuscript one final rest of a few days before submitting. You'll almost always catch a few remaining issues with fresh eyes. Then let it go — the goal of self-editing is to give your editor the best possible version of your draft, not to achieve perfection before they see it.
The Bottom Line
Strong self-editing doesn't replace professional editing — it makes it more effective and more affordable. An editor given a clean, structurally sound draft can focus on the things that actually require their expertise, rather than spending time on issues you could have resolved yourself.
Work through these 25 tips systematically, and by the time your manuscript reaches a professional editor — or an AI-powered service — it will be the best version it can be.
Ready to see what your manuscript looks like after a professional edit? Try ScribeGlow free on your first 5,000 words — line editing, proofreading, or both. No account required. Results in minutes.