6 Unique Editing Ideas That You’ve Probably Never Tried

Editing is a form of revision, which literally means “re-seeing.” So when you “re-see” your written work, you are able to look at it anew, particularly with an eye toward your intended readership.

(7 Self-Editing Processes for Writers.)

But doing this can be a daunting task.

To make the experience less daunting, here are some unique ways* to approach the editing process that you may have never tried.

Read your writing backwards. 

You know what comes next in your manuscript, and errors can be illusive when you read with an eye toward anticipating the very next sentence. So instead of editing a project by reading from the first line to the last, try it in reverse. Read the last sentence, and meaningfully consider that sentence on its own merits. Look for errors; spot the typos. 

Then, read the second to last sentence, and keep working this way until you reach the top of the manuscript. Doing so allows you to focus line by line on your writing, and you may just catch things that you haven’t seen otherwise.

Highlight sentences in alternating colors. 

In your manuscript, highlight the first sentence in pink, the next sentence in blue, and then continue this back-and-forth color pattern throughout the document. Then, inventory what you have. Does one sentence go on for far too long? Is there a series of short, choppy sentences that may need to be combined? Or is the writing uneven in one part compared to another? 

Writing doesn’t have to be uniform, but seeing patterns of sentence structure, length, and variety can help you focus on completeness and individual sections of your writing that may need reworking.

Read with a ruler in your hand. 

Typos, particularly transposed words, missing words, and homophones, in a writing project are hard to identify on a word-rich page, so holding a ruler under each line as you read it allows you to focus line-by-line and spot pesky errors. This way, the eye is drawn to each individual line, and what actually made it onto the page can be assessed.

Listen to your draft, but from the voice of someone else. 

Editing by ear works for many writers, and you may have already tried this by speaking dialogue aloud or testing the “sound” of sentences by reading them to yourself. But hearing another person’s perspective takes this one step further and may reveal particularly clumsy phrasing or awkward diction choices. 

If this writing is something you eventually want to share with an audience, then put trust in a close friend, family member, or writing group partner to do this. If this is not possible, then recording yourself reading the draft and playing that recording back may help you achieve similar results.

Read a double-spaced printed copy of the manuscript—and consider a new font, too. 

Changing the format of a document for editing purposes can be a way to trick yourself into feeling like you are seeing the writing for the very first time (even if you’ve read it again . . . and again . . . and again). Double-spacing may reveal punctuation errors that you didn’t previously see, as can a change in font. 

Previous weaknesses—perhaps with the wrong word or with formatting conventions—can be revealed this way too, especially with a printed copy to provide a “new” experience.

Try someone else’s checklist. 

There are countless editing and revision checklists available, so find one you like that applies to your writing project. Free ones online are a good starting point, but these can also be tailored for each project for which you use them. 

Consider this common mistakes checklist, this 26-item checklist, or even genre-specific ones like this screenplay checklist.

Editing takes time, though you will eventually find the methods that are comfortable for you. Once you do, “re-seeing” your work will be an enjoyable process as well as a productive one.

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* Note that these techniques can be modified as needed to fit different modalities and different writers.