Deep Cleaning Your Manuscript

Ahhh…Springtime!
.
Tiny leaves unfurling. Daffodils and hyacinths pushing out of the ground. Dogwood and forsythia blooming. Springtime!  (Also traditionally synonymous with SPRING CLEANING…!)
.
Winter, with its shortened hours of daylight, cold weather and lowered energy levels, means hit and miss housecleaning for many of us. Fairly superficial. Vacuuming or floor scrubs are limited to spills you don’t want tracked through the rest of the house. Layers of dust are addressed only when you find your kids tracing faces in it. From a Winter perspective,  all may appear to be in order, but with our Springtime eyes we know better. Grimy baseboards, ceiling fans and mini-blinds cry out for attention. Curtains demand to be washed, furniture oiled, floors scrubbed. Closets whine for decluttering and garages beg to be swept and reorganized.
.
Yes, when our energy levels return and sunnier hours point out cobwebby corners, our thoughts often turn to deep cleaning.
.

Writing a book in many ways is similar to the Winter months’ equivalent of housecleaning. You do what must be done—get the words on the page. You may even revise extensively, tighten the story, ramp up the conflict and layer in added characterization, foreshadowing and the evocative use of the senses. But you likely haven’t paid much attention to the too-often-overlooked details. You know, addressing the writing equivalent of dusty baseboards and chipped calking--giving the manuscript a deep cleaning—detailing—before submitting it to an editor or agent.
.
I keep a “cheat sheet” for this final labor before I send my manuscript on its way.
.
A cheat sheet’s contents will vary by writer. We each have our own bag of foibles, pitfalls we slip into when racing to get words on a page. Overused pet words and phrases.  Empty words that add nothing. Words misspelled or used incorrectly as our fingers fly across the keyboards. Too many ellipses or m-dashes. Extra spaces between sentences. We know there will be plenty of time for taking care of that stuff later, right?
.
But it’s all too easy to forget, when you reach your manuscript’s Springtime, to take final steps to dig into the details, especially when you’re on a deadline and down to the wire. That’s why I have a cheat sheet—an ever growing list of reminders—that I review before I call it good. Today I’d like to share a sampling from it!
.
1 - When devising your own deep cleaning cheat sheet, include the “lame” words that pepper your manuscript. You’ll have your own “pets,” but below are some of mine from my cheat sheet pages (which I keep in a clear top-loading sheet in a small binder with a few other check lists I want to easily get my hands on). Doing a “lame word” search not only cleans up the manuscript, but it’s also is a handy tool when you need to trim your word count.
.

.
You don’t delete ALL findings of these words, of course, but on a case-by-case basis make a decision to keep, delete or replace with a more suitable word.
.
2 - Not only do I find WORD redundancy riddling my manuscript, but also IDEA redundancy. You know, saying the same thing two different ways in a sentence or paragraph OR using a word that means the same thing to describe another word: "new innovations,"  "noisy cacophony.”  These are a little harder to dig out than the word searches, but worth the hunt.
.
3 – I also keep on my cheat sheet a list of troublesome words gleaned from grammar, punctuation and usage manuals. Here’s a sampling of ones on which I sometimes stumble in the rush to get words on the page.

Already - The order had already (previously) been shipped. All ready - the order is all ready (prepared) to be shipped. 
.
Altogether = entirely;   All together = all in a group
.
Maybe = "perhaps";  May be is a verb ("we may be out of work")
.
Sometime = unspecified time; sometimes = now & then; some time = a long time ago
.
Less = refers to quantity; Fewer = refers to number (if you can count them, use fewer)
.
Among = more than 2;  Between = 2
.
Farther = refers to actual distance (“A drive to town was farther (actual distance) than we expected”); Further = refers to figurative distance and means “to a greater degree or extent.” (Let’s discuss the idea further (to a greater extent).”
.
4 – And what about those words we totally know the right and wrong of, but they fly off our typing fingertips anyway?  The possessive “its” versus “it’s,” the contraction for it is? And “their” versus “they’re.” I could list a million of these!
.
5 – Be sure to run that spell-check, too, remembering that it won’t catch words that you’ve used incorrectly.  If you meant gait and you typed gate, spell check won’t catch that. Sometimes Word catches incorrect usage, but you can’t count on it.
.
6 – I also look out for words that distance the reader from the point of view character, such as felt, thought, knew, wondered.  When you’re in Deep POV, you don’t need to say: She wondered what he was doing here. Instead, just say: What was he doing here?
.
7 – Watch out for “felt,” as in “she felt angry.” Instead, SHOW us she’s angry.
.
8 – Now that the standard is a single space between sentences, I find it helpful to search on TWO spaces to weed those double spaces out. I also copy and paste m-dashes from my manuscript into “Find” so I can catch all of those and evaluate whether that’s the best use or if another form of punctuation would be better.
.
9 – Beware of “Find and Replace ALL.”  Believe me, you can really get yourself in trouble with that one…!!
.
My “Cheat Sheet” continues to grow--and I’d love to hear what you would add to it! Do YOU have a deep cleaning “cheat sheet” for that final detailing of your manuscript? What’s on it?  And if you don’t have one, what would you include?
.
If you’re new to Seekerville, please stop by our comments section and introduce yourself.  And DO check out our archives for five years of helpful posts on the writing craft and encouragement to persevere toward your publication dream. Those of us here in Seekerville love helping other writers get off Unpubbed Island!
.
If you’d like to be entered in a drawing for a copy of Chris Baty’s “No Plot? No Problem,” please mention it in the comments section, then check our Weekend Edition for the winner announcement!
.
Glynna
.

Glynna Kaye’s debut book “Dreaming of Home” was a finalist in the ACFW Carol and Maggie awards, as well as a first place winner of the “Booksellers Best” and “Beacon” awards. Her 4 1/2 star “At Home In His Heart” was chosen as a Reviewers Choice finalist by national magazine RT Book Reviews. Another Love Inspired book set in Arizona, “A Canyon Springs Courtship,” will release in September 2013--with two more contracted for 2014!