Book 3 is finished at last, and I’m doing the first of several edits and polishing jobs. Here are a few tips on polishing your work until it sparkles.

• Read for Flow and Rhythm – do your first pass for the overall story. Does it flow and lead logically from one scene into another? Is it an overall good story or does it lag in spots? Does the tension escalate to a climax?
• Read for Nit-Picks – do another pass looking for those typos and grammatical errors. It helps for this stage if you print the manuscript out and actually “read” it backwards: start at the end and look at every word until you reach the beginning. You’re more likely to spot a misspelling or incorrect word choice that way.
• Read for Dialogue – does your dialogue flow properly, advancing the plot, or does it halt the action and take the readers off on a tangent? Do your characters speak with their own individual voices?

In between your readings, feel free to rewrite as necessary until you have the book you’ve been dreaming of.