Seven Things to Check Before You Submit Your Manuscript

Whether you’re planning to send your novel to a literary agency or would like to submit it to a writing contest, you should go through your manuscript and make sure that it’s polished to perfection before you do so. Literary agencies and writing contests receive thousands of submissions. You don’t want to give a reader a reason to put your book down on page one. With this in mind I’ve created a list of things you should check for in your manuscript. Most of the time we are blind to the problems in our work (especially after we’ve been editing it for months) and having a list of possible problems to look for can make the final editing process easier.

1.  Grammar and Punctuation: 30% of manuscripts I’ve read for writing contests have had major grammar and/or punctuation mistakes. The worst part is the writer will often have a captivating story and great characters, but the grammar mistakes are so bad the manuscript is unreadable. The idea of writing is to communicate. If punctuation and grammar mistakes make the prose confusing the writing cannot communicate the story.

A good way to find grammar and punctuation mistakes is to read your book out loud. When you stumble through a sentence it most likely needs a tune up. If you find yourself short of breath while reading a sentence, it probably is because you’ve misused punctuation.

2. Speaker Tags: One of the most common mistakes writers make involves the use of speaker tags. A good speaker tag doesn’t call attention to itself and doesn’t try to convey the tone of the dialogue. A good speaker tag doesn’t misuse the tag’s verb. Here’s a few examples:

“I’m going to be the best actor in a chicken suit Pollo Feliz has ever seen,” John laughed.

The problem here is that John cannot ‘laugh’ a line of dialogue. He can ‘say’ it, but he can’t physically laugh it. Believe me I’ve tried to laugh a line of dialogue in writing workshops and you just can’t do it.

“Where’s me shoe?” Lydia asked, vehemently.

Using an adverb in a speaker tag calls attention to the tag and there is often a better way to express the tone of the dialogue. Her are some other ways to write the same sentence without an adverb in the tag:

Lydia tapped her bare foot against the linoleum. “Where’s me shoe?”

“Where’s me shoe?” Lydia asked. Her voice dripped with venom.

In the first example we rely on the reader to pick-up on the tone of the dialogue by showing the reader the action of the character. In the second example we tell the reader the tone of the dialogue, but still without using an adverb in the speaker tag.

3.  Passive Verbs: A passive verb is usually preceded by a conjugation of the verb “to be,” and indicates something is being done to the subject of the sentence rather than the subject performing the act. Here are some examples:

On several occasions Doug was caught wearing a dress by Zoey. (passive)

Zoey caught Doug wearing a dress on several occasions. (active)

The giant spiders are drawn to Brooklyn by the scent of pepperoni pizza. (passive)

The scent of pepperoni pizza drew the giant spiders to Brooklyn. (active)

Passive sentences aren’t the worst thing in the world, but why use ‘to be’ when you could use an ‘active’ verb to its full potential. To find passive verbs search your entire manuscript for is, are, was, were, am.

4. Clichés: We all use them either on purpose or accidentally and in some cases it’s perfectly fine to use them. However, in most cases there is a better way to express the same thing.  If you are bent on having a character use a cliché maybe think about using a variations on a cliché that remind people of the original cliché while changing it. A writer I know replaced, “They were packed together like sardines,” with “They were packed together like vienna sausages.”

5. The Word ‘Decide’: I come across this all the time. A character decides to do something and then a paragraph later they do it.  Usually there is no reason for the character to decide to do it before he or she goes and does the deed. I always do a word search for ‘decide’ when I’m editing and check to see if it is necessary.

6.  Opening Sentence: 90% of the submissions I read have bad grammar or misused verbs in the opening sentence because they are trying to impress the reader with their long flowery first sentence. It’s almost funny to think a writer would work so hard to make that first sentence shine, only to end up with the opposite. Whether we like it or not our opening sentence is the most important in the entire manuscript. It has to be amazing, but it also has to use proper punctuation and grammar (in most cases) for us to be impressed by it.

7. Transitions:  One of my pet-peeves is when a writer uses italics to signify a flashback instead of a transition. When going into a flashback a writer should (in most cases) use a Three In Three Out. What’s that? It’s a way to smoothly transition into a flashback and then back to the present. Here’s an example:

Joe thought back to his days in Africa. He had been living on a house boat at the time. The mosquitoes had left marks all over his body and he had often thought he looked like a leper.  Still, there had not been any shops in the area to buy repellant. “Where is that cream,” he yelled at his wife. She stalked into the front of the boat and shook her head…

We use the three in rule here to show that we are going into a flashback. Once we establish the flashback has happened in the past we switch to simple past tense again and the reader understands that we are telling a story from the past. After we have finished telling the flashback we transition back in the exact same manner. Depending on how long the flashback is we can adjust this to a two in two out or even a one in one out.

I could think of another seven things you should check while editing, but I think those are the most important. You want your prose to be confident and powerful. If you pay attention to the above guidelines, your manuscript will become much more polished and your writing will read as active and confident.


Nathan Feuerberg writes short stories, novels, and plays. He received a BA from The American University of Rome, an MSc in Creative Writing from The University of Edinburgh, and an MFA from The University of New Orleans. His fiction has appeared in a variety of literary journals such as Rio Grande Review, SOL Literary Magazine, and 34th Parallel. His plays have been preformed in England, France, and Italy. He resides in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

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