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well-known tips but worth repeating for learning writers:
a few uses of "find and replace" and why it has the potential to be your best friend.
a few uses of "find and replace" and why it has the potential to be your best friend.
for clarity, I'm replacing a standard space with _ in examples.
1. eliminate accidental double spaces. just find "__" and replace with "_".
2. for fellow em-dash lovers: standardise throughout your fic. say, you use this kind—whithout space—then just find "_—_", "_—", "—_" and replace with "—".
3. close all brackets: find "(" and see if the count matches with the count of ")".
4. if you have the time, search for all words ending with "-ly". assess carefully if you require all of those. many adverbs don't end in "-ly", but it is easier to eliminate these and figure what's necessary in description or not.
5. check for filter words in the tense of your fic: "see", "realised", "thought", "wondered", "assumed", "decided", "hear", "feel", "knew", "looks", "watches". Try to balance their usage and replace with show not tell when you're editing if that will fit. I am guilty.
6. check for filler words: "really", "actually", "literally", "seriously" etc. Remove them if they're not in dialogue and reword your sentence to make it strong or if the tone is not casual conversational.
7. use synonyms if you overuse words. you will notice overuse within a short span. you can also use an online tool to count for you. if a not-a-proper-noun has been repeated too often, see if you can avoid using it by either replacing the word or cutting out the sentence.
8. if you write on both phone and pc, then there will be differences in your quotation marks and apostrophes. standardise to the ones of your liking.
9. if you're afraid of lower and upper case changes in proper nouns because you were speed-writing, docs offers a match case option so you can quickly search and assuage your fears.
10. check for "the", "and", "but", "then", "because", "so", "hence", "therefore", "though", "although" and special friend, ";". Learn what you use and what you can do without. not all of these need to go, but it will teach you your default patterns.
11. use a placeholder. this is the most commonly hailed use. write a word you won't ever use in the document or a complex symbol code in place of the word you have forgetten or don't have a name for. I've seen this described as the "elephant" use. go back to change them later.
※ use "find and replace" liberally. just make sure to be careful that you don't accidentally change words that happened to have your search item in them as well.
for example, you're changing "tome" to "grimoire" for plot reasons, but you also accidentally change "blastomere" to "blasgrimoirere". not fancy. so search for "_tome_" and replace with "_grimoire_", the spaces make it easy. use spaces to your advantage.
there can be more potential functions to find and replace. I'm not a seasoned user so there must be some things I didn't notice. if you know more, please do add.
for more clarity, everyone is a learning writer. we can all benefit from sharing basic self-editing information.
also, you don't need to edit if you don't want to or don't have the energy to. your fic is always welcome.
