You’ve read your manuscript so many times that you know what comes next.
You know the sentence you’re about to read. You know what the character means. You know the point you’re trying to make. You know what happened before the scene begins.
At some point, you may even be able to close your eyes and see the page.
I used to tell my students this was part of the problem when they were revising their essays. They had read the assignment so many times that they weren’t necessarily reading the words anymore. They were reading what they knew was there.
The same thing happens with manuscripts.
And it can make it surprisingly difficult to see what a reader will actually encounter on the page.
Your Brain Knows More Than Your Reader Does
When you write a manuscript, you carry far more information in your head than you put on the page.
You know why a character behaves a certain way. You know what happened before the scene begins. You know what you meant by a particular sentence.
You know which ingredient you intended to mention in the recipe. You know the technique you’re trying to demonstrate in your craft book. You know the information you researched for your nonfiction manuscript.
Your reader doesn’t.
That’s one reason a sentence can make perfect sense to you and still leave a reader confused. Your brain is filling in information that isn’t necessarily on the page.
It can also anticipate what comes next. You know where the argument is going, so you may glide over a weak transition. You know what the character is feeling, so you may not notice that the manuscript hasn’t actually shown it. You know how the instructions are supposed to work, so you may not notice that a step is missing.
This is one reason I approach a manuscript as a reader first. I want to know what the manuscript is actually giving me, not what I know the author intended to give me.
That distinction matters during revision.
Sometimes You Stop Seeing the Individual Words
Familiarity doesn’t only affect big-picture problems. It can make small things disappear, too.
Take words such as that, very, and just.
None of these words is automatically a problem. I don’t believe in removing a word simply because someone has declared it a “bad” word.
But when I’m editing, I often notice that a word has appeared several times without the writer realizing it. Once I point it out, the writer may suddenly see it everywhere.
That’s familiarity at work.
You may have read a sentence so many times that your brain no longer registers the repeated word. You’re concentrating on the meaning rather than noticing that you’ve used that several times in a paragraph.
The same thing can happen with phrases, sentence structures, transitions, descriptions, and even ideas.
A construction can become so familiar that you stop seeing it.
And that’s why revision isn’t simply a matter of reading your manuscript again.
Sometimes you have to change how you read it.
Trick Your Brain
One of the simplest things you can do is read your manuscript differently from the way you normally read it.
For example, try reading from the back to the front.
This feels strange because it is supposed to.
When you read normally, your brain knows what comes next. When you start at the end and work backward, you disrupt that pattern. You’re no longer following the story, argument, or explanation you’ve become accustomed to.
You’re looking at the actual words.
This can help you catch repeated words, awkward sentences, missing words, typos, and other small problems that your brain has been smoothing over.
It’s a little trick I use to get around the familiarity problem.
And sometimes a little trick is exactly what you need.
Read It Aloud
Another useful technique is to read your manuscript aloud.
When you read silently, your brain can move quickly over a sentence that isn’t quite working. Your eyes may glide right past an awkward construction because you already know what the sentence is supposed to say.
Your voice can’t always do that.
Reading aloud can reveal:
- sentences that are too long or complicated
- repeated words or phrases
- awkward transitions
- missing words
- places where you stumble
- dialogue that doesn’t sound natural
- sentences that look fine but don’t sound like something a person would actually say
You don’t have to perform your manuscript.
You just have to hear it.
If reading your entire manuscript aloud feels like too much, try it with sections you’ve been struggling with.
Let the Computer Read It to You
You can also have your computer read the manuscript aloud.
I particularly like this option for writers who have become extremely familiar with their own words.
The voice isn’t yours, and you aren’t controlling the pace in quite the same way. That little bit of distance can make something you’ve read dozens of times sound surprisingly different.
You may suddenly hear a repeated phrase. You may realize a sentence is much longer than you thought. You may hear that you’ve used the same transition several times.
Or you may discover that a paragraph you thought was clear is actually harder to follow when you hear it instead of seeing it.
The point isn’t that one method will find every problem.
The point is to change the way your brain encounters the manuscript.
Put Some Distance Between Yourself and the Manuscript
Sometimes the best thing you can do is put the manuscript away.
I used to tell my students to put their essays away for a while before reading them again, and I still tell my clients the same thing.
Don’t look at it. Don’t think about it. Don’t work on it.
Give yourself at least three days away from the manuscript.
That break gives you some distance from the words and from all the decisions you’ve been making while writing and revising. When you come back to it, you’re more likely to see what’s actually
on the page instead of seeing what you remember writing.
Three days won’t make you forget your manuscript. That’s not the point.
The point is to give your brain a break from anticipating what comes next.
When you return to it, change something about the experience. Print it. Change the font. Read a section aloud. Start at the end. Have your computer read it to you.
The goal is to make the manuscript feel a little less familiar.
Of course, there is a limit to how much distance you can create.
You still know the story.
You still know what you meant.
You still know what comes next.
That’s why another reader can see things you can’t.
Another Reader Doesn’t Have Your Mental Manuscript
When someone reads your manuscript for the first time, they don’t have the version in your head.
They only have the words on the page.
That can be frustrating for a writer. You may think, But that’s obvious.
If it is obvious to you, that’s worth paying attention to.
It may mean the manuscript needs more information. Or it may mean that the reader simply isn’t the intended audience.
Either way, the reader’s response gives you information you can’t get from your own rereading.
That’s one reason I wrote about Beta Readers vs. Revision: What Beta Readers Can Tell You (And What They Can’t). A beta reader can tell you where
they became confused, where they lost interest, or what they expected to happen next. They’re experiencing the manuscript without the benefit of knowing what you intended.
And sometimes the problem isn’t that you haven’t revised enough.
As I discussed in Have You Revised Enough–Or Are You Stuck in A Revision Loop?, there comes a point when reading the same manuscript in the same way isn’t
necessarily helping you see it clearer. You may need a different perspective.
You May Not Need Another Read
You may need a different kind of read.
If you’ve read your manuscript twenty times, reading it for the twenty-first time may not tell you much more than the twentieth did.
But reading it backward might.
Hearing it aloud might.
Listening to your computer read it might.
Putting it away for three days might.
And having someone who doesn’t already know what you intended to say read it might tell you something entirely different.
The goal isn’t to find every little mistake.
The goal is to get far enough outside your familiarity with the manuscript that you can begin to see what your reader will actually experience.
Because your reader is meeting the book for the first time.
You’re not.
And that’s one of the hardest—and most important—things for a writer to remember during revision.
Related: Why Your Manuscript Still Feels Flat
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Do I Keep Missing the Same Mistakes in My Manuscript?
Because you’re familiar with the manuscript. Your brain knows what the sentence is supposed to say and can easily overlook a word that’s missing, repeated, or out of place. Changing how you read can help interrupt that familiarity.
Does Reading Backward Really Help?
It can, particularly when you’re looking for smaller errors such as repeated words, typos, missing words, or awkward sentences. Reading backward takes away some of the context your brain normally uses to anticipate what comes next.
How Long Should I Put My Manuscript Away?
I recommend giving yourself at least three days without looking at it, thinking about it, or working on it. The goal isn’t to forget the manuscript. It’s to give your brain enough of a break that you can return to the words with a little more distance.
Should I Read My Entire Manuscript Aloud?
You can, but you don’t necessarily have to. Reading aloud is especially useful when you’re working on dialogue, sentence flow, repetition, or sections that don’t feel quite right. Having your computer read the manuscript can provide another way to hear it.
If I’ve Revised My Manuscript Many Times, Do I Still Need Another Reader?
Possibly. Revision can make your manuscript stronger, but you will always know more about your own manuscript than a first-time reader does. Another reader can respond to what’s actually on the page rather than what you intended to put there.
How Do I Know When I Need an Editor?
If you’ve revised repeatedly but still aren’t sure whether the manuscript is working, an outside editorial perspective can help you identify what needs attention and what doesn’t. Sometimes the most useful next step isn’t another round of editing—it’s finding out what the manuscript is actually doing for a reader.
About Cassie Armstrong
Cassie Armstrong is the owner of MorningStar Editing LLC and a writing coach and book editor with more than 19 years of experience. She works primarily with authors of children’s books, cookbooks, and craft/how-to books, helping writers strengthen their manuscripts through evaluation, coaching, copyediting, and proofreading.
Her approach is rooted in reading as a reader first and editing in a way that strengthens the writer, not just the manuscript.