Her email started with, “There could be a few things I haven’t fixed …”
She wasn’t wrong.
I began to see things that show up quite often: chapter headings styled a few different ways, some extra spacing here and there, a note she’d left for herself halfway through a paragraph. Nothing major. But those small things do something. Not because they’re wrong—but because they pull attention in directions it doesn’t need to go.
When the formatting shifts, I have to stop and decide if it’s intentional. Confusion over multiple versions of a file, (Wait … am I in the right final_v.3_FINAL?) When little placeholders are still sitting in the text. They all ask for attention that keeps me from staying with the story.
It’s all fixable. It always is.
But when those things are still there after the manuscript comes to me, they distract. I’m pausing to sort it out or leave a question. I’m doubling back. I’m not staying with the rhythm of your sentences.
That’s the part you can handle before it ever gets to me. Taking a few minutes to clean up the obvious things—formatting, stray notes, anything not meant to be read by your editor—means I can start with what actually matters.
If you’re not always sure which of those things to take care of before you send it (you’re not the only one)—I put this simple checklist together. Nothing complicated. Just the basics I see come up again and again.
