Proofreading vs. Editing

 

Preparing my manuscript to be submitted to literary agents involved a lot of proofreading. I wanted to show them that I can write clearly and precisely. After all, my day-job involves a lot of attention to detail, so I've gotten used to being exact with my written communications.

But maybe I spent time proofreading - looking through the story for grammatical errors and misplaced commas - and not enough time editing the story for content. Sure, I've fixed scenes that were awkward or more exposition than action. I made sure the characters that are supposed to be likeable are likeable. Now I'm worried that I overlooked something rather important to storytelling.

My writing has always been very action driven. I have a lot of dialogue, I show my main character's internal conflict through self-narration. But I don't do a whole lot of scene setting. Unless it's relevant to the action, I tend not to mention what anyone's wearing or the physical layout of spaces. I very seldom include scent. When writing the manuscript, I was so focused on explaining to the reader what happens, I'm not sure I did enough work on describing where it was happening. Will a reader be able to see the world I've created.

I'm not sure, and I'm not sure it my minimal descriptions hurt my storytelling.

I currently have 15 queries out in the world, waiting to see what literary agents have to say about my writing. I'm not going to send out any more queries until I go through my manuscript with a descriptive eye. Can a reader see what I see? I know the story so well. I can see every scene in my mind. I know what people look like, how their voice sounds, what they wear. Will a reader get enough of that to have a vivid experience of the story themselves? That's what I want to focus on right now. How vivid is my writing?