The Biggest Self-Editing Mistakes Most Authors Miss (and How to Fix Them)
You finished your first draft. Congratulations. That feat puts you ahead of most aspiring authors who never finish a draft.
Now comes the part that separates the professionals from the hobbyists: editing.
If you’re self-publishing, or even if you’re going the oldpub route and want to avoid the slush pile, you must learn to self-edit effectively.
I’ve professionally edited over a hundred books and written twenty of my own. Whether I’m cleaning up a manuscript for a client or reworking one of mine, I see the same self-editing mistakes over and over. They’re common; they’re deadly, but the good news for you is they’re also fixable.
Here are the top self-editing mistakes authors make and how you can fix them.
1. Overusing Filter Words
Filter words are phrases that put distance between the reader and the action. Examples include “he saw,” “she felt,” “they heard,” “I noticed,” and so on.
Why is using filter words a problem? Because these terms dilute your prose by inserting the character as a middleman between the reader and the story. They weaken immersion and slow down pacing.
How to fix it? Simple: Cut the filter. Don’t write “She heard footsteps behind her.” Write “Footsteps echoed behind her.” Not “He felt the wind sting his face,” but “The wind stung his face.”
Remember: You’re writing from the character’s perspective. The readers already know whose eyes they’re looking through.
Pro tip: Do a Ctrl+F for “saw,” “heard,” “felt,” and similar verbs. nine times out of ten, you can cut or rewrite for stronger prose.
Related: How to Edit Your First Draft
2. Infodumping in Dialogue or Narration
You’ve got world building to share, and by Jove, the reader is going to hear every bit of it on page two!
Usually delivered in the form of a massive wall of text or unnatural dialogue, infodumping has long been the bane of readers who want story instead of history or geology lectures.
Why is it a problem? Info-dumps kill pacing, overwhelm readers, and make characters sound like walking Wikipedia entries.
How to fix it? Drip-feed your lore. Embed details organically, revealing only what the reader needs to know to understand the current scene. Hold back the rest until it becomes relevant.
Instead of:
“As you know, Captain, the energy crystals power the stardrives and were discovered on Largos IX in 2358.”
Try:
“Without more Largos crystals, we’re grounded.”
The second version implies history without drowning the reader in exposition.
Related: Sanderson’s World Building Legacy
3. Weak Openings That Fail to Hook Readers
If you’re starting your book with backstory, weather reports, a character waking up, or two pages of world description, odds are you’re not hooking your readers.
Why is it a problem? Readers decide within the first page—often the first sentence—whether to keep going. A weak opening kills your momentum before it starts.
How to fix it? Open with conflict, dialogue, or character to give the reader a sense of motion. Use that momentum to a) show your readers that something is happening, and b) establish why they should care.
Ask yourself:
What question does the first line raise?
Why should the reader turn the page?
Don’t bury the hook in chapter three. Put it in paragraph one as close to sentence one as possible.
4. Dialogue That Doesn’t Sound Human
Characters speaking in stilted, overly formal, or exposition-laden ways puts readers off. So do multiple characters who sound exactly the same.
Why is it a problem? Second only to action, dialogue reveals more about your characters than anything else. They shouldn’t all talk like self-insert clones of you.
How to fix it: Read your dialogue out loud. If it sounds unnatural coming out of your mouth, it’ll sound worse in your reader’s head. Bonus points for having someone else read it to you.
And don’t be afraid to use contractions. People don’t say, “I do not know why you are angry.” They say, “I don’t know why you’re mad.”
Pro tip: Use beats instead of tags when possible.
Bad: “I can’t believe you,” she said angrily.
Better: She clenched her fists. “I can’t believe you!”
Make sure to vary rhythm and vocabulary between characters. Your ex-military bounty hunter shouldn’t talk like your teenage tech nerd.
5. Skipping the Hard Edit
You ask for trouble when you treat editing as a light proofread instead of a brutal, necessary teardown and rebuild.
Why is it a problem? Most first drafts are bloated, full of aimless plot threads and redundancies. If you only look for typos, you’re missing the forest fire while pruning a tree.
How to fix it? Editing is a separate process from writing. You need to become your own harshest critic.
Let me show you how:
Take a break. Let the draft cool on the windowsill for a week or two. Then come back with fresh eyes.
Cut ruthlessly. Eliminate scenes that don’t move the plot or deepen character. If it doesn’t serve the story, it goes on the cutting room floor.
Tighten sentences. Trim wasted words. Remove redundant dialogue. Replace weak adverb + verb and adjective + noun combinations with strong verbs and nouns.
Get feedback. Beta readers, critique partners, or a professional editor can catch what you miss.
You need to go beyond “Does this sound good?” and ask, “Is this the best way to tell this part of the story?”
Final Word: Edit Like a Pro.
Newpub gives you complete control; that’s the upside.
The downside? There’s no safety net.
If your book is poorly edited, readers won’t finish it. Even on the off chance that they do, they won’t recommend it. And no amount of marketing can dig you out of that hole.
But if you take editing seriously and apply even a fraction of the discipline you used to write the draft, you’ll stand out from 90 percent of the field. Fixing these five mistakes will put you ahead of the game.
If you want your book to compete in the 2025 market, you must be your own best editor before you hire one. Know what makes a book worth reading and what to cut.
And if you need professional eyes on your manuscript?
I edit books. Drop me a line. Let’s make your story sharper, tighter, and worth your readers’ time.
Brian Niemeier is a best-selling novelist, editor, and Dragon Award winner with over a decade in newpub. For direct, in-person writing and editing insights, join his Patreon.