TIPS FOR SELF-EDITING A FAMILY HISTORY BOOK

A family history book is one of the most special things you can do for your family and this is something that you must work hard to accomplish.

You might find good family history book examples and you must study them in order to understand the family history book layout as well as the paragraph structure.

You must also understand the writing process and what kind of editing involves in the manuscript as well as you must have some proofreading knowledge.

The best way to go about this is to sit together as a family, by that we mean the elders who know in-depth knowledge about the family along with yourself and start noting down points.

After you have started doing that you will have a good base to start writing your family history book.

THERE IS SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN WRITING THE FAMILY HISTORY BOOK

Now that you have started the work and completed it, you think to yourself that the writing looks dry or there are many mistakes in it.

You might also find that the book might resemble a journal more than a book and this is quite common.

Often times what happens is that if we have to incorporate too many facts then we might become dry in our approach to writing them and we might take the journalistic approach.

However, you must understand you are writing a book here and therefore you must include all the important elements as well as include them in a story format.

While you can read a lot of books on how to write better family history books or you can go online for tips to create a family history book, there is something more important.

You must need to learn and understand the tips for self-editing a family history book. What matters most is editing all the information that you have compiled into something pleasant and readable.

HERE ARE THE TIPS AND STEPS FOR SELF-EDITING A FAMILY HISTORY BOOK

DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING

This is a very unique style of editing and this kind of editing can be done anywhere during the entire course of writing the family history book.

The main goal of this type of editing is to ensure a couple of parameters are alright such as the pace of the story.

This is done to ensure that the target audience which is your family members do not have a hard time reading the family history book.

This type of editing is also done with the consultation of other family members so that the story stays as information-rich as possible.

There are also important parameters such as organisation of the material and also improvement and selection of the tone of writing.

This type of editing also consists of the verification of information so that any errors can be avoided.

LINE EDITING

After the story has been written and after the developmental editing process has been done in many parts, you can now focus on the line editing.

Line editing is one of the most crucial steps that is taken while writing any type of material and this also includes your family history book.

While development editing is more geared towards flow and readability but line editing is one of the most detailed and rudimentary types of editing.

It ensures that there is consistency between the various lines of the story as well as the paragraphs.

With the help of line editing, you can ensure that there is no repetition of information as well as there is clarity in the sentences.

COPY EDITING

After the line editing has been completed, we can move on to what is generally known as editing or as we like to call it copy editing.

Copy editing makes sure to go word by word, line by line and paragraph by paragraph to find out any spelling errors.

While you might think that this is copy editing but there is a lot more to it.

You must also be able to check the punctuations such as the usage of exclamation marks, question marks, full stops, come, semicolons etc.

Additionally, you must ensure that the text does not have any syntax errors and by that we mean that all the order of the words, as well as all the phrases, are in the grammatically proper syntax.

After you have ensured this you can then move on to the second step of the process.

The second step of the process is to analyse word usage, this is quite important because you must understand that a family history book is meant to be read by everyone in the family.

Let’s say you are from a writing background and you write critical pieces as a profession but if you want to write using terminology that is complicated then the readability will take a hit.

You must keep in mind the purpose of the book and you must therefore use terminology and jargon that is familiar to the family.

After all these steps have been done in the correct order, you might think that your book is complete but there is an important step that remains.

This important step is known as proofreading and it is the last step of the editing process.

This step is usually done so as to view the entire text from a birds-eye-view.

This is done so that you might not miss out on any errors or any simple mistakes such as spaces etc.

This is the same process that is followed throughout the artistic world and you might find this process in different variations in all art forms.

An artist looks at their completed painting from a far distance or the music producer or singer listens to their song after it has been completed.

These were all the important steps that will allow you to self-edit your family history book.

Although these tips might seem easy but they are quite time-consuming and if you do not want to spend so much time trying to edit your family history book yourself or if you do not even want to write it, we have the perfect solution for you.

We are Get Best Writers and we are a professional ghostwriting agency and you can hire some of the best family history book ghostwriters in India.

They will make sure that your book is completed with the best accuracy and by following the perfect layout. 

We also do every other kind of content writing and ghostwriting and we ensure only the perfect results at all times simply because we are the most trusted ghostwriters for hire agency in India.