Editing: A Fresh Pair of Eyes

Not only is editing yourself as much as possible key to a successful story, it's also a good thing to have someone else look over your work too. In the fan fiction world, this is called a beta reader. On fanfiction.net, there is a whole section that lists beta readers. Like this awesome article I found says, beta readers will read your stories and give you constructive criticism with an objective eye on everything from characterization to spelling and grammar to story pacing to pretty much anything you can think of. The key of this is constructive criticism. Some people get defensive at any form of criticism, but that's not what the average beta reader is going for at all. They're not saying your story is bad, they just want to help you make the best possible story you can. Sometimes you miss things when you're looking at your own work. You may know what you're trying to say and as a result, your brain may skip over things or add in details you think aren't crucial, but are needed to understand the story. The average reader doesn't have the advantage of being a mind reader or being in your head; they may have no idea and a beta reader can help you with that.

I know having a beta helped me for the brief time I had one while writing Wedding Bells and Bomb Shells. She helped me clear up the issues I have with punctuation and a lot of other stuff. I was quite grateful for all of her help. Unfortunately, in rereading my story a while back, I think I may have accidentally insulted her by implying that her not getting back to me on a chapter was the reason for a long break I had between updates, when it wasn't; I was just busy. So if you ever wrote under the pen name Mirandabelle and beta read a story called Wedding Bells and Bomb Shells and you're reading this, I'm sorry if I insulted you! I didn't mean it like that; I'm just really good at putting my foot in my mouth at times! So yeah, the moral of this particular story is don't insult your beta.

No one likes to read a story with obvious errors (and sometimes even non-obvious ones!) that could have been fixed by simply having another pair of eyes looking at your story. It's not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of having the maturity to want to make your story the best that it can be.