After completing the latest draft of my YA novel, I read through the content with an objective perspective and asked myself the hard questions:
- Do I want to keep reading?
- Do any key elements get lost in the dialogue or subplots?
- Are there any characters that don’t move the story forward?
- Who is the story about and does the answer ever change?
I wrote copious notes in the margins and returned to the keyboard – with determination and motivation moving me forward. In addition to self-editing the novel, I also create content for blogs of various topics (all of which connect back to the themes/topics in the novel). There many times over the last few months when I got discouraged about the work I still needed to tackle to make the finished novel publication-ready. However, I still believe very strongly in the story, the characters, the themes, and the overall tone of the piece. It’s worth the time I put into it.
I am thrilled with the progress made so far and can see the finish line not far in the distance. Once I cross that mark, a new journey begins…and after some refreshment I’ll be ready to start the next leg!
Kelly Deeny 
Those are very good questions indeed when editing, many writers lose that perspective far too easily. If I may suggest something that I do sometimes; bullet point the core elements over a couple of pages. I find this helps in assessing the manuscript objectively as this highlights possible weak areas, or plot holes that might need adjusted or just tweaked. Also this is quite handy when it comes to summarising the story, as well as identifying any predictable scenes/passages that bog the story down.
Anyway, good luck
That’s a great suggestion about listing out the core elements. Thank you!