Quote:
Originally Posted by E.M.DuBois
What’s really difficult about it is slowing myself down enough to reach each and every word without forming the images in my mind and going into reader-mode, especially with how many times I’ve gone over it. The change of font helps some, but I find if I stay at it too long in any one period my mind goes from editing to reading, and I have to go back a few pages and start over again. So to mitigate this, I go over a single paragraph, then look at something else for a minute, then go back. Any other suggestions?
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Copy out small chunks and review them in a separate application/document. When I am using Text Aloud I copy and paste maybe half a page or less at a time and I read along with the voice in the Text Aloud interface. It's arduous, but it helps me to achieve that disconnect from being reader.
Don't work on it scene-by-scene; deliberately work on chunks that are not whole scenes, this helps stop you from becoming a reader. BUT doing this means you may need to review overlapping chunks, so that you get to review the flow even across the chunk divide.
Don't try to do too much in one sitting. When you feel your mind wandering, put it away for a while and do something else.
Do one thing at a time:
I suggest you should be copy editing*. So you're not worrying about the words, you're worrying about the sentences and paragraphs. Do they flow? Are they correct? (Or correct enough in context - dialogue etc).
You will do another, separate, pass as a proof reader. Doing much the same thing but concentrating of words and punctuation and technical correctness.
* Actually, I strongly suspect you should be development editing - particularly cutting - but my hypocrisy will only stretch so far. It will stretch far enough to say that from my reading of the prologue you need to further refine - at least - the opening of your story. Getting your readers involved in the first pages is critical. And if you have not already done that to the prologue then I imagine the rest needs a good trim as well.