A fictional letter or notebook may show a word that its writer has crossed out. The replacement is legible, but so is the choice the character apparently tried to remove.
Start by identifying the form of the passage. Is the narrator describing a correction, or does the printed page display it? The reader’s access differs. A narrator may tell you only that something was erased without preserving the earlier wording.
When both versions are available, read the sentence with each one. Does the revision soften an accusation, change a name, or exchange a feeling for a practical explanation? Avoid assuming that the first wording is always more sincere. It might be careless, theatrical or deliberately left visible.
Consider the intended reader inside the story. A correction in a private notebook and one in a letter being sent may invite different questions about audience. If nobody else sees the document, you still have to ask how the novel gives you access to it.
In your notes, preserve the order: initial wording, replacement, and the response of anyone who reads it. That sequence can matter more than choosing one word as the character’s “real” thought.
A visible correction allows uncertainty to remain material. The page carries a decision and the trace of another possibility at the same time.
Editorial illustration from this site’s image library; not documentary evidence of the example or object discussed.
