The Writing Commitment: Editing

There are as many ways to edit as there are people; while different techniques will no doubt help, everyone will do it just a little bit differently. However, no matter what way you plan to edit, keep two things in mind.

One: There are dozens upon dozens of different editing techniques, and you should try as many as you can find or conceive of and have the resources to do. You may discover that doing it one way will allow you to catch one type of problem, and doing it another way will help you find another type. Try everything, try anything, once.

Two: Yes. You need to edit.

Some people are looking at point two and wondering why it's there, and others are looking at it and saying 'No. I don't need to edit. My manuscript is absolutely flawless, a best-seller, and editing will remove every bit of luster it has.'

To people in the second camp: calm down. Take a breath, a sip of water, and listen.

Nothing is ever as perfect as you remember it. If Stephen King, JK Rowling, and other literary greats need to edit, so do you. At the very least, you'll find typos; words spell check didn't catch, the time it accidentally turned your ellipses into a list, formatting errors. At worst, you may find that you wrote 'Chapter 16: I'm not sure how yet, but they kill the dragon and Brent loses his left arm. Chapter 17.' And I guarantee you, there is at least one published author who skipped a scene or a chapter in similar fashion and forgot about it. Sending that off would be a little embarrassing.

Besides, here's the first tip I'm going to give you, something recommended by Stephen King and supported by lots of others: put your story away and don't touch it for six months.

Yes, you heard me. And I'm a complete hipocrite, because I've never followed this advice in my life. By the time I finish a story, I've already got a little list in my head of things that need fixing. Clear Cut, which has had partial requests, has a character whose identity is a secret and unknown for half the story. I didn't figure out how key that identity was until almost 20,000 words in. My first edit, I added clues to that identity, so people would be able to spot it. I added foreshadowing for all the evil events that would occur later. I made sure my characters were doing things, not just talking heads, in scenes with a lot of dialogue. I tried to add senses to scenes: instead of just seeing the place, they were smelling the burning torches, wishing the stew had more salt, and trying to touch the dirty floor as little as possible.

Typically, here's how my editing process goes:

I finish the story... we'll say it's done at 100,000 words (100k for short). I celebrate, eat a candy bar, and relax.

A week later, I read through it and fix everything. This means typos and things I've already thought about. I may decide to cut something or add something, but all told, the story will finish this edit around where it started: 98k.

I double-space it and print it out. Then, on the kitchen table or my desk, kneeling next to my bed or lying on the floor, I read it. You would not believe how different things look on paper. Clear Cut had cross-outs and insertions, mostly cross-outs, on the first 96 pages... and page 97 was five lines long. Entire pages, and chapters, were crossed out.

Then I type these up on the computer again. My insertions, on paper, are usually no more than a sentence; when they're longer, they tend to be messages such as 'You need Harry and Ron to have a conversation about cookies' or 'Foreshadow the upcoming death', where I get creative. However, I cut far more than I add in; by the end of this, it's probably at 80k, and I've been doing this for about two months.

This is when I send it out to friends to beta-read and try to forget about it; typically, I'll give them a time limit of 3-4 months to return it in. I try to forget about it, but honestly, this is when I typically read it over and over again, trying to write queries and a synopsis. (More on beta-reading in another post.)

When I get their comments, I compile their comments into one document and read through it, reading all their comments side on with it. This inevitably leads to-- guess what?-- more changes. Again, usually cutting. That 80k document will probably end up at 79k now.

Last time through, I read it aloud. Here's my rules for the read-aloud: I can't do it while listening to music, or anyone's around to make me feel self-conscious. I also have to stop whenever I realize I'm tuning out my own voice. Usually, there are dozens of 'That sounds so stupid! It should be said like this!' moments, and almost every time, it cuts words out. By the end, it's dropped to 75k.

Those four techniques-- things I've already thought about, printing it, beta-readers, and reading it aloud-- work well for me. I've been 'nitpicking' it for quite a while now, and currently-- under the advice of writer friends-- I'm not allowed to open my current manuscript again until July, so I can (hopefully) have an impartial view of it.

Keep in mind: these four techniques are good to start with, but you can look for others. The first thing is something no one's ever told me to do, but I find my other edits are less effective if I'm constantly distracted by comon speling mitsakes. The other things are widely recommended. Also, I don't outline my stories before writing them.

But you will likely have a shorter story after editing. In Stephen King's On Writing, he mentions that-- early on, before he was published-- an editor told him a second draft is a first drat -10%. As soon as he followed that advice, he had far more success. I'm willing to admit that, at my current stage of writing, much more of what I write gets cut than what he'd do, but that's okay. What's left is better than before.

And sometimes, putting a piece of work aside and ignoring it really is the best thing to do.

Happy Writing,

-Alaina