The Editing Onion

Editing isn't a one-stop shop.

Editing. It's the dirty word of writing. For most, it's the part where the fun and creativity goes to sleep or drives off into the sunset, leaving you with a boring, tedious, time-consuming, and oh-so-not-at-all-fun WORK of finding out just had poorly you can spell and how much you use weak verbs and too many adverbs and why you should just chuck your Creative Writing MFA and go sell... Sorry. Got a little lost in the weeds there. 

But it doesn't have to be. 

Maybe it will never be fun exactly, but it doesn't have to totally suck either. 

And the best thing is that the more you learn to do it effectively, the better you tend to be at it. 

But, at its heart, what is it exactly?

Not That Kind of Onion

No need to cry about it, editing has layers, just like an onion. (I never said my puns were actually funny. Sorry.) Still, just like our sweet Vidalia metaphor, editing gets more specific and more useful the deeper you dig into it. 

When lots of folks think about editing, they are thinking of just one thing. That one thing might be proofreading. It might be copyediting. It might even be concept editing. Some folks might mentally jump straight to story editing. But each one of these isn't just a 'one thing.' They're all just a part of something bigger--the process of editing.

For me, rather than breaking it into categories like those, I prefer to think about the pieces of the story we're editing, hence my onion metaphor. 

Layer 1: Words

The atom of your story (yes, it's a new metaphor, just stay with me) is the individual word. It's the basic building block of your sentences, your paragraphs, your chapters, and your stories. It's the tree that makes the forest possible. And unlike that cliche, sometimes we writers can't see the trees for the forest. We're so busy noticing the sprawling majesty of the story that we can't or don't notice the individual words that created it. 

Self-Editing Tips and Tricks

For this week's writer roundtable, let's talk about self-editing tips and tricks. What are the ones you use to help you catch as many errors and edits as possible? 

Sean Taylor: For me, I use several depending on the story. 

1. Shuffle the pages and read them out of order. That takes my brain away from the story and focuses on paragraphs instead. 

2. For stories shorter than 5000 words, read them backward to catch spelling and comparably spelled words (or and of, it and is, to and too, for example). 

3. Read aloud. Hearing it will often register better than seeing it. 

4. Have an app read it to you (this is great for those times at night I can't sleep and just lie in bed). 

5. See multiple pages at once on a printout. This forces me to look at pages in context of each other. 

Brian K Morris: Me, I use the text-to-speech part of MS Word to read the story back to me to catch misspellings that aren't (from/form or Brian/Brain). after I've visually edited the piece as best I can.

My twist is I use the AI voice that's WRONG for the story. For instance, if I write crime adventure, I find a voice like a little girl to read it back. If I'm putting together a story with some romance in it, I find the deepest baritone I can find. This way, I don't get lulled because someone's reading to me like my mom did when I was a kid.

Matt LaRock: In my head, I read it in different accents. Sometimes it shows me phrases and sentences that don't really work. And it adds a sense of humor so I don't take it too seriously.

Danielle Procter Piper: I let the story sit for a month, then review it with fresh eyes. Then it sits for another full month before I comb through it again.

Jim Ritchey: Bono taught me No.3, of all people, or got the wheels turning. Concentrate on the sound of the words. How they fit together. Started noticing it in all my favorite writers. Steinbeck was musical.

John Pence: Reading out loud is great neuroscience. You have to process it on so many levels: symbols to letters to words, motor-speech, spoken language, heard language, grammar, and memory …

That’s the shit, but I don’t always do it.

Time away is always good, too.

Robert Krog: Reread it. Read it out loud. Read it backward. Wait a couple of weeks before rereading by one of these methods. Of course, all of these take the time I don’t usually have, but they all help to catch typos and such and are worth it. Just rereading aloud is good, but I actually have read stories backward a time or two. Another option is having someone else read the story to me. I find that works quite well. I don’t usually have a reader available though.

 David Wright: I definitely take my time in walking away from a work and returning to it with fresh eyes. I do that multiple times. I also have four beta readers I rely on to not only catch errors but challenge me on decisions. You gotta have at least one person in your corner that is going to put the quality of your finished work above your feelings. And never, ever let a misspelled word go. If you're ever re-reading something and you see an error, correct it right away because you may not ever catch it again. Typos drive me nuts. Also, if a certain passage or phrasing just doesn't quite do it for you, but you can't think of a better solution, don't let it slide. Dig in and challenge yourself.

Mike Bullock: I have this weird thing of "putting it to bed" wherein I hand it off to my editor and the moment I've done so it gives me fresh eyes. Then I re-read and catch things before the editor reads it over. Something about "finalizing" it that gives me a new perspective. Not sure why... 

Before I get to that point, however, I will re-read following certain sub-plots or character arcs only. For example, When I wrote the Phantom: Checkmate story, I re-read it solely from Phantom's POV, then Diana's, then HIM's. This gives me an altered perspective and helps ensure each character arc and/or subplot works, and I catch typos, etc. in the process I may not have caught otherwise.

Elizabeth Donald: Print it out on paper and read it aloud as you edit with a red pen in hand. Your eye will catch things you’ll never see scrolling on the screen, and your ear will hear the language and the ways it doesn’t quite fit. I have used this procedure for all my own edits, and counsel-urge-beg-plead my students to do the same with their essays. I can always tell the ones who actually try it vs. the ones who run spellcheck and say, “Eh, good enough.”

Ernest Russell: I like to let it sit for a few days. Work on something else during that time.

Then I'll pick it back up and run it through Grammarly. It is a useful tool that can point missing words, duplicates, double words, etc. It is a good tool, but I never use any automated program carte blanche. You can end up with some really weird wordings and punctuation. On the other hand. you have to look at every line, both as part of the story and individually.

Sometimes, I will use Autocrit; it is great at word counts. It lets you find homonyms. Have many times did you use a particular word. Did you really intend to use the word "that" 586 times?

Again, a very useful tool, but a tool.

Printing the draft double-space. Read through it making notes.

When I feel satisfied. My partner, who once worked as a copyeditor for a newspaper, looks it over and tells me everything I missed. 😀

Mark Barnard: Reading aloud helps immensely.

Ron Fortier: Read aloud what I just wrote. Hearing mistakes works.

John M. Olsen: I have a hit list of things I've overused in the past. I have my computer read it aloud to me. I run a few reports in ProWritingAid. I run multiple spell checkers. I run a tool I wrote that graphs the emotional flow to make sure I have the right highs and lows.

Teel James Glenn: I read things out of sequence to not get caught up in the story. I always read my work out loud as I write it so I've done 'that stage'...

Dale Kesterson: I have been known to read segments aloud to some victi--er, friends who are patient enough to listen. I tend to pay more attention to it that way than reading it aloud to myself.

Read it from back to front. That way I focus of the words, not the narrative.

Alan J. Porter: Reading it out aloud is a great way of catching story and pacing problems.

Mark Vander Zanden: Reading aloud and having the computer read it to me are two of my steps. I also use Autocrit as well and that helps me find some of the weak spots in my writing. I take the number rating with a grain of salt but a few of the reports it runs do come in handy. I will have to try the shuffle approach as well.

Bill Craig: I run mine through several layers of PerfectIt editing program

Austin S. Camacho: Reading aloud is a must. and know your personal weaknesses. I do a search for the word "that" because it's seldom really needed, and search for "ly" to clear out adverbs that are clearly and truly unnecessary. 😉 [OR clear out unnecessary adverbs.]

John French: I also read the story aloud. Plus I run it through Grammarly. I don't always agree with its suggestions but I wind up looking at things I otherwise would not have thought about.

Danielle Palli: I have two tricks I use: 1) Everything goes through Grammarly to catch errors my brain auto-fixes. 2) I re-read out loud. Speaking is slower than thinking, so I catch more. 

Stuart Hopen: I use checklists, borrowing from my days as a Hospital Risk Manager, imitating the routines of the Operating Room to prevent mistakes. My lists include things like: Do the sentences vary in length and structure? Do the characters make decisions for understandable reasons? Do events unfold as an understandable consequence of character decisions? Are scenes structured around specific character goals? Does the pace contain variations of emotional intensity, humor, peaks, lulls, and resolution? And the like. The checklists vary depending on the project, and they are tailored to alert me to things I know are my weaknesses. At the bottom of the checklist is a reminder -- stop editing and rewriting, or you will never be done. Good is the enemy of Great, but Perfect is the enemy of finishing.

[Link] Editing for Frugal Self-Publishers

by Val Breit

Who doesn’t want to save a bit of money when they self-publish a book? Today’s guest post by Val Breit offers many cost-saving tips and resources for authors editing their books before sending them to a professional editor. If you’re not ready to have your book edited, you may want to bookmark this post and come back to it later. Enjoy!

You want to write (and sell) an amazing book, but you don’t want to spend a ton of money doing it. If you aren’t careful, the costs of self-publishing a book could run your bank account dry.

In fact, the average cost of self-publishing a book can be between a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars.

And one of the most expensive parts of publishing is editing.

Editing is not something you want to skip. With a weak storyline, the reader won’t read past the second chapter. And a book littered with grammatical errors and typos screams amateur.

So what can you do to have a professionally edited book without spending thousands of dollars?

Here are the best frugal tips for getting a talented editor to polish your book for less money.

Read the full article: https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2018/04/editing-for-frugal-self-publishers/

[Link] Two Tips for Copyediting Dialogue

by Amy Schneider

Accurately representing dialogue in fiction can be tricky business for both authors and editors. In its most basic form, words spoken aloud by a character, you can’t go wrong with the good old journalistic style of “comma quote name said”: “Just do it this way,” Amy said. But there are so many more ways that characters express themselves, and the editor’s job is to help such expression be true to the character while being understandable to the reader. In this article we’ll touch on the two most common issues I see.

Read the full article: https://www.copyediting.com/two-tips-copyediting-dialogue/

#MotivationalMonday -- Blankety Blank

[Link] WORD WATCHERS ~ CUT THE FAT NOW

EDITOR'S NOTE: Guys, gals, and green tentacle beasts from the planet Yyyyarchazaick... this is hands-down one of the best articles I've seen on how to trim the fat and cut words to tighten your prose, fiction or non. You owe it to your career to read this article. 

============================

by Paul Bishop

The experience of editing over fifty books and repeatedly slashing red ink across the same words and phrases, has made me hyper aware of the same issues in my own writing. I now mercilessly try to eliminate all of the same fat in my manuscripts I’ve scalpeled from others.

To write leaner more impactful prose, you must not only be willing to eliminate flabby sentences and fat words, you need to be able to recognize them. To help with this process there should be a self-help program for writers to join—Word Watchers: Lose 10% Of Your Manuscript In 10 Days...

Members of the writers’ group I mentor know I am on a quest to eliminate the word that from the English language. As an editor, I’ve found the dreaded word to be riddled unnecessarily through almost every manuscript I review. My rule is, if you can remove that from a sentence and the sentence still makes sense, run the word out of town on a log.

Compare the following:

•She needed to tell him that the car wouldn’t start.
•She needed to tell him the car wouldn’t start.
•I was glad that she was doing better.
•I was glad she was doing better.

In both examples, the sentence becomes stronger by removing the weak link of the word, that.

Use a word search to see how many times that appears in your manuscript. You’ll be shocked. It’s especially overwhelming when you realize 95% of thats could be excised. Removing this scourge will strengthen your sentences without changing the integrity of your prose.

Of is another overused word I can guarantee is cluttering up your manuscript like a bad case of acne.

Compare the following:
•He examined the damaged paw of the dog
•He examined the dog’s injured paw.

You decide which sentence is stronger, leaner, expressed more concisely. Now think about how many sentences in your manuscript are being blemished by the of virus.

Read the full article: http://www.paulbishopbooks.com/2017/02/word-watchers-cut-fat-now.html?m=1

Forget the Scissors, I Need a Machete!

Will these do?

For this week's writer roundtable, we're going to talk about cutting words -- and not just a word here and there but a significant amount of them. 

Here's the scenario... You finish your latest novel or novella, but you're WAY over the word count. 

WAY, WAY OVER. 

How do you get it back to the side your editor wants? 

What are your techniques for serious trimming on your work?

Lee Houston Jr.: Actually, there have been a lot of times where my writing buddy and friendly neighborhood beta-proofreader Nancy Hansen says I write too tersely and always fall short of the minimum word count, so I go back and keep re-reading and adding more until I've reached the goal.

In the end, if I'm over, I just reverse the process. I keep rereading and subtracting. Making choices in that category is tougher because you cannot be so in love with your own prose that you are unwilling to cut anything, even if in hindsight the passage in question actually doesn't add anything to the overall story.

But whichever way you're headed, you have to be careful not to subtract too much or your story might not make sense and adding too much could have your readers think you "pad" your stories.

It's a tricky tightrope to traverse, but every writer finds themselves walking it at one point or another during any project. The real trick is to get to the other side successfully.

PJ Lozito: I am a big believer in cutting out (but save it to a file!). That's one reason I don't think giving a daily word count means much. As for getting up to size, I have notes I can and do use. Nothing makes me prouder than finally being able to use some interesting tidbit I was saving.

I heard you were looking for a word-cutter.

Nancy Hansen: Anybody who's had to edit or publish me knows, I write too big at times. I have to cut all the time, and it's hardest with your own work. I can show you where to cut, but I can't seem to see it in my own stuff—at least not initially. So first off, if I have time, I set the piece aside and go on to something else. It's kind of like cleansing your palate with something in between courses. When I go back, I have fresh eyes. If that doesn't work, I'll hand it over to someone else, a trusted beta reader or even the editor who is waiting for it, and explain that I've tried to cut back but I am too close to the material to see where, and could you please take a look. Nine times out of ten with a short piece people are happy to help, and they give you an idea where and what should go. On longer pieces like novels, the usual advice is to look for a spot where something momentous is about to occur and taper it off there. Most times I can figure it out myself, but now and then you need a different pair of eyes.

Frank Fradella: Step One: Check your ego.

Step Two: Ask yourself if you have started this story as late as possible. Do I need this first chapter? The first three? Am I creating too much preamble? Do I REALLY need this characters origin or can it be revealed as necessary through dialogue or flashback later on?

Step Three: Ask yourself what purpose each character serves in the story. Do you have two characters who play the same or similar role? Can you eliminate one of them?

Step Four: Identify the purpose of each and every scene. Chances are you have one or two that you're chalking up to "character development" that can be axed outright.

Step Five: Push back. If every single character or every single scene has an unshakable purpose, present your case to your editor and ask them to suggest edits, and then be prepared to show why those scenes or characters need to be there. But remember Step One. Very often, they're right and you can make the cut. So cut.

Robert Krog: I start by searching for and deleting adverbs, interjections, needless intensifiers, words like just, so, and well. That always reduces the word count by a bit. Then, I go through and find wordy phrases that can be supplanted by fewer or even one word. Why be lazy and write "very happy" when "elated" means the same thing and so much more? When this too has failed to reduce the word count into the acceptable range, I begin looking for passages that don't advance the plot or build character. This is the painful part because I thought they all advanced the plot and added to characters when I was writing. I have, occasionally reduced the role of or even cut extraneous characters from stories. This usually does the trick. If the protagonist is still able to do all that needed doing without the sidekick, and the sidekick didn't add much or anything meaningful to the story, then out the sidekick goes. This greatly reduces the verbiage. Sometimes, I have already written lean enough that such cannot be done, in which case I've had to ask the editor for leniency on the word count. This has been known to work, but not often. Sometimes the editor will shoot back with suggested cuts, and I will have to admit that the editor is correct. Another trick is, of course, to look for inadvertent info dumps and eliminate them. Working the required information into the story in a show rather than tell format is usually less wordy, and the reader didn't buy a work of fiction expecting textbook style writing, anyway. Information dumps often insult the intelligence of the reader. Respecting the reader's ability to pick up what is needed from context is a good policy and should be used whenever possible.

The Internet called and said you wanted an editor.

Ellie Raine: Usually, I first look at each chapter and determine if I can afford to cut those out, or cut them in half. Sometimes, the hardest things to catch are the not-so-integral scenes before and after the good, important, meaty bits that actually matter, and firing those. It's usually mundane things like the character asking the desk clerk to check in, when that can be wrapped up in a paragraph to get to the scene where his hotel suite is broken into. Basically, I just look at what I think should be the focus of the audience's attention and cut the fat out.

Bobby Nash: The first things I look for are any side trips or character moments that, while can be great, don't necessarily advance the plot. After that, it's looking for extraneous words, adverbs, and tags that can be cut.

Lance Stahlberg: I am literally going thru that scenario now. Was also thinking it was blog worthy of listing off what I did. (Posted here: http://lrstahlberg.blogspot.com/2017/06/tips-to-reduce-word-count_23.html)

Matt Hiebert: The words "Kill Your Darlings" always haunt me. But I don't kill them. I cut and paste them into another document. Although I never go back and read them, I know they're there and not gone. Not dead.

Nugget #102 -- Eyes vs. Brains in Self-Editing

The biggest trouble with self-editing is that (as the

writer) your brain already knows what you want

to say. So when you read over your draft to fix

problems, too often your eyes miss the problems

on the page and instead listen to your brain’s intentions.

[Link[ Why Publishers Reject Your Manuscript After Reading Just Two Pages

by Jerry Jenkins

Editors can tell within a page or two how much editing would be required to make a manuscript publishable; if it would take a lot of work in every sentence, the labor cost alone would disqualify it.

An editor can tell immediately whether a writer understands what it means to grab a reader by the throat and not let go.

• Have too many characters been introduced too quickly?
• Does the writer understand point of view?
• Is the setting and tone interesting?
• Do we have a sense of where the story is headed, or is there too much throat clearing? (See below for an explanation.)
• Is the story subtle and evocative, or is it on-the-nose?

Yes, a professional editor can determine all this with a quick read of the first two to three pages.

If you find yourself saying, “But they didn’t even get to the good stuff,” then you need to put the good stuff earlier in your manuscript.

So today, I want to zero in on tight writing and self-editing.

Read the full article: http://www.jerryjenkins.com/self-editing/?inf_contact_key=955c59775a792f7f2eb34ff3863a7d44d32aec0f9da787908200db892819a21c

Draft Editing: Whens and Whats

Special thanks to Ellie Raine for this week's Writers Roundtable questions.

What is the biggest editing rule you constantly break while writing a first draft?

Derrick Ferguson: I break 'em all. I don't a give a poobah's pizzle about any rule of editing or grammar when I'm writing that first draft. I'm telling the story to myself and just letting everything gush out in a white-hot blaze of pure storytelling.

Herika Raymer: Double space after period, train of thought writing (in other words it may not be coherent and probably terrible pacing), jumping from scene to scene, data dump, more showing than telling. Shall I go on?

Clint Hall: Telling. It's not that I try to tell instead of show, but if I can't immediately think of a great way to show, I'll just tell the reader (basically) whatever I want them to take away from the scene. Which leads nicely into...

Do you try to fix it right away, or do you save it for the first round of proof reading?

Clint Hall: Nope, I don't fix it right away. The first draft for me is about trying to get the story down. I'll come back and figure out the best way to show instead of tell in my second or third pass.

Bill Craig: If I see it I correct it the first time around. Then once the manuscript is complete I print it out and go through with a red pencil and find and mark typos and errors and then using the printed pages go back through the computer manuscript and go through and make corrections.

Derrick Ferguson: Nope. I never fix any errors right away. That's what the second and third drafts are for.

Herika Raymer: Depending on whether or not I am in a rhythm, I will usually try to fix it right away because it helps close any plot holes or fill in any gaps I may have unintentionally done. Afterwords, I will catch other editing mishaps on the beta read.

Putting Things in Place: Finding the [right/interesting/perfect] Words for Your Story

by Ray Dean

Why do I always feel like I should start these posts with the disclaimer of: This might not be for you, but that’s okay, your process might not work for me either, but here we go anyway.

Having been a dancer and an actor before, I know a little bit about the creative process and skill building. While there are techniques that could and should be used by all, the nuances of each person’s talent and self expression are just that… personal. You learn techniques from other people, ‘stuff’ that work for them. Sometimes it works for you too. Or sometimes you find a variation that suits you better.

So here I am, explaining something I’ve come to use during my process. ‘Placemarking.’ In the past I’ve found myself stressed while I’m writing, worried over the perfect word choice or other stopping points during my first draft, I’d let frustration build and sometimes…

Okay, let’s be honest, a number of times, I’ve let it get the best of me and stop me cold. I might convince myself that I’ll just come back to it later… and then, it’ll be easy. Right. Are you giving me that polite ‘awwww’ smile? Tempted to pat me on the head and sigh? Yeah, I can see that.

But sometimes you have to adjust your plan. Change your technique. Find something that works better. Or in this case, something that works. And gets me working.

I’d like think of this technique as a conscious effort to write more, and beat myself up less.

Names

Names are important. Yes, I hear the grumbling. I’m not saying that you didn’t know that!

When you sit down to write, you won’t always find the perfect name right then and there. Maybe before you’ve started to write the story, you’ve done your research. You looked through name lists, name meaning sites, census lists… but nothing feels quite right. And yet you know there’s someone THERE. They need to talk, they need to move around the room, and gosh darn it, other characters actually have to interact with them!

So what do you do when you need a character name, but you need to get on with writing the story? I stick in a ‘placemarker’ to keep things moving.

Specifically, I use letters. It may be different for others, but I rarely use the letter “X” so if I have a character with no name that leaps out at me, they become XX.

XX sat up and looked up at me with an apologetic smile. “Hold on a second, sweets.” She ducked down again, her voice muffled a bit. “I thought I brought my breakfast with me, in my bag…. somewhere…”

If there’s another character that pops up (I don’t think I’ve had this happen more than once), ZZ works.  (I don’t just use ONE letter, it could be dangerous)

Later when the epiphany happens… you know, when the sun shines through the clouds, seraphim flutter down beside you and scream that name in your ear... You can do a search and replace and suddenly XX becomes Elspeth or Jane or Mary or something more exotic based on time period or location. But waiting around while I debate the ins and outs of Annie or Mary, kills the forward motion of progress. And as time and experience have shown me, I get that much closer to ‘giving up and going to do something else.’

You could always just put a ‘generic’ name in for the character and ‘search and replace’ that later, but I’ve found that if I use a name it might start to color that character for me, giving it whatever qualities I usually associate with the name. Don’t understand that? Maybe you’re a lucky one that hasn’t started to use a name for a character and then remembered all the people with the same name that have ticked you off in the past. But not me.

(Please check before you replace ALL, you might accidentally replace something you want to keep - that’s why it’s important to NOT use a single letter as a placeholder)

Words - Vocabulary

Sometimes when you’re writing a sentence you have that moment when a big _____ opens up. You know what you’re thinking about, but for some reason you can’t quite come up with ‘that word.’  It doesn’t even have to be a ‘hard’ word. The mind can get caught up on any number of simple ideas. The point is NOT to get upset about it.

Why beat yourself up over a moment of ____. When I was writing the ‘name’ section above, I got to this sentence:

...You looked through name lists, name meaning sites, ...

For the life of me I couldn’t come up with the word CENSUS. I knew what it was… a periodic accounting of the population… yada yada yada… but the word CENSUS was just… not there. For that one, where I’m looking for the ‘name’ of something, if I had access to the internet, I could type the keywords and search for the words.

But there will be times when that’s not necessarily an option.  Or when the word that I’m looking for isn’t just an A=B scenario. In this instance, I typed in [per pop survey]. And a few sentences later, I remembered. Dropped back and replace the [ ] with the word.

When you’re writing and you’re looking for a descriptive term for someone/something. Eye color, expression, tone, quality of movement. In the past this has been a crippling thing at times. The need to come up with the ‘perfect’ word right now.  That’s a pretty big demand. It’s not just a matter of a rote activity like stand, sit, bark, sorry, getting carried away. So if I’m writing about a character looking at another character, instead of my muse wagging a finger at me and chuckling for my lack of perfect word choice, I can say…

… it would have been so simple to ignore the look on her face. But it broke his heart to see her huddled in the corner so (sad/depressed/heartbroken)...    None of those words actually convey the meaning I might be looking for, but I know what I want to write next, so I don’t put the parking brake on and sit there with the engine running, wasting gas.

And I’m not saying you have to WAIT until the whole draft is done to go back to this one. But I am saying don’t just sit there and argue with yourself to find that perfect word right there in that moment. You may be starting the next paragraph when inspiration strikes you from on high. Or you might be three chapters further down the line and ‘wham’ it smacks you between the eyes.

Toss that word in if the inspiration strikes you, but don’t ruminate on it too much. This way you know what ballpark you’re playing in. And sometimes throwing down words that are ‘close’ will push that word from the tip of your tongue to the tips of your fingers.

And there’s nothing wrong with the scenario where you get through your first draft, you work out the character arc for that character and when you go back through on your first edit… and now you know a little bit more about that character and the word is ‘there.’

Editorial Stuff

Turning off that ‘Inner Editor’ (IE) - what a great idea. And sometimes it’s just not possible to relegate that pesky editor to the cold dark corner in the back of your mind. So why send them away. Make them work, but under ‘your’ instructions.

When I’m writing a draft and I feel the IE hovering over my shoulder biting one hand’s nails to the quick and using the other to reach forward like Dracula’s bony finger pointing at the line that I’m working on, I take that moment to let them talk. I write down their comments.

[awkward]
[check facts]
[more description]
[tone?]
[confusing]
[how does she know?]

… just a few words so that I know what to look for when I go back.

I make sure the IE knows “I’ve got this. Don’t worry, I’ll go back to this... Later.”

And then the inner editor takes a step back and I move on.

Could I stop and ‘fix’ things right then and there? Sure? But it’s a double edged sword. Putting the brakes on now might put a hitch in the flow of what you’re doing.  I find that ‘placemarking’ the changes you want to make later lets you focus on writing new words. 

I find that these methods of ‘placemarking’ have helped me produce my drafts faster, speeding the flow of my writing. But along with the methods, I’ve had to change my mind set. It was a conscious decision to do things this way. I had to make this an active effort, a policy of my process, because fighting yourself during the creative process is counterproductive.

Why frustrate yourself when the whole point is ‘getting a draft you can work with?’

Have you done something like this in the past? Do you do this now? How did it/does it work for you?

[Link] Editing - the Big Questions

by Joe Craig

I've given a draft of my work-in-progress to a trusted brain to read. This will be the first time anybody but me has read any of this story.

I started planning it more than two years ago. I started writing the first draft on January 7th, 2014. I finished the first draft on November 20th and since then I've done some extensive re-writing, but nowhere near enough to be finished.

There's still several weeks of editing and rewriting to be done, but to carry on productively, I need a trusted brain to tell me the answers to some big questions. For example:

Does it make sense?

When you've been working on one story for so long it's very easy to lose sight of what will be clear or obvious to the first time reader and what needs elaboration. But of course, everybody who reads the book will be a first time reader once. So it has to make sense, sentence by sentence and also on a larger scale across the whole plot.

Continue reading: http://turkeyonthehill.blogspot.com/2014/12/editing-big-questions.html

[Link] Cut the Crap

by Andrea Judy

The process of editing.

The process of editing and rewriting.

Cutting words from your work can suck. It can, without a doubt, be one of the toughest parts of the writing process, especially when you either a) have to cut a lot of words/pages  b) have to add a lot of words/pages or c) to cut huge sections and redo them.

Figuring out what can stay and what can go is one of the challenges of making your story the strongest it can be. Here are a  few things that can help (and by the way, making gifs on Photoshop is a great way to waste time but an awful way to get editing done.) These are basically things that I do once I have a first draft of a story.

Continue reading: http://judyblackcloud.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/cut-the-crap/