The Grueling Process of Editing

[Dusk18]

So you have a complete rough draft. How do you go about editing it? What is your method to polish it? Do you go chapter by chapter? Do you work backwards? What do you do when you find yourself thinking 'Man, I've cut so much out, I don't think I can use ANY of this?

[MichaelB]

Detach yourself from the work, or better yet hire someone with experience. I tend to work in backward steps: first, look at the story as a whole and the cohesion of elements. Then, look at paragraphs and sentences for clarity and grace and consistency. Finally, check the spelling and grammar and make sure that's all good. If you work the other way around you might find yourself doing a lot of work on something you later decide to cut or rewrite, which is a big waste of time.

[Tundra]

Why are you cutting bits out?

[Dusk18]

Well the manuscript came from my NaNoNovel, which as you know, it's frantic writing. Which usually means crappy writing. Making silly mistakes like changing a characters eye color. Also, cutting out redundant bits or shortening paragraphs to make them flow better.

[Tundra]

Ahhhh. Right. Well in that case, I'd use your nano novel as a base, and then add more to it so it makes more sense, before removing the 'irrelevant' bits.

[Dusk18]

Well I did and I cleaned it up quite a bit. But I know it's not enough. However, I'm going to let it stew for a while. Sleep on it. I'm just wondering if there were other methods I could try to not make it such a tedious task. Or find something that works for me.

[stephen]

Not that I've particularly tried this method, but one I hear suggested often enough is to get all your facts straight on a sheet of paper (or a few sheets, depending). By that I mean character info, the general plot, important details, etc.

As you go through your novel, check it against your notes to see if it holds up to your plan. Keep only what is directly related to the plot.

Another thought to add: why not try gutting the novel completely - just keep the things that are vitally important to the plot. Read it through again, and see where you can add things to make certain areas more interesting. My theory here is that it's easier to add to a bare-bones story than it is to decide what to take out and what to keep.

[GriffinGal]

My creative writing professor once suggested retyping the entire story. As you retype, you pay attention, which means you might catch things you didn't the first time.

Of course, this can be a much more tedious activity for a novel than for a short story, and she was the short-story-writing type, so obviously it wasn't as big a deal to her as it would be to us novel-writers. Honestly, on a 50,000-word, or more, piece of prose, I'm not sure I'd have that much patience, even if it were effective.

Another method I've heard may work - it works for me - is reading aloud, especially with dialogue. Nothing is more noticeable than corny, contrived dialogue, and few people will keep reading if you subject them to it. I don't know about anyone else, but I "hear" what I'm reading in my head, so I notice pretty quickly whether a piece of dialogue or narrative works or doesn't.

I like Stephen's idea of breaking the story down to the bare bones and then adding on to it as you go. Could be as tedious as a complete rewrite, but could also be successful.

My preferred method is to finish a story and put it away for as long as I can stand, whether that's weeks or months or even years. When I come back to it, it's like someone else has written it (amazing how the memory degrades like that, isn't it?), and I can attack the draft with fresh eyes. But if you don't have that long - or that much patience, or enough other things to preoccupy you - then I suggest taking the story to other people, especially if you're considering publishing it one day. A lot of authors will urge you not to think about an audience, but I believe you should give at least some consideration to them. They're the ones who gotta read the book, after all! And the entire goal of publishing houses is to make money (sad to say). Can't make money if no one's buying your books.

Good luck with the editing.

[Dusk18]

Thanks guys. I guess I'm that type of person who's like 'Ok I wrote this we're good to go now onto the next project!' Because I get bored. Really easily. I also have a tendency not to finish things. This is only the 2nd story I have finished and its the first one of this caliber (over 300 pages!)

I heard that the reading out loud one works well, but I probably only be able to do it while my dad's not home, he might think I'm crazy. Oh well, my dogs can be my audience. :D

[DanMarvin]

It depends what you're planning to do with it. If your ultimate goal is to get it published somewhere, you need to try to make it as good as you can. Yes, that is going to take a lot of time and re-reading and re-writing. When I edit my books, I do the following, more or less:

* Use the spelling and grammar function in my word processor. Go through it until it scans clean.
* Reread with an eye for 1) words that are spelled correctly but used incorrect (there, their, they're, etc) 2) missing or extra words 3) things that don't make sense at the micro level
* As I go, make lists. Lists of locations, characters I added, features, scenes, and a chapter summary. If you did this as part of laying out your story, make sure the list you ended up with looks like the list you started with.
* Clean up chapter 1 as best I can. This is the chapter that's going to get the most scrutiny no matter if you're sending to a publisher or agent or just publishing it yourself with a free preview.
* Bring in others. Don't send them your manuscript until you've done the above steps. Ask them to go through chapter one with a fine tooth comb. Swap editing with them so they have a vested interest in helping you with yours
* Take their advice. Don't assume that what you wrote is so brilliant that others just aren't getting it... chances are they aren't getting it because you did a better job of explaining it to yourself than to us. Don't ask for help unless you plan to go back through and address the issues.

Whew! Sounds like a lot of work doesn't it? And it is. But it's not gruelling necessarily, just painstaking and time consuming. You'll end up with three useful things. First, an edited manuscript you're proud of. Second, a chapter summary which is useful when you submit to agents and publishers. Third, a tightly written first chapter, again useful when submitting places.

Good luck!

Dan

[alcar]

The best advice I've heard is to sit down and figure out what the story is, and what you wanted to tell. You don't fix anything or edit any of the story until you have a firm grasp of the plot/structure you intended in write, and then edit from that. There's little point in editing unless you're sure where you're going with it.

I figure having the dustjacket blurb done would be a must as well.