Are you editing while writing? Does it work? Or did you finished your first draft before editing? Is the main failure to get accepted by an agent or publisher do with poor editing? Do we spend enough time on it?

What does editing really entail?

What do you think?

Posted: 27/03/2012 14:04:59
Last Edit: 27/03/2012 14:07:49 by La Marmonie

I edid each chapter ass I go along. More orless.

Posted: 27/03/2012 14:06:55

I blitz-write - then take the entire soggy mess, wring it out and start over. Basically my first draft is a detailed outline. The second is a bit closer to looking like a book and the third is something I can work with.

Posted: 27/03/2012 14:12:19

I edid each chapter ass I go along. More orless.

I blitz-write - then take the entire soggy mess, wring it out and start over. Basically my first draft is a detailed outline. The second is a bit closer to looking like a book and the third is something I can work with.

I can't separate the two.

Let's say I'm writing a paragraph. I'll type for a bit. Then I'll notice the paragraph's not organized as well as it could be, so I'll move sentences around. Then I'll look at my images and improve them. I'll evaluate the impact of the nouns and verbs. Meanwhile, I'm still spewing out typing. Then I re-read the paragraph. I'll fiddle some more.

At this point, I've written a first draft. Later, I'll evaluate the paragraph in relation to the adjacent paragraphs, or the scene.

As you can imagine, this was crippling when I used a typewriter. My process works much better with Microsoft Word.

Posted: 27/03/2012 14:13:52

I will write a scene or a chapter, or however many words decide to grace me with their presence, and then I leave it for a day or two. Then I'll write on a bit (just to get the story flowing again). Then I go back over what I've already written and pull out the obvious overused words ("that" is a common one for me) and add in contractions (for some reason my first drafts are almost always written without common contractions!). I'll check for typos and highlight things I need to check, or come back to once I've researched the subject further. Then I'll get back into creative mode for the rest of my time.

Once I've got the book properly underway, I may go back and revise certain sections as my plot develops legs of its own and wanders off down paths I hadn't considered at the start. So, when I decide that my agoraphobic MCs haven't been agoraphobic for as long as originally planned, I'll go back through the whole thing for any mention and amend it accordingly (my original estimate is far too long, I think). If I decide to make a character nastier or nicer, I'll go back through all their bits and amend them. I like to do it as I go, just to make sure I don't miss any sections out.

That's my first official draft. Then I'll put it away for a few weeks, print it out and read it purely for plot/flow. Then I'll separate it out by character and follow each character through the book, checking for consistent voice and facts. Then I'll shuffle sections around as necessary, fill in any holes. Then I'll run each chapter through prowritingaid to pick up on possible issues. That's drafts 2 and 3. Then one more read through for punctuation/typos etc (a proof rather than an edit). And, of course, there are comments from Authonomy reviewers that I'll take into consideration, but I tend to save them up and print them off in a batch for incorporating in draft 2.

Then I'm happy with it and send it off for rejection. Editing HC took me 2 months (with another couple of months off in between drafts for other stuff). About a 1/4 of the time it took for me to write the first draft.

I'd never post anything online that I wasn't 90% happy with (it used to be 100% but I'm in therapy to try and reduce my perfectionism). I'd never send off something to a competition or agent/publisher that I hadn't checked through a minimum of twice, and more like 3 or 4 times. I don't see the point in submitting something that hasn't been edited to the absolute best of my ability.

Posted: 27/03/2012 14:27:38

Wring it out - you know, twist it around and around to get all the excess crap out, the inconsistencies, etc. and then start fleshing it out all over again.

Posted: 27/03/2012 14:27:58

Does that mean that by the end you've not got much to edit?

On a positive note, the reviews so far have been positive and readers either don't catch the errors I think are there, or they don't bother them enough to comment on.

Posted: 27/03/2012 14:36:19