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Seminar Night: The Editing Process

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Category: Blog
Written by Megan

You wrote it all down. You created characters and put them somewhere and send them on an adventure and some got what they wanted and some didn’t. And you wrote it all down. You wrote it all down so it must be done.

 

But, wait! There’s this huge step in the writing process often ignored: editing. This is the hard part. Slogging through run-on sentences (much like the one up above), gerunds masquerading as verbs, tense shifts, point of view issues, and filling in the holes left behind by fabulous, though somewhat inconsiderate, plot bunnies. For most, this process takes longer than the actual writing. For some, it’s fun. For others, it’s hell. And, especially following National Novel Writing Month, it’s a daunting task. On December 14th, we sat down at Rediscovered Books and talked about editing for the month’s seminar. Here’s what came of it:

 

 

  1. Finish it, and put it away!  Take a step back, and put some distance between yourself and the words before starting to change them.  Sometimes a day is enough, sometime you need more than a month.  If you start edit and you're not finding anything wrong, or all you can do is beat yourself up, it's time to take a step back and wait.

  2. Outlining is a good idea. Outlining before starting the project is great, but outlining after is at least as if not more valuable. This gives you a roadmap, something to follow in your editing process. A way to check in and say “Hey, does this make sense? Does this belong here? Did I forget to add something in?”

  3. Before attacking any of the nitty gritty, look at the story first. Along the way from A to Z did you stop at every letter? What was left out? What about the story do you know that the reader doesn’t? What about those little side-tracks? Did they get back to the story, or to they just sort of meander off into the distance, a nice little diversion, but not adding anything to the story?

  4. Characterization matters. In the course of any story, characters should change (or choose to not change). Does their change make sense as a reaction to the events of the story?

  5. Finishing the story you started. This is a point brought up that I often forget. When you start a story, the ending must finish that story. Finishing a story never started leaves an unsatisfied reader.

  6. Though language is the last aspect of writing to attack when editing, it’s worth paying attention to right from the start. The words on the page are what tell the story. If the language used makes no sense, or otherwise fails to tell the story, the reader won’t get what he or she is looking for.

 

 

What do you think about starting the editing process? Finishing a story?

 

 

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