Editing for People Who Hate Editing

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Since I wrote my posts on how I drastically upped my word count and plotted my novels, a lot of people have been askingme to do a post on editing. I can totally understand why, editing canbe very intimidating. I actually used to dread edit time because thatwas when I actually had to deal with all the problems I'd beenputting off while writing, not to mention that by the time I'd readthrough my book the requisite 5 times it took me to finish an edit tomy satisfaction, I invariably hated it.
But after 8 finished books, I've comearound to a different way of thinking. These days, editing isprobably my favorite part of the writing process. This is partiallybecause all the planning I do means I have far fewer horrifying messesto deal with in the editing phase of things (yet another benefit toplanning your novel), but mostly it's because I started thinkingabout editing in a whole new light. A new light that I'm not goingto attempt to explain in the hopes that others can learn from theyears I spent banging my head against things.
So, without further ado, here is mytake on the editing process, complete with the tools I build for eachbook. I can't promise it will work for you exactly as written, every author'sbrain works differently, after all. But I do hope it will at leastencourage you to approach edits with a new frame of mind.
Disclaimer: Unlike my work counttips, which I think can work for anyone, this process is highlypersonal. If something I describe doesn't work for you, feel free toignore it or replace it with something you find more useful. I offerthese only as examples of methods I use to save time and lower stress during the editing process.

But Rachel, I HATE Editing!I hear this allthe time in a million different variations. Hell, I used to say thismyself. Now, though, when someone tells me they hate editing, I answerthus: No, you don't.
Editing iswriting. If you like writing, you like editing. Editing is just thepart of writing that's at the end, meaning the problems you've beenputting off tend to collect there, which earns it a lot of bad press.However, what most people fail to realize is that editing, likewriting, is a skill. Like writing, it gets better and easierwith practice, methods, and attention. But just as each pie baked makes you a better baker, each house designed makes you a better architect, and each book written makes you abetter writer, so does each editorial process make you a better editor.
I firmly believethat every good writer can become a good editor if they're not onealready. The same skills that make you a good story teller make you agood story perfecter, you just have to stop hating the process andstart treating your editing like you treat your writing – somethingyou strive to be good at, something you do every day, and somethingthat you want to make a career out of. Because trust me, if you're apro writer, you're going to spend a LARGE part of your careerediting. A writer who ignores their editing skill is like a carpenterwho can design and build a table but completely ignores the sandingand finishing. Sure it's a working table, maybe even a really niceone, but no one's going to want to sit at it and get splinters intheir elbows. Editing is power, embrace it.
Ok, Ms.Smarty-Pants, how do I get better at editing?The most effectiveway is to write a lot of books and edit them, though I admit that'snot the most practical solution, especially for people trying to gettheir first book ready for sale. Another good way is to edit otherpeople's work, though it can be hard to bridge the gap betweenfinding someone else's problems and solving your own. So, ifyou're in a hurry to edit your own work quickly and effectively,here's how I do it.
Rachel's Editing Process
Step 1:Changing the way you think about editing. Whatis editing? This is one of those stupid questions I ask, but bearwith me. When you're editing a novel, what are you actually doing?Sure, you're rewriting the prose to make it prettier and you'refixing characters and making the plot make sense and so on, but whatare you reallydoing? What is the point of all this work? Even getting the novelready to go to a publisher is still only a step, not the end goal. Sowhat is the final destination of editing?
Answer: Reader experience.
When you write a first draft, you arewriting a story. You're telling your character's tale, spinning youradventure, whatever. When you start to edit a novel, you're no longerjust telling a story, you're getting ready to put on a production, to invite a reader into your world. Think ofyour book as a fun house ride. You might have built this funhousebased on your fantasies, but once you invite people in, it's no longyour world alone. The world has to make sense to others, it has todelight and surprise and, most importantly, capture them. The readers might be drawn in by the glitz at the front door, but from the moment they set foot insideyour domain, it's your job to keep them there.
This, for me, is what editing is about.You are no longer just getting words down, you're no longer asking"what happens next?" You're asking "how can I prepare thereader for what happens next?" and "how can I make them LOVEIT?" You're not just crafting a story, you're crafting anexperience that you are going to share with each person who picks upyour book. It is your job to make sure your plot and world make sensenot just within the book, but in the mind of the reader. Your job tomake sure your characters are engrossing, not just effective for yourplot. Your job to give these people a reason to stay.
This is my editing mindset. Everychange I make from here on out is for the reader. I've found thinkingthis way can take a lot of the tediousness out of editing. It alsohelps me pull back from the story to see its flaws. After all, thisisn't just my story anymore, it's a production I'm putting on for aworld wide audience with my characters doing the acting, mydescriptions forming the scenery, and my plot making the audience gasp.
I hold out my hand to the reader andsay, let me show you something amazing. The reader grabs hold, and off we run down the path into worlds that don't exist. Editing isperfecting that path. I told you it was awesome.
Step 2: Editing ToolsOverblown rhetoricaside, let's get down to the nuts and bolts of the business. When Ifinish a book, I usually wait one night and then jump straight into editing. Some people like to wait, but I'm impatient and preferto strike while my understanding of the book is still fresh. This isa very personal choice, do whatever feels right for you.
The first thingI do in any edit is to identify what's wrong with the book. The reasoning behind this is the same I used to up my wordcount: knowledge. Just as you write faster when you know what you'rewriting about, you solve problems faster when you know what thoseproblems are. Simple, right?
But identifyingwhat needs fixing in a story is actually a lot more complicated thanit sounds. Usually, I can pull the first several right off the top ofmy head, but there are many other problems that run too deep to seeafter only one draft. These are the problems I have to hunt, and forthat, I use three tools – a scene map, a time line, and a To Dolist.
The Scene Map:If you've read my post about how I plot novels, you already know whatthis is. A scene map is just a very quick jot down of what happens inthe book broken up by chapter. As an example, here's an entry from the scene map forthe first chapter of the book I just finished editing:

Ch1 (7452)
D gets Caldswell tip from Anthony D goes to star port, checks the tip, sees the Fool D has her interview, impressive, gets the job Basil takes D on the tour, we see R, job is laid outVery simple, veryshort hand. You're not writing a synopsis here. The point of thescene map is to be a guide, literally a map to what happens in yourbook. Why do I do this? Well, when I finish a novel, there may be scenesback at the beginning I haven't looked at in months. A scene listhelps me refresh my memory for what I actually wrote while atthe same time helping me see the big picture.
Also, with a scene map,identifying plot lines becomes very easy. I often print my map out andhighlight the scenes in different color markers to denote what plotlines they touch – love story scenes, main plot scenes, secondaryplot scenes, etc. This lets me see visually how my book is puttogether. That may not sound like your thing, but I highly suggestyou try it at least once. I think you'll be surprised by how useful it can be.
Finally, a scenemap lets me easily jump around my book, a benefit that willbecome apparent shortly.
(Silly but UsefulTip: Notice how marked the chapter's word count at the top? I do this to makesure all my chapters are roughly the same length. Since I haveScrivener which already lays this info out for me on the manuscriptpage, I don't really need to do this, but if you're not usingScrivener I totally recommend marking your chapter word counts somewhere so you can spot any anomalies. Ifyou have one 4k chapter and one 8k chapter right next to each other, for example,the 8k will feel like it's dragging no matter how good the tensionis. Always good to keep an eye on these things.)
The Time Line:This is just what it sounds like. After I jot down my scene list, Imake a time line of all the relevant events that happen in the novel(plus before and after, if needed). Once I've got those down, I goback again and add in what all my characters were doing at thosetimes, especially those characters who are doing things "offscreen".
I usually draw my time lines out in my notebook, and I never draw them to scale. Thistimeline is less about showing the relative distance between eventsand more about keeping track of what happens when, who's togetherwhen, and where everyone is when important events occur (and, thus,how much these absent people could be expected to know about saidimportant event at what times). So really it's more like a time and space line, butyou get the idea.
Why waste effort ona time line now, especially if you already made one during the planningstage (which you can totally update and use, by the way)? Well,making a time line forces you to think about where everyone actuallyis, what they're doing, and why. Just the act of thinking about thiswill often reveal problems in your book that you never even noticed. 
If a scene map isa map to your book, a time line is a fault finding device for yourplot. It can also help point out places where the action is too looseor too tight, identify where tension might be lagging, and show whena character's been out of the picture for too long (my villainsespecially seem to spend a lot of time sitting around. This is bad,characters with enough motivation to be antagonists do not sit ontheir hands).
It doesn't have tobe the best drawn time line in the world, but remember that eventhough you're the only one who will be looking at it, do you reallywant to use a crappy tool? Of course not. Take the time to do itright and you'll find your time line has all kinds of unexpected uses.
The To Do List: Sonow that you've built your scene map and your time line, it's time tostart putting your novel through the wringer to squish out theproblems. Every problem I find, I put on a To Do list. I use a sheetof notebook paper for this, but you can use anything you want. Theimportant part is to make sure the list is somewhere you can easilyaccess it, because you're going to be adding to it a lot.
OnceI've written out every problem I can think up or hunt down, I organize themby level of trouble they'll be to fix, starting with the largest andmost complicated and ending with the smallest. See, editingis like cleaning a house. You know how you don't vacuum before youdust because then the dust will get all over your nicelyvacuumed floor? Editing is the same. Solving problems is a messybusiness, and you don't want that mess getting all over scenes you'vealready edited. So rather than work linearly through a book frombeginning to end, I work on each problem separately starting with thebiggest and working my way down. More on this in the next section.
Step 3: Actually EditingMaking my toolsand my To Do list usually takes me about a day. Once those are doneand I have my list, though, it's time to get to work.
Fixing the big stuffAs I mentioned upin the To Do list, I do the bulk of my editing from biggest problemto smallest, not from first page to last. I do this because I don'twant to make more work for myself by messing up already editedscenes. But while I think this is the smartest and most efficient wayto work, I can completely understand why other writers might not wantto edit things this way. Jumping to the middle of a scene can feelreally disconnecting.
However, if you'reworking on getting better at editing and you haven't tried doingthings this way yet, I do suggest you give it a go. The beginning ofyour book might feel like a natural starting place for your edit, butwhen you start at page one, its very easy to get distracted. Sinceyou're following the story rather than your list, you'll be hittingthe problems all in a jumble, and it can very quickly getoverwhelming.
Going from problemto problem rather than from start to finish lets you focus on onething at a time, thus letting you keep control, which is vital to agood edit. When I'm editing, I try to keep my focus pin point. Isolve one problem at a time, and if I encounter new problems whileI'm working, I add them to my To Do list and keep going. That is whyI have a To Do list, it remembers to fix problems so I don't have toget distracted.
If you've writtenyour novel well, your story will constantly be tugging you in directions other than the way you're going. As well it should, you wrote it be engrossing, after all.But the edit is not the time to get caught up in things. I use my scene listlike an anchor to pull me through my To Do list, jumping from scene toscene until all the major items, the ones I startedwith and the ones I added, are crossed out. When I'm down to thedregs of nit picky pervasive problems (things like misspelled namesor mismatched eye colors), it's time to move on to the read through.
The read throughBy the time I'vefinished my To Do list, I've usually visited every scene in my novelat least once in the course of chasing down problems. Also, mynovel is usually a MESS. The read through is where I clean things up.Now I start on page one and I start reading, cleaning things up as Igo. I also keep an eye out for consistency issues, things I missed inmy bigger edits, and of course, reader experience. The read throughis where I try to really finesse the book. This is the part where I pour oversentences, bring out my hooks, and obsess over end of chapter cliffhangers. Fortunately, since I've already addressed all my bigproblems, I am free to do this without worry. The hard part is over and I'm clear to sweat the small stuff. It's a very liberatingfeeling.
Generallyspeaking, by the time I reach the end of my read through, I've founda few more items for my To Do list. If these items are small, I address them during the read through, but I try to save the big stuff for theend. Once the read through is done, I go back and fix everything thatstill needs fixing until my To Do list is now completely scratchedout. At this point, my novel is officially edited, but there's stillone thing left to do.
Activating the Reader BrainMy book is nowabout as good as I can make it. Oh sure, there are still things I cantweak (there are ALWAYS things I can tweak), but generally speakingI'm pretty happy with the whole affair. However, I don't send themanuscript off yet. First, I need to make sure I'm not deluding myself about the book being good. It's time for the final test, to read my book as a readerinstead of a writer.
This is kind of ahard thing to pull off. After all, I've spent months with the storyby now. The key is to find a way to trick your brain. I do this byputting my book on my Kindle. Since I do almost all my pleasurereading on my Kindle, this lets me disconnect from the part where I'mreading my book and actually get into the story for what it is.Also, since I can't edit the text at all while it's on the Kindle,it's easy to just relax and enjoy the story. Of course, I keep a notebook handyin case I do find things, but mostly I just read. Let me tell you,there is no better feeling than reading something you wrote andthinking "wow, this is actually pretty good!"
And that's a wrap!If I can getthrough this point without any huge red flags popping up, the edit isofficially done. Now, it's time to send the novel on to its nextstage of existence. For me, this means sending it to my agent. Forother people, it means sending it off to beta readers.
(You'll notice howI didn't mention beta readers before this, right? Well, that'sbecause I don't believe in beta readers of any sort before I'veedited my book at least once. First off, I think its rude to asksomeone to read something as unfinished as a first draft, and second,if I rely on others to spot my problems for me, then I'm not growingas an editor or a writer. Finally, I think its a waste of an editor, both professional and beta readers alike, to have them catching the sort ofhuge, obvious problems found in a first draft. Save the fresh,foreign eyeballs for the problems you can't find yourself, anythingelse is a waste of everyone's time.)
The Wheel of Edits turns...Of course, nomatter how carefully I edit a book, it will still come back from myagent full of notes. Same for when it comes back from my editor. Thisis as it should be. If I could catch everything myself, we wouldn'tneed editors. Every time notes come back, I do my editorial process over again.I update my scene map and time line if needed, make a To Do list, organize the problems, etc. My books usually go through three rounds of edits beforethey enter official production – my initial edit, my agent'snotes, and my editor's notes. I can't speak for other authors, but Ithink this is pretty typical.
A note for the first time novelistWith all thepressure on first time novelists to turn in a picture perfect draftthese days, it can be tempting to edit your book over and over in aquest for perfection. Once I met a writer who'd edited her firstnovel thirty times! Not that I don't understand the impulse. After all, thereare still things in the Spirit Thief I wish I could go back andchange. However, there is such a thing as editing too much.
Every edit you do has diminishing returns. After a point,you're just moving words around and wasting your time. Sooner orlater, you have to say goodbye and turn that sucker in. So if you don't have a publishing deadline yet, set onefor yourself. Don't let your editing become an endless process.You've got a lot of books to write, after all. Don't let any onenovel monopolize your time and keep you from writing all that you canwrite.
Step 4: Tips to a Happy, Low Stress,Successful EditEvery edit is asdifferent as the book it's trying to fix. Some novels come out almostperfect, others are enormous messes. Planning at the beginning helps,but it's impossible to anticipate everything. No matter how preparedyou are, there is no avoiding an edit, which means there's noavoiding the problems, and frustrations, an edit brings. That said,here are a few general tips I've found that help 99% of the time.
#1 - Don't be too hard on yourselfI said at the verybeginning that editing is a skill, and I've found that I'm a lothappier if I treat it as such. Editing is hard, especially if youhaven't done it a lot yet. You wouldn't get mad at someone whocouldn't play the piano perfectly after their very first lesson, sodon't hate on yourself if your first edit goes less than smoothly.Don't get frustrated when you don't know how to solve a problem.Instead, step back and think of things in the bigger picture.
Most importantly,edit daily. Just like you write every day during the first draft,edit every day during the editing process. If you get stuck, move onto another problem, but always remember that you are practicing askill, and unless you're a savant, you're not going to begreat at it to start with. Have patience with yourself and yourbook. Don't give up. You learned enough about writing to get to TheEnd, you can learn enough about editing to get your manuscript readyfor publication.
#2 - Trust your instinctsIf you care enoughabout stories to want to write them, you probably have good storytelling instincts. You can't explain it, but you like some scenes better than others. Conversely, you might hate ascene and not know why. With the lack of any easily identifiableproblem, it can be tempting to just ignore the nagging feeling andmove on. Don't. You got your story instincts over years of exposureto the best stories our world can deliver, books and movies and playsthat have survived not only commercial production, but also the testof time. Trust your instincts. If you dislike a scene, that meanssomething is wrong. Go back and figure out what it is. Never put ascene you don't love in your book.
#3 – No problem is unfixableThere is no sloglike a bad edit, and when you're first learning how to fix a book, there's noavoiding a bad time. I have never, ever been as depressed aboutwriting as I got during the edits for The Spirit Rebellion. I'mgenerally a pretty happy person, but there were days I just didn'twant to get out of bed because I couldn't stand to deal with stupid,unfixable problems any longer.
But no problem is truly unfixable. When you're writing a book, you are god. You can changeanything, which means there is no corner you can paint yourself intothat you can not get out of. True, finding a solution that worksmight be difficult, and you might not get the right solution on the first try, but it will come. You might need to cut off someone's arm toget there, but you will always reach The End if you are willing toopen your mind, embrace your limited divinity, and think beyond theplot.
And that, in avery large nutshell, is how I edit. Again, these arejust my opinions on the subject. Every author operates differently,but I really hope you found something in all this that will help youwith your own editorial process. Thank you for reading, and if youhave comments about this post or suggestions for things you'vefound helpful, please leave them below. I love hearing how otherauthors work.
Thanks forreading, and as always, keep writing!
Yours sincerely,Rachel Aaron