On the Editing Train

I'm back! Which means the first draft of Book 6 of From the Ashes of Victory is finished. There's a lot of work left to go before the book is done, but even writing the first version of the last words in the series was overwhelmingly emotional. I will have more to say about the emotions of it when it's done done, but after taking a few days to sit with it, it's now back to work.

Making it better.

A lot of writers don't like editing, but I love it. Every step, every page, every day, the book gets better, and closer to what it has always needed to be. Book 6 is my eighth novel, and I think I only now understand why I like editing, perhaps more than any other step in the process: choice. Every bit of editing is binary; do I change it or not? Do I like this? Does it work? Does this sound like the character? Etc. What to change it to can be daunting, but at least you have a place to start.

In a first draft, where you're trying to fill the white void that is the blank page, the choices are essentially infinite, especially if you don't work from an outline. What's next? Anything, you say? It sounds like freedom, but it's often a prison. A paralysis of choice.

Remember when you were a kid and a parent would ask what you want for dinner and you would say "Anything is fine."? You, the author, are the parent who has to make something out of that in the first draft. (The book is the child in this metaphor. It's why they scream a lot and keep you awake.)

Editing is saying "Do you want this?" No. "Do you want this?" Sure, let's try it and see if it's any good. Maybe it sucks, maybe it's amazing, but at least you have a place to jump off from. I love that part. I love having context. It helps hugely in telling me whether something should stay or go. I love finding things I forgot I wrote and saying 'Hey, that's pretty good, I should be a writer.' Alternately, finding things that make me go 'WTF is this?' and having absolutely no clue what I was trying to say is also... fun. In a way.

Editing, for me, also goes much faster because it's a series of yes/no choices followed by context informing me what should replace whatever I cut. Already used a word three times on that page? Thesaurus! Dialogue a little naff? Say it out loud!

Themes start to jump out, setups I didn't realize I was including, bits that make me cry so I know they work, flow, pacing, all of that stuff comes out in the second draft and later that helps you to stitch together your story into a book.

Can it be tedious? Yes. It requires constant focus and there's no real chance for your mind to wander, and in later versions you're looking for little tiny flaws and missing letters and other irritating minutiae, but the second draft, for me, is the magic hour that makes having started another book worth it. The part before this is draining, and afterward you start to get sick of it and just want it out of your house.

Hey, books are like children!