Editing Tips
While my new book is still being massaged into its final form, I thought I'd give some insight into how I revise my books with some simple, off-the-wall advice that doesn't involve the expense and pain of hiring an editor. If you find the process intimidating, or get frustrated by it, I hope you'll find some of the following useful!
In chronological(ish) order:
1) Wait. After I finish a draft (especially the first one), I set it aside and don't think about it for at least three days. I don't go longer than a week. This accomplishes several things: it gives your brain a chance to rest, your subconscious a chance to work and allows you some semblance of objectivity when you do come back to it. The most important part is don't think about it.
Resting your brain is important! I know the drive to go-go-go and if you're not working on the project then you're burning time, etc. I get it. But sometimes stepping away and not thinking about it is faster in the long term. This ties into the second part, about your subconscious -- it needs time to chew on things, too.
Your subconscious dealing with things is one reason we have ideas in the middle of the night, or when we're doing something else and very frustratingly can't write them down. Leaving your subconscious time to work is also a good way to train your conscious mind into making the most of 'work time'. When you set the work down for the day (or week, or whatever), set it down and don't touch it. I try not to let my ideas leak out slowly anymore, and this includes talking to people about them. I've managed to train my brain into work now, and only now by not giving it a chance to do it other times. Then it all comes gushing out at once when it has the chance! (But by all means, if you have a good idea, write it down! This isn't an absolute.)
Objectivity is the single most important thing to editing, for me. When I walk away and come back, not only do I see things I didn't see before, I'm a lot less precious about the work that I did. I'm much more willing to cut a paragraph (or scene) the farther I am away from creating it. It's really important to be able to do this, because...
2) Kill your darlings. Yes, it's cliche, almost trite advice by this point, but only because it's absolutely true. Be willing to cut anything from the book that doesn't need to be there, no matter how much you like it or that it was the first thing you wrote and therefore must be central to the story Is it? No, really. Is it? It may not be anymore.
Once I finish a draft, step away from the book, come back and try to read it all the way through, that objectivity makes it much easier to see that "Oh. No, this doesn't need to be here," or "Oh, that's not the story I'm actually writing," or "This story isn't actually about what I thought it was." Stories evolve as you tell them, don't bend over backwards to find a reason to keep something that doesn't belong or doesn't work. Even when I have a solid outline, living with my characters for weeks or months tells me a lot more about them, and they don't always respond the way I think they will!
3) Save your darlings. By that, I mean that just because you cut something doesn't mean it isn't useful! Maybe there's some good description/ideas/grist in there. For example, I tried maybe four different ways of describing the main character in my new book, but only one worked as the first description. The other ones are all in a file that I may use later. They're compact and straight to the point, more efficient for later books when most readers will already be familiar with her but need a refresher. For the record, I use Scrivener to write my books, and it's dead simple to add and move files around with sub-folders and whatnot, and then export them directly to a new project (which I've done countless times already).
4) Learn to like cutting. I know, easier said than done. But over the course of writing so many books, I've come to enjoy the feeling of cutting stuff that needed to be cut. If there's some bugbear, some scene that just doesn't feel right and I can't figure out why, or I encounter a ton of resistance to it, that's usually a sign it needs to be cut. And you know what? I've never regretted doing it. It's a relief, and feels like an actual accomplishment. Adding by subtracting is progress! It gets the story closer to what it needs to be.
5) Change font/format/program. This applies once I've got the story in a good place, and I'm in a more advanced stage of looking for the flow and presentation of the story, and I need it to feel more 'real'. Up to this point, I've probably been writing and editing in the same window size, the same font, the same zoom level, etc. Changing any of them is shockingly effective at finding mistakes, repeated words, clunky presentation, that kind of thing. If you have another program you can open it in, say from Scrivener into Word or Pages, it really is like a whole new book! The closer you get to what it will look like in its final form, the better, but I would hold off on getting too close until you're in final proofreading. You don't want to get too used to it that way, because you may not have anywhere left to go, visually. The simple step of making it look different can help put off the point where your eyes glaze over from reading it too much.(Or you fall asleep, as has happened to me.) Many swear by printing out a hard copy, but with how much ink costs, I might as well do it in my own blood. No matter how, though, try looking at things in a new light! Literally!
(As I have nowhere else to put this, Scrivener has a 'word frequency' tracker that tells you how many times you've used every word in the book. It can be... enlightening. If a word shows up with a suspiciously big number after it, do a project search and it will highlight that word in yellow, making it super obvious if it's too often. Especially in a single scene or paragraph. No one has to know except you!)
6) Put it on your Kindle/tablet/e-reader. This is for when I'm doing final proofreading. I compile and export the book as it would appear to a potential reader, and read it like they would. Pick it up, put it down, stop thinking like an editor and more like a reader; pretend it's already on sale and that this is what people would be spending their hard-earned money and precious time on. I've noticed a lot of weird things this way that I didn't over the previous three/four/five drafts. Like losing track of who's speaking by using 'she' too often instead of names, or dialogue/prose that suddenly seems strange once it's escaped the bounds of my computer. Having it on my Kindle also helps with the pacing/structure, since it has a percentage counter at the bottom instead of a scroll bar. To do this, I use Calibre to move files onto my Kindle, including public domain books from Project Gutenberg!
7) Let someone else read it. Can't stress this one enough! No matter how much I read and re-read, no matter how much I think I know a story and that I've conveyed it as best as it can be, another person will see things you simply can't. Why? Because no matter how many times you've changed things like font sizes, it's still the same text again and again, and you just start to tune out. The fancy term is 'semantic satiation' -- when words just stop meaning anything. That's also a good sign it's time to stop and hand it off! (This happened to me in a big way on Remember, November. It was my first novel, I wanted my baby to be perfect, but I distinctly remember going for just one more pass and when I went back to the beginning, the words literally didn't make sense anymore, like I had forgotten how English worked. It was weird and scary, but it taught me to recognize when I was done! Though I try not to let it get quite that far now.)
7a) Be open to feedback. If you're not, then why bother to ask other people to read it? My books are all orders of magnitude better because of feedback I got from beta reads. This new book is no exception, and it's my ninth! (My descriptions were very repetitive. I kept using 'of' over and over again. 'Eyes of black,' 'hair of silver,' etc. Yes, this is a tiny preview of what to expect in the new book. Thank you for reading this far!) Things that are clear to you may not be to others, since you already know what happens and all of the backstory, etc. Things you forgot to set up, or telegraphed, or muddled, someone else can catch that stuff for you.
8) It's not done until you hit 'publish'. Whatever flaws are revealed, whatever we missed or overdid, the stupid typos that we don't see after five drafts, it's all fluid. Nobody else is going to see the shitty previous iterations of that scene, or thatI used the word 'of' seven times in one paragraph or the terrible placeholder dialogue or that I put off writing a sex scene by leaving a space that just says 'THEY FUCK' on it so I could get on with writing the rest... Ahem. The point is, readers only see the final, polished version, not what it took to get there. Don't sweat it. But...
9) There's no such thing as perfect. Ask a self-declared 'perfectionist' to look back on their finished work and name the 'perfect' one. They won't because they can't. It doesn't exist. Do your best, get it as good as you reasonably can, and then... let it go. If you've done the work, nobody's going to notice. Notice what? Exactly.
Well, that was certainly a lot! More than I intended, but I hope it was helpful in some way. I should have something to say about the new book/series soon! It's just not quite ready to be unveiled yet.
Thank you for reading.
Excelsior!
In chronological(ish) order:
1) Wait. After I finish a draft (especially the first one), I set it aside and don't think about it for at least three days. I don't go longer than a week. This accomplishes several things: it gives your brain a chance to rest, your subconscious a chance to work and allows you some semblance of objectivity when you do come back to it. The most important part is don't think about it.
Resting your brain is important! I know the drive to go-go-go and if you're not working on the project then you're burning time, etc. I get it. But sometimes stepping away and not thinking about it is faster in the long term. This ties into the second part, about your subconscious -- it needs time to chew on things, too.
Your subconscious dealing with things is one reason we have ideas in the middle of the night, or when we're doing something else and very frustratingly can't write them down. Leaving your subconscious time to work is also a good way to train your conscious mind into making the most of 'work time'. When you set the work down for the day (or week, or whatever), set it down and don't touch it. I try not to let my ideas leak out slowly anymore, and this includes talking to people about them. I've managed to train my brain into work now, and only now by not giving it a chance to do it other times. Then it all comes gushing out at once when it has the chance! (But by all means, if you have a good idea, write it down! This isn't an absolute.)
Objectivity is the single most important thing to editing, for me. When I walk away and come back, not only do I see things I didn't see before, I'm a lot less precious about the work that I did. I'm much more willing to cut a paragraph (or scene) the farther I am away from creating it. It's really important to be able to do this, because...
2) Kill your darlings. Yes, it's cliche, almost trite advice by this point, but only because it's absolutely true. Be willing to cut anything from the book that doesn't need to be there, no matter how much you like it or that it was the first thing you wrote and therefore must be central to the story Is it? No, really. Is it? It may not be anymore.
Once I finish a draft, step away from the book, come back and try to read it all the way through, that objectivity makes it much easier to see that "Oh. No, this doesn't need to be here," or "Oh, that's not the story I'm actually writing," or "This story isn't actually about what I thought it was." Stories evolve as you tell them, don't bend over backwards to find a reason to keep something that doesn't belong or doesn't work. Even when I have a solid outline, living with my characters for weeks or months tells me a lot more about them, and they don't always respond the way I think they will!
3) Save your darlings. By that, I mean that just because you cut something doesn't mean it isn't useful! Maybe there's some good description/ideas/grist in there. For example, I tried maybe four different ways of describing the main character in my new book, but only one worked as the first description. The other ones are all in a file that I may use later. They're compact and straight to the point, more efficient for later books when most readers will already be familiar with her but need a refresher. For the record, I use Scrivener to write my books, and it's dead simple to add and move files around with sub-folders and whatnot, and then export them directly to a new project (which I've done countless times already).
4) Learn to like cutting. I know, easier said than done. But over the course of writing so many books, I've come to enjoy the feeling of cutting stuff that needed to be cut. If there's some bugbear, some scene that just doesn't feel right and I can't figure out why, or I encounter a ton of resistance to it, that's usually a sign it needs to be cut. And you know what? I've never regretted doing it. It's a relief, and feels like an actual accomplishment. Adding by subtracting is progress! It gets the story closer to what it needs to be.
5) Change font/format/program. This applies once I've got the story in a good place, and I'm in a more advanced stage of looking for the flow and presentation of the story, and I need it to feel more 'real'. Up to this point, I've probably been writing and editing in the same window size, the same font, the same zoom level, etc. Changing any of them is shockingly effective at finding mistakes, repeated words, clunky presentation, that kind of thing. If you have another program you can open it in, say from Scrivener into Word or Pages, it really is like a whole new book! The closer you get to what it will look like in its final form, the better, but I would hold off on getting too close until you're in final proofreading. You don't want to get too used to it that way, because you may not have anywhere left to go, visually. The simple step of making it look different can help put off the point where your eyes glaze over from reading it too much.(Or you fall asleep, as has happened to me.) Many swear by printing out a hard copy, but with how much ink costs, I might as well do it in my own blood. No matter how, though, try looking at things in a new light! Literally!
(As I have nowhere else to put this, Scrivener has a 'word frequency' tracker that tells you how many times you've used every word in the book. It can be... enlightening. If a word shows up with a suspiciously big number after it, do a project search and it will highlight that word in yellow, making it super obvious if it's too often. Especially in a single scene or paragraph. No one has to know except you!)
6) Put it on your Kindle/tablet/e-reader. This is for when I'm doing final proofreading. I compile and export the book as it would appear to a potential reader, and read it like they would. Pick it up, put it down, stop thinking like an editor and more like a reader; pretend it's already on sale and that this is what people would be spending their hard-earned money and precious time on. I've noticed a lot of weird things this way that I didn't over the previous three/four/five drafts. Like losing track of who's speaking by using 'she' too often instead of names, or dialogue/prose that suddenly seems strange once it's escaped the bounds of my computer. Having it on my Kindle also helps with the pacing/structure, since it has a percentage counter at the bottom instead of a scroll bar. To do this, I use Calibre to move files onto my Kindle, including public domain books from Project Gutenberg!
7) Let someone else read it. Can't stress this one enough! No matter how much I read and re-read, no matter how much I think I know a story and that I've conveyed it as best as it can be, another person will see things you simply can't. Why? Because no matter how many times you've changed things like font sizes, it's still the same text again and again, and you just start to tune out. The fancy term is 'semantic satiation' -- when words just stop meaning anything. That's also a good sign it's time to stop and hand it off! (This happened to me in a big way on Remember, November. It was my first novel, I wanted my baby to be perfect, but I distinctly remember going for just one more pass and when I went back to the beginning, the words literally didn't make sense anymore, like I had forgotten how English worked. It was weird and scary, but it taught me to recognize when I was done! Though I try not to let it get quite that far now.)
7a) Be open to feedback. If you're not, then why bother to ask other people to read it? My books are all orders of magnitude better because of feedback I got from beta reads. This new book is no exception, and it's my ninth! (My descriptions were very repetitive. I kept using 'of' over and over again. 'Eyes of black,' 'hair of silver,' etc. Yes, this is a tiny preview of what to expect in the new book. Thank you for reading this far!) Things that are clear to you may not be to others, since you already know what happens and all of the backstory, etc. Things you forgot to set up, or telegraphed, or muddled, someone else can catch that stuff for you.
8) It's not done until you hit 'publish'. Whatever flaws are revealed, whatever we missed or overdid, the stupid typos that we don't see after five drafts, it's all fluid. Nobody else is going to see the shitty previous iterations of that scene, or that
9) There's no such thing as perfect. Ask a self-declared 'perfectionist' to look back on their finished work and name the 'perfect' one. They won't because they can't. It doesn't exist. Do your best, get it as good as you reasonably can, and then... let it go. If you've done the work, nobody's going to notice. Notice what? Exactly.
Well, that was certainly a lot! More than I intended, but I hope it was helpful in some way. I should have something to say about the new book/series soon! It's just not quite ready to be unveiled yet.
Thank you for reading.
Excelsior!
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