The backbone of good writing — Editing
It’s editing time again, woohoo! I’m both teaching the subject in my Craft of Writing class this week, and spent all of yesterday listening to the wonderful Margie Lawson teach her EDITS system and Empowering Your Writing. Which means that, yes, I’ve got a ton of work to do on my WIP.
The very first thing I’m going to be doing is the first thing Margie taught us yesterday, and perhaps the easiest thing to do – I’m going to be going through my story and circling all of the “power words” and seeing if I can’t reword sentences so that they come at the end. Power words are those that hold the most emotional impact in a sentence, and therefore what you want to leave your reader with – back-loading. And speaking of back-loading, I’ve got to get rid of all sentences ending with the words ‘it’, ‘that’ and ‘this’. No, wait, I’ve got to backload that sentence to add more punch to it. Let’s try this: And speaking of back-loading, all sentences which end with the words ‘it’, ‘that’ and ‘this’ are soon to be gone. (Much better, no?)
There are so many other tasks involved in editing, though. Aside from the wonderful highlighting routine Margie teaches (I actually use my own version of highlighting which I figured out long before I’d ever even heard of Margie – sorry!), there are the fabulous suggestions I learned from Angela James when I took a class with her on editing. More circling! Adverbs. Garbage words (like that, suddenly, finally, very, and then, just). Adjectives (some are terrific, too many is not good — NG) and filter words (saw, heard, felt, thought). I highlight all clichés and similes (the later again is terrific, but too many are NG).
One of the most important tasks in editing is to know where your weaknesses lie – and then attack that. I’m terrible at description. I never remember to put in those five senses, and it makes my writing dull and lifeless. So one of the things I do is go through and highlight every time I do use five senses and put in a bright green star where I should have it. That way, when I go back through my manuscript to put in any changes that need to be made (such as rewriting those clichés that slipped in there the first time), I can make sure to add in that description where it’s needed.
So, what are your flaws? What are you really bad at? And what do you do to combat that weakness? Ah, and here’s another question to think about – when do you start editing? While you’re writing, before you’ve finished your WIP? Or do you wait and start after you’ve typed “The End”?
