All About The Edit

So I’m seventy pages into editing ‘Bindings & Spines’ – the second of my Jonathan Alvey novels.

It isn’t a fast process. There are so many things that must happen for every sentence in a story as you review it that you can’t speed through or become compliant. Every sentence must work in the paragraph and the story. It has to be grammatically correct and read easily.

Each sentence must develop the story in some manner, be it description, mood, or plot advancement. It is all too easy to become relaxed, to accept that a written line is okay, but that leads to disaster. Every line must be scrutinized. The entire plot must be in your head, so that it isn’t tripped up by a single sentence. Every word chosen for every sentence must correct and can’t be over used.

While doing all this, you must still make sure that as a whole, it flows. That it doesn’t become jilted or stiff.

Editing is not for the faint of heart, or those not committed to writing. Editing is the elbow grease – writing is the rough shaping.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: Bindings and Spines, current work in progress, editing, edits, grammar, Jonathan Alvey, novel, paranormal, paranormal private investigator, plot, scene, sentence, Urban Fantasy, world building, writer, writing