What process and techniques do you use when editing and revising?

[Quantum]

I used to start from page 1 and go through to the end, but now I'm going to try the triage revising process and technique as espoused by Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies.

For the nitty-gritty details, I've also been using Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into Print.

How about you? What process and techniques do you use?

Triage revising
Instead of going through a page-by-page edit, you should fix the major problems first, much like a developmental editor would. I'll be using this revision process going forward.

"Even some of the most experienced authors are not aware of a better way of revising than repeatedly starting at page one and going through to the end... the writer, having gone through his entire manuscript, is likely to grow "cold" on his manuscript... What follows is a guide to the triage method of revision, which gives priority to those matters that are the principal causes of rejection by editors."

The process is to make sure that you've achieved the following:

1) Humanized your characters.
2) Your villains are morally villainous rather than merely badly behaved.
3) Created a credible conflict between your protagonist and antagonist.
4) All your scenes are important and memorable.
5) All actions are clearly motivated.
6) Your first page is compelling enough for the reader to turn to page two.

[Leonie]

I write the book, then I put it away for a month, even though most of the time I know there's stuff I want to change. Fresh eyes make a huge difference, because I manage to gain some distance from the story and a more objective eye.

The first edit, which I do from start to finish, is effectively a structural edit. I look for plot holes, inconsistencies, and all the really major stuff.

Then I put it away again for another month.

The second edit is the tightening of stuff, making sure my characters are real people, and that the language works. Sometimes I offer it to friends/family/people of the target audience, to read and comment at this point. (I'm lucky enough to have family and friends who are very honest.)

The final edit (usually the third one) focuses on the minutiae - commas, sentences that are too long, typos, inconsistency of style, missing capitals etc.

Then it goes away again and I proofread it properly.

[Graeme]

Hi Leonie, sounds like a great process.

[J.J.]

Differs with each pass. Once I get to the spelling/grammar, I'll take the piece out of order. On one pass, I'll cut it into quarters and read the four pieces in random order; on another pass, I'll read the chapters backwards - start with the last chapter and work back to chapter one. Strangely enough, the story can sometimes be quite interesting when you read the chapters in reverse order.

[Ian]

I am just finishing editing my latest - and now face the dreaded blurb, which I may yet test out on you all. Anyway, my process is first to give it a quick read through to make sure that a when characters know something, it has been established before that, not after, and also to make sure that the clues I leave lying around for what is going to come later are consistent with what comes later. In other words I try to make sure the structure is right. I also check to try to ensure that characters don't start speaking like other characters. This is what I find the most difficult - making them sound different.

My next step is to go through and check that I am happy my scenes show what I intended, and they are relevant. This is difficult too, because the issue is, how relevant do they have to be, especially in this one where I am trying to conceal something. (It is about espionage and mystery) It is only after that that I start looking at the writing. Taking Alex' points:
1) Humanized your characters. Obviously, we try, but it is not always that easy with some of them because they have to do certain things. I think it is equally or more so important to make them fit for purpose. If you have a character with so many flaws, then how is said character going to realistically do something important? They have to be credible.

2) Your villains are morally villainous rather than merely badly behaved. Why? I suppose in this case a spy is a villain, but also noble- just waking for a different cause. But equally, do questionable people really see themselves as villains? This coming story has a vulture capitalist as well who thinks in the free market, caveat emptor. Is that villainous?

3) Created a credible conflict between your protagonist and antagonist. Yes and no. In my case, spying only becomes conflict when the other side becomes aware that it is going on. I think, create credible tension is more important.

4) All your scenes are important and memorable. Of course, but the problem is, the author always thinks their writing is memorable.

5) All actions are clearly motivated. In my case, they are in retrospect, but early on, nobody knows the motivation, including the reader.

6) Your first page is compelling enough for the reader to turn to page two. We all hope so.

[Rita]

Leonie you must have incredible self-control and patience! I can see that removing yourself from your latest work of art for a month is a good idea but I don't have that much patience. I've finished it! I want to see it published! J.J., that's quite a unique approach you have there!
I agree the first serious read-through is to check that the storyline is in order. After that I use spellcheck and a list of words I have which I tend to use too often. Then it's detail work - spelling, typos and punctuation. This I do numerous times but somehow I still seem to miss some. With my last book I asked my Book Club to look at it and as I corrected the things they found I saw many more errors. Then comes the dreaded formatting because the paperback version always seems to lose lines on a few pages when I preview it. Unfortunately I always seem to miss some things and have to reload the book at least once. I'd love to pay an editor but they don't come cheap. Writing the story is definitely the easiest part!

[Andrea]

I agree with Leonie. There's nothing like fresh eyes to help.

When I edit, I start from the beginning and go from there. I also let myself change anything as I move through it, allowing the characters to choose vastly different decisions, say different things, and change the plot in general if they wish. It makes the editing journey a lot more interesting, but it's probably why I've been in the editing phase for years. :-)

But eventually, you do have to just decide "I like this direction and value it" and then determine to keep it.

And Rita, I don't know if you have ever heard of the Writer's Club. (Or if this is spam, Alex: I'm not the editor involved, though I am a book coach and offer the free blurb services in their package, so I know this group is solid even though I gain nothing from writing this comment) But it offers free editing, so I thought I should mention it, as you said you'd love to be able to pay for an editor.

https://www.patreon.com/AWritersPath

All the best to everyone doing editing. It's tough, and sometimes, even help can't make it any better. :-)

[Leonie]

Rita wrote: "Leonie you must have incredible self-control and patience! I can see that removing yourself from your latest work of art for a month is a good idea but I don't have that much patience. I've finishe..."

The fresh eyes are most definitely worth the wait, Rita! It really helps me to distance myself, otherwise I tend to read what I thought I wrote, rather than what I actually wrote.

[Ian]

One other technique I use is to refuse to use a spell checker until I am confident I am just about finished. That gives me some sort of check on how efficient I was before that. If that finds many typos, I know I have not done much of a job before that. I have just tried that on my latest, and I found just one typo, so I feel a little better about the previous efforts.

[Quantum]

Good idea! I don’t use a spell-checker either, but I check words that I think might be misspelled or misused at that time because it’s more efficient than going back and fixing them in an editing pass.

[Scout]

I'm not an author, but I'm an avid reader, and I know that spell-check doesn't eliminate all mistakes in your writing. You need someone to read your novel before it's published and look for things that just don't make sense - words left out or repeated, places where it's not clear who's speaking, garbled lines in which everything is spelled correctly but which don't make sense. You need someone to check subject-verb agreement and other grammatical mistakes. You need several readers you trust to read your book and point out things you won't see because you wrote the thing.

[Ian]

Scout, then point I was making is that the spellcheck is NOT used to say the book is OK, but rather as a quality control on the techniques used previously. If it finds nothing, the previous work must have been reasonably good.