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Photo attributed to Randyoo |
Honestly,
I could pick up any one of my books that have been published for a while and
still want to edit them. With that thought in mind, here’s my advice on the
bottomless well.
Self-editing
is something you will do your entire career as a writer. During your writing
apprenticeship, self-editing will assist you in becoming a writer as you compare
your work to books on writing, and while reading excellent novels from your predecessors.
After
you have developed your craft your self-editing takes on a different goal—polishing
your manuscript to be its very best.
There
are three different levels of editing—self or otherwise:
Level
1 – Proofreading (includes the
basics such as grammar, spelling, punctuation,
capitalization, verb-tense consistency, etc.)
Level
2 – Copy editing (a step further to assure the
writing is clear, concise, consistent, etc. This includes sentence and
paragraph structure, delete over-used words, repetition of words and words that
sound the same, replace weak words, phrases, and more powerful choices.)
Level
3 – Substantive editing (Think of the
big picture of your story. Substantive editing looks at overall concept, the purpose of the book,
audience, organization, style, etc.)
When I’m working
on my first draft, I tend to flip the lineup and work on my substantive editing
first. No sense dillydallying over spelling and such when you’re working on
getting the overall story down. So I tend to work on level 3 first, then copy
editing and finally proof-reading.
I’ve read a number of excellent books on the craft of writing and
could list them all. I could also list a number of self-editing tips but those
are easy to find on the internet.
What I’d rather do is list those books that I
recommend, books with various ideas on craft that have stayed with me over the
years; ideas that I think of every time I self-edit my work.
FOR
SUBSTANTIVE EDITING (The Big Picture)
Stein
On Writing by Sol
Stein – Excellent book for character refinement.
One of the things that I never forgot from Sol Stein’s book is
his advice that for every book you create a scene where your main character is
naked. Strange, you might say, but even in a Christian book you can put your
character into the bath or shower, or in the moment of their infancy or
toddlerhood. This exercise enables you to get into the very soul of your
character without the clothes of their era, occupation, or social standing. You
get an understanding of your character from the skin inward.
I’ve done this for all of my novels, whether or not I use that
scene in my book.
Plot
and Structure by James
Scott Bell – A great craft book for laying out the structure of your
novel. One of the many helpful pieces of advice that remains with me is to make
sure that fairly soon into your manuscript you take your reader to that “door
of no return,” that spot in your novel (major crisis, setback, clue or discovery that will push
the protagonist forward for the majority of the book). I like to aim for this
to occur within the first 50 pages of a full-length novel or 5% into a shorter
book.
Self-Editing
for Fiction Writers by Renee
Brown – Great for lots of things, but don’t make it your Bible like
some writers have done. However, the advice that stands out for me from Renee
Brown was in her chapter on Point of View and in creating narrative distance
within POV. She was able to teach me more simply than any other craft book on
how to take a reader from a distant viewpoint to an intimate one all within one
character.
BOOKS ON
COPY-EDITING (wording, a closer focus on words):
On
Writing Well by William Zinnser – I learned to keep writing
tight from this book.
BOOKS ON
PROOF-READING
The
Elements of Style by Strunk and White – Short and Sweet on Grammar
that I refer to as a reference book.
Lastly, a few of my
self-editing tips:
I visualize all my novels as a sculpture. First I throw a bunch of wet, sloppy
clay on the pottery wheel and pound it out to a rough shape, trying to squeeze
out all the air bubbles. Then when it’s in the shape I want, I start cutting to
remove the excess clay. Cut, cut, cut, and throw away. Then when the clay has
dried (after a little time away from my novel) I haul it out, and start to chip
away at the excess clay. Then I smooth, and file, and only when it is finally
in the shape I want do I put my sculpture into the kiln to fire it. Lastly, I
paint on the glaze.
But if
I had one word to describe self-editing, that word would be “CUT.”
A FEW MORE OF MY SELF-EDITING TIPS:
I read my chapters out loud to myself.
Read
chapters starting from the end of the book, or change the font so I catch
things I would ordinarily miss.
I Let my
work simmer for a while by not looking at it for at least a month after first
draft is written. (Amazing how different it sounds when you take a break from
it).
You’ve
maybe heard this gem of wisdom before but I’ll repeat it here: Do not self-edit
until you’ve written your first draft. Write your entire manuscript or at least
write your first chapter before you go back to edit. You need to get the flow
of your story down.
Self-editing
is a bottomless well, but there comes a time to stop, and that’s when your
editor sends you’re the final read-through of your novel before it goes to
print.
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Christine |
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