A Menage a Trois of Editing

The sublime Chandler Craig, the amazing Jen Hayley and I were having a discussion recently about individual approaches to the ubiquitous concept of self-editing and decided to do a joint, three-way blog post, expounding upon each of our processes. Processees. Processes. *rolls eyes*

When I embarked on this writing adventure, I decided I'd better do some research on how, exactly, one goes about writing a novel. I started with two books: Stephen King's On Writing and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. Excellent books, seriously. I recommend them both. I learned (and continue to relearned) some valuable lessons about the dangers of creative dialogue tags, the importance of strong verbs and nouns vs. a plethora of adjectives and adverbs, and the ever-present danger of telling instead of showing. None of these concepts I would have spent an ounce of cerebral matter on if they hadn't been specifically pointed out to me, and all of them have improved my writing exponentially.

Specifically. Exponentially. *pulls out copy of Browne and King and adds to top of the To Be Read pile*

Hey, we all need a refresher course upon occasion.

But while these resources are a life raft on the choppy seas of fiction writing, I don't believe they effected my editing process. Pourquoi? Because I incorporated their advice into my first draft.

Huh. Good to know. So why edit at all?

Well, because my first drafts are shitty. Shitty, shitty, shitty. No getting around it. If I sent Rockstar one of my first draft's she'd rush to her filing cabinet and burn my contract then hire a pack of ninjas to break into my house and do the same with my copy to ensure that there is no legal evidence of our professional relationship. So I edit.

My editing process: First off, I tend to write short. Sometimes I hit a rough patch where I'm just not excited about a certain chapter. So I skip it, or part of it, leaving a highlighted, bracketed note outlining what I wanted to do so I can come back and finish it later. I also tend to discover sections I sorta told my way through that I want to expand into scenes. On The Witch's Eye, I went from a 67K word first draft to a 74K word fourth draft that I queried agents with. The version I just sent back to Rockstar? 76K.

Second, I'm wordy. "NO!" you say, hand to chest in a gesture of mock horror. "I don't believe it." Save it. While I think it's part of my voice, there are times when it gets, er, out of hand. I use the red pen liberally, slashing unnecessary words - a veritable army of "justs," "thats," "whiches" and "abouts" - and realizing my manuscript is much stronger as a result.

Third, I strengthen my main character's voice. I'm not sure I fully understand my characters until I've finished the first draft. They tend to change on me, so I need to go through with a keen eye to where I can sharpen their personalities, objectives and commentaries. I'll take a purple pen (I think red and purple look so fantastic against stark white paper and Courier font) and scream VOICE! at myself whenever necessary.

Fourth, sometimes a turn of phrase which I thought was Pulitzer Prize winning at the time I typed it, just reads as a hot mess. Awkward phrases get a big squiggly red line under them. There tend to be quite a few of these littered throughout my first drafts. *sigh* I'm such a hack.

Fifth, sometimes I just think of new things to add to the manuscript. This usually happens as I write. I hate stopping and going back to fix a plot point while I'm barreling through a first draft, so I keep a Word document of fixes I want to make in the second draft, which I tick off (heh) as I go. I think I had 24 of these on The Witch's Eye. Isn't that crazy? And I'm an outliner! Geez, the best laid plans...

So that's my, er, wordy take on self-editing. Check out Chandler's and Jen's takes on their blogs!