I have nearly finished what I hope is the penultimate thorough edit of my novel. I must have done over thirty thorough edits. It has been an exhausting, but enlightening process.
In the beginning, I thought that each subsequent edit would be much easier. I was wrong. But after each subsequent edit my novel was tighter and pacier.
During my edits I discovered weaknesses, repetition, shoes and socks problems, clunky sentences, poor grammar and punctuation, missing signposts, unsuitable chapter titles, chapters that ended without a hook or cliff-hanger, 60,000 words of superfluous text, lengthy descriptions, and dialogue that needed much improvement.
I thought my first draft was brilliant, but Hemingway was right, ‘The first draft of everything is always shit.’
What invaluable lessons have you learned?
Ironic that I should have edited that comment! *Editors ARE definitely different to writers...
I'll go now.
In an odd way I like editing because, as you pointed out, it makes writing better. Editors and definitely different to writers, and the two skills combined makes great books.
It's been interesting learning more about editing as I went from editing my own stuff, to having short stories edited once before anthology publication, and now working full time with an editor on my book. Eren is in its fourth official round of edits (two for agent, two for editor after sale) but that hides the many, many edits I did before they came along.
I've started to see the process as two distinct forms of editing: one is 'big picture', to do with plot, consistency, pacing, etc. The other is 'small picture' - words, grammar, facts. The latter is easier because there's always a right and wrong answer (and how rare is that?) but the first is probably the one that makes the stories better.
I wrote a piece sharing my further thoughts that Writers & Artists now have in their Revision section - https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/429/a-writers-toolkit/revision/ Saves me basically saying all the same things again! It's not true for everyone, of course, but this is how it tends to work for me.
Hi all,
Have a look at Master Edit... Lots of videos to go with it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4JkbdpI5dc