Editing, where to start?

I have covered many aspects related to writing and editing your work, so which is the most difficult?

I am amazed when I read Tweets and Blogs posts where writers complain about editing. I will tell you why. Editing is what writing is really all about — the nuts and bolts of it. It’s perhaps as much as 90% of writing and is as integral to the process as getting that idea down as a first draft, which is really only the beginning.I think of  the first draft like laying the slab of sculpting clay and forming a tentative shape of what it wants to be — we can see it’s a human or a dog or a tree let’s say and some parts will be more formed and more detailed than others. But do you leave it there? Is that it?

Of course not. Now you must sculpt, deconstruct to reconstruct, mould, craft, tweak and polish. This is the process, this is writing. There does come a point of course where you need to stand back and stop tweaking and perhaps perfection itself is elusive. But indeed it’s the editing that makes bad good and good better, fine finer and great amazing. So never be shy of the process and never think negatively about something that really is the writing process itself.

There are various forms of editing from a full plot or structural edit that usually is where you start after you’ve laid down the first draft; and there’s line editing and copy editing, oh and final proofing. People call the various forms of editing different things, but really I wouldn’t get hung up on a name and they all overlap anyway. I have also talked to people who use the term ‘development’ editing which is more to do with making ideas turn into stories and is very much an initial form of editing akin to structural editing.

When I critique I do a bit of everything. I am copy editing in the sense I am tidying and correcting issues in the narrative itself, explaining rules that are being broken or not understood, so part of it is the nuts and bolts issues, and in some ways I can’t help myself highlighting the clichés and the point of view issues, incorrect formatting in dialogue, incorrect use of semi colons and so on … but what I also point out is the place to start is to look at plot and structural issues first. The corrections and copy editing aspects need to be there to show the writer where they are making fundamental errors, but there is no point correcting all of that first when it’s likely whole sections, even characters will be lost in the big edit. What I think is key to starting the editing process is to look at what’s not working and what is, what needs to be better, as in voice, character, plot and perhaps refer to the story arc as a place to start. Ask yourself what key question the novel explores, what the conflict is that drives the story and is this clear and strong enough? Is the motivation of the key players defined enough to account for their actions and make the plot as credible as it needs to be? These are the big questions and often ones we find hard to see in our own work. So this is where seeking another opinion is useful.

Then look at the scenes in terms of functionality. I use a spreadsheet for this, especially when confronted with a first draft that needs reshaping. People talk about how every word has to count, and perhaps we think this is being too precious and if we teased apart every sentence and every paragraph, the way perhaps a poet might, we would take a lifetime to write a novel. But it does all have to count. It has to be functional; move plot, develop character and explore theme, tie into the leitmotifs you set up from the beginning. So when it comes to your edit, look at function and make sure there isn’t what we call filler … scenes that add little, that are really only padding. This is really where the story’s shape will emerge from your block of clay when you can think it terms of what a scene and then what a chapter does. If you can’t define that then perhaps it doesn’t need to be there. Perhaps there is another simpler way of giving the same information as part of another more functional scene?

Getting started is often the biggest stumbling block, and being able to stand back from your work and see its flaws.

If you can’t afford to pay someone to do this seek a writer’s opinion you can trust or even a reader although they might not have the skills you need, they might be able to tell you something seems wrong, but not how to make it better. But at the very least put that MS away for a while and then go back to it. It’s amazing what distance can do to highlight what you couldn’t see before.

 

And remember editing is process. It can’t be rushed.

If you have any editing questions please ask!

Have a good day writers and readers!

 

Following principles not formulas …

I decided to choose a random thought or idea from one of the many writing books that grace my shelves and explore it. This is the first thing I read:  A rule says, “You must do it this way.” A principle says, “This works … and has through all remembered time.”

I like this. I like this a lot because it ties into some thoughts I’ve had about feedback and in keeping with what I was saying yesterday. I usually says it’s not so much about right and wrong (creativity doesn’t have the definitive answer in the same way as mathematics 2+2=) but more about weaker and stronger, less engaging and more engaging, okay and great. It’s about reducing the subjectivity that accounts for different tastes and looking and what works best for most people, the majority of the time. I guess in essence we’re saying effective and less effective rather than this way is right and that way is wrong.

The quotation goes on to say, “The difference is crucial. Your work needn’t be modelled after the ‘well-made’ rather it must be well made within the principles that shape our art.”

Whenever I talk to writers about a piece of prose, as I did last night in Fiction Clinic at my writing group, you will always find people question some point or other (as they should) sometimes really small points, but never the less valid as all comment is. You will always get people who say but I like it that way.  Perhaps there are those who have different interpretations of the ‘well-made’ (the above talks more specifically about writing plays but is equally applicable to writing fiction). Perhaps some do like a piece of writing that is to my mind weak, perhaps full of telling, too much exposition, no depth of character. It might be  based on expectation, personal taste, some innate factor that shapes this, when most can see the weakness of clunky prose, let’s say. However, and this is where I think things like Fiction Clinic and good critique come to life, if you show how you could rework a scene, rewrite a story, restructure a chapter, using what is known to be more effective story-telling you have yourself a live demonstration of principle. Let’s return to the opening quote (from Robert McKee’s Story by the way) to re-emphasise the opening here: A rule says, “You must do it this way.” A principle says, “This works … and has through all remembered time.”  

This is consistent with the point I made yesterday about knowing about showing and telling or clunky phrasing, but not being able to see it in your own work. I like to think that one of the things I can bring to a critique, as a fellow writer, is a perspective about a different way to do something; have you thought about trying this …  I never say YOU MUST DO IT THIS WAY. No. I am saying try this, applying a principle that works, bringing together different narrative devices the author may not have thought about, to find a more effective way. Often they find a way between my suggestion, their original version and we have something all together ‘better’ or should I say ‘more effective’, ‘more engaging’, ‘sharper’ etc. That is always my hope. It’s great being creative together.

I would suggest those I referred to who originally said, “But I like it that way” about an information dump that’s all telling, let’s say, might just be less discerning and have less access to knowing what the work could be? But showing how it might have been done ‘better’ might just bring about a change of heart. Or maybe not? I don’t gamble, but I’d take a punt on the former being the case.

It brings me to something else I was thinking about yesterday as I prepared to hold the session; we are only as good as what we know.  When we have the courage to send our work out there for feedback, be it a new writer’s first draft of a first novel (and no one has ever looked at their work) or a published writer with a string of qualifications and validations who has clearly polished a piece, we reach the same point.  We are all equal at this point. It’s the point where we are happy enough, with the knowledge we have at that moment, and can not see how to make it better than it is. And that’s when another pair of ‘educated eyes’ is invaluable. For the new writer there may be much to learn but the curve is steep and improvement can be rapid. Or for the polished writer, perhaps they seek validation and the editor merely tweaks it that step closer to the perfection we all seek.

But by the way, I might suggest that perfection is in the eye of the beholder. It might even be a myth!

And to end this ramble, I will add the final quote from Robert McKee … oddly I have created this whole post out of the first six lines of the Introduction. Imagine if I did the whole book!

So here it is …

Anxious inexperienced writers OBEY the rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers BREAK the rules. Artists master the form. STORY is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.

Have a great day 🙂

Great book by the way … for any writer CLICK here to find out more LINK

Perfection

The sun’s shine made a perfect haze that created a  perfect bubble that led to a perfect walk.

Just Rosie and I; six footsteps softly padding side by side in our little bubble of mutuality.

She loves me, I love her, we love the world as we walk.

And now to write, lost in another perfect bubble to create perfect prose on a perfect day.

Perfect.

A perfect fit

Can anything be perfect?

Is perfection another thing that’s in the eye of the beholder? How do you rate art on a perfection scale?

Well maybe you can’t.

I had to snigger this morning when  read a Tweet by an author I really like Jonathan Tropper.

This is what he said, ” Nothing like a vigilant copy editor to make you feel borderline illiterate.”

The reason I laughed is because I like to think of myself as a perfectionist and go to ridiculous lengths  sometimes to double-check things, spend hours making sure facts are right, and all the nitty gritty of the narrative being right … and then a proof-reader or an editor looks at it and finds all these silly errors. Groan. When I saw what the proof-reader picked up with the Wild n Free book I thought am I really that incompetent?

Apparently. Sometimes 😦  Actually it’s all perfectly normal as Jonathan Tropper proves. And when you employ someone to look at your work they are looking at it in a different way to you. I look at other peoples’ work differently to my own, and I’m being paid to spot this stuff too. But with my own, then I would pay someone else to spot what I didn’t and I have a great critique group for that as well!

It’s being too close to it, your mind fills in the errors, well certainly when it comes to typos.

Ever seen those things that look like this:   i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghi t pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh?

It shows how much the mind fills in and therefore is it any wonder a lot of typos are missed because the mind sees what it wants to see!

Well that’s my excuse!

There are all sorts of errors, double spaces, inverted speech marks, double dashes that should be en dashes, hyphens that should be en dashes … things we don’t even think about. Not to mention clichés and clunky sentences that see alright at the time!

What I’m saying is, do not be too disheartened when an editor or critiquer spots all sorts of errors. The better you get at writing  then the less you’ll make. And this is why you need to have work checked. Agents and publishers don’t expect perfection (well some might actually) but you won’t be rejected because you used a hyphen instead of an en dash, or a semi colon instead of a full stop. But fill it with loads of errors and it looks plain sloppy.

So apart from needing someone to look in detail at plot, voice, pacing, dialogue, characterisation etc, as I do when I critique, you also need someone to look for silly errors that creep in as well. If you’re new to writing, or even if you’re not, give yourself the best chance of getting accepted. Get an editor … and so what if it makes you feel as Jonathan Tropper puts it so well ‘illiterate’ at least someone is ironing out the creases.

But what this Tweet also told me was we are all human.

What is perfect?

Apart from our dreams … those are perfect. Keep them alive …

Have a great weekend y’all!

 

But I can try …