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Writing Tip Wednesday



For this Wednesday, I thought I might go over my editing process.



The Weekly Disclaimer:  Writing, like all art, is a subjective experience.  Stuff that works for me won't necessarily work for you...though I hope it does, since I'd love for everyone to succeed.  Can never have enough books to read!  Either way, take these tips with the giant grain of salt needed to season it to your liking, since I could very well be talking out my ass.

So, last week it was Finish - then Fiddle.  This week it's the Fiddling Bit.

I do three passes:

1) Read It Through - I will sometimes fix little typos I find along the way, or at least make note of them so I can get them on the second pass.  But mostly I just want to get a sense of whether or not the scene/chapter is complete.

2) Add What Needs To Be Added And Fix What Needs To Be Fixed - Sometimes it's just a sentence or two, sometimes its whole paragraphs of exposition or dialogue or whathaveyou.  And you'll always catch more typos.

3) Finishing Touches: Read aloud to find the awkward phrases that sound good in your head.  This pass is more about making sure any/all of the changes you made make sense.  Often, I'll print the chapter out before I do this, and put it in a binder.  For whatever reason, for me, having the words in print allows me to catch more.  I'll scribble all over the pages and save the changes for the final editing/formatting phase, when I assemble the book for print.

Hope this helps!


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