First Dive Into the Editing Process

The first real revision of your writing should be eye-opening.

I followed the general advice gleaned from the interwebs, namely setting the completed draft of my manuscript aside for a period of six months to distance myself from the emotional attachment that comes with writing.

I had no clue what I was going to do to get my mind off of it. When it is your first “completed” piece of writing, you treat it like your child, or favored pet, or that space age saute pan that you saved twenty dollars a month for a year to afford so it could elevate your cooking to the next level.

Personally, I had created my world and began filling it with places, people, monsters, and things long before I had the idea to write a story about some of them. I had been the Dungeon Master for a group of friends and they helped create this world I was building so they could enjoy role-playing characters on various adventures. I owed to it them to create opportunities and hardships which would entertain them and keep them coming back week after week.

So I took an idea I had for a fresh venture in my D&D group and developed it into a simple Fantasy story. Saving the world would not be on the table for this little tale, it was way too daunting for a first effort. Imagine the pressure of trying to create a story on par with Tolkien, Martin, Rothfuss, or Erickson at the outset. I may have written a few thousand words before abandoning the entire effort.

As it happened, I wrote 120,000 words and the whole thing flowed like the stream a few yards from my home, slow and steady. It felt like the whole thing was done in my head, I just needed to get it on paper so it could be captured in time. Once completed, I was able to put it out of my mind for longer than the prescribed six months because a second idea sprang from the first and it took hold of my attention and kept it away from the manuscript.

I wanted to complete that work before returning for the edit, but the second novel has not been a smooth experience. It was a spur of the moment idea, very valid and quite in keeping with the original work. Not a sequel, a parallel story. Since I hadn’t been planning and ruminating over that one for five years or more, things have stalled out. I haven’t abandoned it, it is a compelling story that I have put in over 80,000 words, but if those words are forced, then they won’t be worth the paper on which they’re written.

Thus to the Editing Process I begin!

Obviously I’ve never edited a novel manuscript before. How does one go about it? I did ask a handful of ‘Alpha’ readers to provide feedback, but I received very little (which should never be a surprise to anyone…no one is going to love your novel as much as you do.)

YouTube videos and articles here on Medium can definitely help you understand where to start when editing, and when you need to employ the service of a professional editor.

Right away, from the first page, I could see how much my prose had changed over the course of two years. I could see the clunky language I had been using in the beginning because I thought that that was the ‘proper’ way to write Fantasy. Here’s a big secret…write fantasy however you want! If the story works, it works.

There is at least one critic on YT who disses Sanderson for his relaxed writing style and gushes over Malazan for it’s poetry, but he’s one guy who makes his living telling the rest of us what to read, he has to have a strong viewpoint otherwise no one would watch his videos.

Do you want to write like John Gwynne, twisted and convoluted? Do you want to write like Erickson or Tolkien, where every sentence seems to have been hammered a thousand times before it was cast in pure gold?

That’s precisely what editing is friends…

I’m not saying every single sentence requires a total rewrite, I’m saying that you need to look at every sentence and determine whether or not it requires a rewrite.

Editing is exhausting, and I can see why editors-for-hire on the Web are charging a couple bucks per page. I’ll see what I can do on my own before handing it off to them.

I once read that the primary reason self-published authors don’t sell more books, or receive really negative comments is largely due to the lack of editing. They didn’t take the time and effort to make their book that much better, and it’s a shame. After all those hours of laughing, crying, living and dying with characters so dear to you; that you would send them out into the world without making the effort to ensure others love them as much as you do is an injustice.

While you have your novel, novella, short story, etc. shelved; then you must READ!!! Writers read when they’re not writing. Reading others and how they handle sentences structures and situations will help you edit your own work. You took your inspiration from somewhere, revisit those sources and see how they were handled.

While you’re editing, try to remain in editing mode…

You might become aware of an abandoned side plot, you might see where a plot hole broke the surface and is now a gaping chasm in your story…just leave it for now. Focus on editing. Go back afterward and fix or embellish the scenes. You’re doing this to make your writing better, not to muddy the waters.

My second writing project only tangentially refers to the first. As I said, it’s a parallel tale, not a sequel. Editing had brought my beloved original characters back to the forefront of my mind, and the idea for a sequel is percolating in my head. Its distracting, but it’s also invigorating. There’s so much more to explore and I take comfort in knowing that my writing is not just some thing I did on a whim.

Completing a first draft is something that more than three quarters of aspiring authors will never do (my father is among that group,) and I’ve already overcome that hurdle…so how many of those authors that remain actually get the editing done afterward? I’m afraid to know. I suspect it is a low number.

That bodes well for the writers who are dedicated. It culls the herd, separates the grain from the chaff, divides the cream from the milk.

As so many others in this world do, please continue to write. Pour your heart out onto the page, make yourself vulnerable, open yourself up to critique. Just make sure that when you are ready to show the world, you have already shown them the proper respect by putting your best foot forward.

Thanks for reading, B.