on editing
the bane of every writer’s existence, or at least, this writer's
Well. I’m in the throes of editing once again. Book 2 in the Beyond a Shadow trilogy, In the Shadow of the Swamp, is on draft 3 (or perhaps 4?). I talk a lot about how editing isn’t my favorite part of the process, but it does have a nice payoff when it finally all comes together. It’s just when I’m in the middle of it that I don’t particularly love it.
But, let’s talk about what the editing process actually looks like and why it can be difficult.
correcting a messy draft
Inevitably, the first draft of any book will be messy. What that means for each writer is different. Some writers are very talented at plotting and creating a tight story right off the bat while their characters or settings lack depth. Sometimes the opposite is true, and a writer has beautifully flushed out characters with clear motivations and compelling arcs, but the plot is incoherent and/or riddled with holes. More often than not, though, the first draft is some combination of all of the above. Which is what makes first drafts so messy. As a writer, you tend to get better and better at first drafts the more you write them, but it’s still nearly impossible to turn out a publishable draft on the first go.
So. That’s where editing comes in; it’s our chance to fix all we got wrong the first go round. During the editing process, writers fix plots, strengthen characters, and describe settings. If you like solving puzzles or tinkering with sentences and scenes, it can be really fun. And almost every writer has multiple scenes in the first draft that did not come out the way they intended in the first draft, so this is when we can go back and re-write those scenes until we get it right.
There’s something very satisfying about finishing up a round of edits, too. It’s similar to the satisfaction you might get from finishing the first draft, but it’s different because you grow in confidence, and you get to know your story better.
this all sounds great, why don’t you like it?
Okay, I may be too harsh on editing as a whole. I don’t think there’s a single piece of the writing process I truly don’t enjoy, including editing.
However.
This is the part of the process where you have to focus on things you’re not very good at. The good parts of the first draft are inevitably the parts you’re good at writing, and the things you have to fix are the things you’re not. For me, it depends. Sometimes, it’s simple like adding more description of the scene or characters. Other times, it’s more complex like making an emotional beat land exactly how I want it to. The latter is much more difficult because it often involves editing multiple parts of the novel, not just the apex of the emotional arc. Whereas something like scene descriptions are limited to one spot. Although, I do have to admit, this part of the editing process can be super satisfying, especially once you’ve finally gotten a scene just right.
The rest of the process can get tedious. Note the earlier use of “a round of edits.” If publishing is your goal, your book goes through a lot of editing rounds before it gets printed. The tedium comes from looking for and reducing overused words, cutting unnecessary words such as “that” and “back,” ensuring sentence structure is varied, etc. Searching your manuscript for “look” and going through each use and reducing and replacing where you can while also attempting not to create another overused synonym of the word (true story!!)… That’s less fun.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s necessary, and it improves the manuscript. It just doesn’t happen to be the most exciting part of the process. What is, though, and what I keep trying to remind myself, is that once you finish editing, your manuscript comes out the other side better and ready to be published.
And if that’s not exciting, I don’t know what is.
That’s all for this week.
Until next time,
L. Alyse