After a dismal day of editing on Monday, I felt slightly better this morning. I’m closer to the end of the first pass edit. There are good parts, salvageable parts, and parts that got the big old X.

To me, if I keep a whole sentence or paragraph and only change a little bit of the wording, that is considered ‘pretty clean’ by my standards. It doesn’t take a whole lot of work to cross out an ‘and’ and add a comma. Or cut one sentence out that is repetitive or weak.

Some writers may consider my first drafts ‘messy.’ I know some rewrite as they go. Polishing and perfecting before moving on. So when the time comes to edit, there’s only story stuff to worry about.

To me, making the story work is always the harder of the two. I can take a messy chapter and clean up the writing as far as grammar and flow go, but the story part is a lot more work in my book.

I have about 40 pages left to edit. I should be able to finish that today, if I get on a roll. So I am definitely on time with my two week edit! Then comes the hard part…taking all those changes and additions and notes and actually working them into the book. Wish me luck.

So, what do you see to be the hardest part of editing? Editing for story? Or editing for clarity/grammar?