The end is in sight
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?
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I haven’t checked your site in FOREVER. I don’t have my normal bookmarks on my laptop so I’m kind of out of the habit.
I’m not quite sure what the hardest part of editing is going to be for me. I think I’m going to find out quickly, though. I know my book has a few plot elements that need to be clarified and brought out, but I think I know well enough what those are. The thing that’s hard for me is working out the flow of the book and/or rewriting sentences. Sometimes I can’t get them to sound the way I think they should and I draw a blank when trying to come up with a different way of saying things. For instance, when I try to reduce the occurrence of the word “but”. I’m still having trouble with that. Grrr.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Poor Sandy and her ‘but’ problem. Personally, I try not to agonize too much over each word. I have a problem with getting the story part right…the actions believable, the plot functioning realistically. That kind of thing.
If the first few chapters are done well, I think a reader’s mind gets into the voice and doesn’t see those little niggling issues. At least, I hope so.
My problem, I’ve found is using those adverbs that don’t look like adverbs…still, almost, etc. I’m also a big offender of using the word ‘And’ to start a sentence. I try to get rid of a lot of those on the read through.
Kris