Essential editing . . . or procrastination?

Plough through and get the story on paper. By the time you get to the end you'll be surprised by how many tiny plot details you need to change. Altering the beginning is a waste of time until then.

You'll be a much more productive editor of your own work if you have a complete story in front of you to work with.

Don't stop until you've typed "THE END."

Otherwise, you'll be spending the next four years trying to fix your beginning... without an end.

I’ve tried a variety of schemes, but generally I write until I’ve squeezed all I can out of the muse (1 to 6 hours), then I edit what I’ve written.

Whatever works for you, and for a particular book, that’s the best way.

As for going back to do major surgery before the book is complete, I’ve done that too. Just remember that it’s a different part of the brain. Get too involved in editing, and the muse goes to sleep.

DixieChic said:

Thank you so much for the immediate feedback. I am now committed to pushing through to the end, no matter how much the weak beginning is nagging at me

It's weird how easily you can fool yourself into believing you're making progress by editing the same five pages every day!

Do you edit at all as you write --- or just keep your hands off entirely until you get to THE END?

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Here are my definitions of different kinds of revisions, just so you know what I'm talking about in the rest of this note :
http://www.mirror.org/terry.hickman/Dryad.html

As a teen, I dropped drafts in the middle, and when i got back to them a year or two later, I would groan and start rewriting from scratch -- because I could see too well that what was there was irredeemable (I think my leaps of skill were vastly larger then, though).

I still end up drifting off into new projects and leaving unfinished drafts, but now when I go back, I insist on continuing on the same draft, though sometimes I'll cut the last chunk of the scene where I bogged down and rewrite that to get me back in the swing.

Nowadays, during a draft, I only deliberately go back and edit "pools", things I assume are going to be small and limited to one scene. Of course, half the time these turn into ripples, where you realise you have to go back and change little bits elsewhere, before and after. When they do, sometimes I do all of them before I go back, sometimes I just make a note.

I think in general it's better to do this kind of rippling only once you're through at least one full draft, even if that draft is what Uncle Jim called a Zero Draft, and I loudly resist doing it in the zero draft. But I have been known to do it in the middle of a later draft or a straight revision that had been until then an orderly start-to-finish Wave.

But, as I noted in another topic, I have found I only absolutely know what I need to do to fix the beginning once I have an ending. (Which is also why the "don't muck around editing the very very first draft, even if it's total crud" rule)

(All this goes out the window when we're talking about short stories and sometimes with novellas, but since this is the novel-writing topic...)

DixieChic said:

Thank you so much for the immediate feedback. I am now committed to pushing through to the end, no matter how much the weak beginning is nagging at me

It's weird how easily you can fool yourself into believing you're making progress by editing the same five pages every day!

Do you edit at all as you write --- or just keep your hands off entirely until you get to THE END?

Click to expand...

With my first novel, I spent a lot of time editing and reediting as I wrote. It took me more than 15 months to write the first 50K. For the second half of the book, I just wrote until I typed "THE END." It was so much more fun, for one thing.

Now? I still tinker. I have a habit of rereading what I wrote the day before, anyway. And when I see a typo or a "really bad" sentence, I can't help but fix it. But I try not to do any major rewrite. If there's something worth changing, I'll put a note there, something like: <this doesn't work. in the next revision, make Smith blind> Then, when I continue with new chapters, I will keep that in mind -- meaning, now Smith is a blind man... I keep moving...

DixieChic, I don't know if you are a plotter or a non-plotting seat-of-the pants-writer, but if you are the latter and you go backwards to edit stuff, you may find your muse gets fed up and goes to sleep. As someone else said earlier, the editing and creative functions are not compatible bedfellows.
Kindest,
Bufty

I can't start reading every day from page 1, because I can't wait to see how the characters are going to get themselves out of the pickle they had got themselves into when I last switched the PC off. Where or how does it end? That, for me, is the fun part - at some point it's going to hit me like a bullet, but maybe not till I'm at least half-way or more through. Okay, doing things this way means that at the end I then have to go back to the beginning and revise, revise, revise possibly more than an 'Outliner' would, but at least the muse has put all the ingredients out for me and it's been a fun ride.
Kindest,
Bufty

maestrowork said:

With my first novel, I spent a lot of time editing and reediting as I wrote. It took me more than 15 months to write the first 50K. For the second half of the book, I just wrote until I typed "THE END." It was so much more fun, for one thing.

Now? I still tinker. I have a habit of rereading what I wrote the day before, anyway. And when I see a typo or a "really bad" sentence, I can't help but fix it. But I try not to do any major rewrite. If there's something worth changing, I'll put a note there, something like: <this doesn't work. in the next revision, make Smith blind> Then, when I continue with new chapters, I will keep that in mind -- meaning, now Smith is a blind man... I keep moving...

Click to expand...

I'm the same as you, I push on but I do re read yesterday's stuff and do some light editing, no more than five minutes worth,fixing up bad sentences etc.
I'm about 85,000 word into my first novel.

Recently, however, I've spent a bit of time re reading the first parts. just to give myself a pat on the back since imho it's not half bad. It still amazes me that I've made it this far. What a rush! It may be pure crap for all I know but at least it's my crap!

maestrowork said:

Don't stop until you've typed "THE END."

Otherwise, you'll be spending the next four years trying to fix your beginning... without an end.

Click to expand...

I used to think this but now I'm not so sure. I know there are a thousand different techniques to get the book out, but I find it useful to re-read the last five pages or so and edit them before continuing on. I find the flow of my previous ideas and expand on them into the story. It warms me up to tighten the old ground so I hit the new ground running.

I find the 'type until the end idea' perfect in theory, but for me this little modification reassures me that I am not typing disjointed blocks of text.

Of course if you have spent four years playing with the opening pages it's probably a good thing to move on.


Os.

I'm a big believer in the "don't stop or I'm doomed" concept. However, as Os says, there's merit to the idea of rereading "X" number of pages at the beginning of each BIC session. My limit is three. Any more than that and the internal editor kicks into overdrive.

As I read over the previous three pages it helps me focus on new work, and allows me to tighten up any fugly crap from the previous session.

When I did my story, I plowed through from beginning to end (the entire series), happily deluded at how good it was. Reality sets in the minute you start to read what you've written.

I never get anything the way I want in the first pass, and if I'm having a really good day, I'll get it on the second or third. Granted, doing an Epic Fantasy series is a bit more complicated, but you are not alone in the labor of perfecting what you've written.

Hope your story goes well.

Well, like I said, I do read what I've written in the previous BIC session (a few pages) to get my creative juices flowing again, and I do tinker with typos and grammar, etc. The idea is not to get "bogged" down by editing at draft stage. Reading from page 1 or trying to "fix" a chapter or two or rewrite while you're BIC'ing would be a bad idea, at least to me.

The trick is to find a best way for yourself. Everyone is different. Do take care not to bog yourself down and keep yourself from reaching "THE END." If you find yourself editing for weeks when "THE END" is nowhere in sight, you have a problem. Time to join the Inner-Editor Anonymous. I've heard they serve free donuts and coffee.

I read enough to pick up the threads of the story, and occasionally dip farther back to pick up another thread, check a bit of info so I don't completely screw up my plotlines and continuity, and go forward until it's done.

Now, having said that, I have to admit to being so bogged down in book 3 of the Bailey Sullivan series that I may start it over again from the very beginning rather than try to figure out what I have to trash to make it better. I don't think I can continue from this point forward, which is rare for me, but the world won't come to an end if I have to redo the whole damn thing. I may put it on hold and do the revisions of book 2, in any case.

mmmm....coffeeeeee

DixieChic said:

However, I think Inner-Editor's Anonymous would be a seriously good idea for me . . .

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I like the idea of EA meetings. That's funny.

Bill: Hi, my name is Bill and I'm an editor.
All: Hi, Bill.
Bill: I've been clean for about 90 pages now.
All: (applause)
Bill: It all started when I noticed that my subplot had gone off track. My character's motivation was completely wrong. I started to change it, and then all of a sudden, I realized I had hit rock bottom. I was changing everything. (Breaks down in sobs) I couldn't stop. I couldn't move forward with my story.(Pause) Then one day, I met some folks at the Water Cooler, and they helped me. Now I just go page by page.
All: (heavy applause)


But seriously folks...
At the beginning of every writing session, I compulsively proofread (grammar/mechanics) what I wrote the day before, but I don't edit anything until I'm done with a complete work. I am a grammar freak, and I even read the newspaper with a red pen. However, I do not reread while I'm writing. I used to, and I don't anymore because it slows me down and makes me want to change course.

I hate having to stop and restart. I wind up rewriting chapter one a dozen times. It's hard to work continually when you have another job, so I hone hard on the weekends. My job has be away 4 am to 7 pm, so during the week and sometimes Saturdays it's hard to write. For me, I do my best writing when it's raining (I work construction and we don't work when it rains) because then I go to bed with the last word I typed on my mind, and wake up with the next word on my mind. Still, somehow, it can be done. That's what seperates the truly determined writer from the writer that is only a dreamer.