What steps do you take to edit a story?

I read my work a lot while I'm writing, editing as I go, sort of thing. My main editing includes a quick, straight-through read to make sure the plots work and the story reads well - there aren't any confusing or boring bits. Then I read through carefully looking for said-bookisms, diaogue-tag adverbs and head hopping. I look for the use of the best verbs. I look for places where I fail to make conversation conversationalo - I tend to write 'he did not' where 'he didn't' woud be much more natural.

Then I read it out loud. Anthing not flowing will really stands out.

Then I send it out to betas.

I just start reading it and change anything that makes me cringe.
There are some good books on self-editing
Self-Editing For Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King is one I like.

I edit large to small. Plot holes, big boring or unneeded sections, then re-structuring chapters, then paragraphs, then sentences, then look for the small stuff like adjectives and adverbs, said-bookisms, etc. Then grammar and spelling. Large to small--like carving a log into a figurine.

Start with any major whacking that needs to be done: Are there any scenes that seem flabby, boring, unmemorable, or unnecessary? Cut them. Sol Stein gives good advice for this kind of "triage" in his otherwise wordy and self-indulgent Stein on Writing.

At the scene level, I recommend Jerry Cleaver's excellent Immediate Fiction. Cleaver gives lots of advice on self-editing and rewriting, in the form of a boatload of questions: What does the POV character want in this scene? Could it be stronger? Where is that desire first expressed on the page? Could it be expressed earlier? What is the obstacle? Could it be stronger or more threatening? Where is the obstacle first expressed on the page? Could it be expressed earlier? What does the character do to overcome or defend against the obstacle? Where does that action appear on the page? Is the characer using himself to the limit? What else might the character do? At each moment, what is the character feeling? How is that being expressed through the character? ... and lots of other ideas for making each scene more immediate.

At the word, sentence, and paragraph level, I recommend Joseph M. Williams's Style (either the full version or the "basics of" version) and Martha Kolln's excellent (if frighteningly named) Rhetorical Grammar. These books explain how your stylistic and grammatical choices (e.g. word choice, word order, punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph structure) affect your readers. By focusing on how these choices affect readers, Williams and Kolln turn a topic that could otherwise be dry and pedantic into one that is interesting and immediately useful. (If I could pick only one of these books, I'd go with the full version of Williams's Style.)

Finally, I just picked up a terrific book called The Dramatic Writer's Companion. It includes dozens of exercises for developing characters, scenes, and the overall story. Most of the exercises are useful not only for initial development, but also for revising. Though the cover of the book says it's for playwrights and screenwriters, everything in it seems perfectly applicable to novels as well. (Amazon gives a publication date of April 15, 2009, but I found it in a local Barnes and Noble on April 1. I'm not sure if that's Amazon's error or B&N's.)

Dale

Some of it is going to depend on the types of mistakes you make, and everyone has different areas they need to pay extra attention to during the editing process.

First Pass: I start with the big stuff and work through that. For me, that means I look for places where I need to expand. I always tend to write short (left over from years of short story writing), so I end up having to make a pass to find places to add word count. For example, the characters make an important discovery, and I wrote it short--didn't give it much attention. So I had to go back and expand it from a paragraph to a couple of pages. For some reason, I don't see this when I write or revise; it's not until I edit that I can see where I short changed the story.

If I catch anything else here, I'll fix it, but I'm not looking for it. So if I see a typo, I'll fix it, but I'm not proofreading at this stage.

Second pass: That's looking for repetitions, continuity problems, checking for overused words, and just general, easy to fix stuff. This one may change, depending on the project. On my last one, I had to make an idiom pass. It was a historical novel, and I had to go through the entire book looking for suspect phrases, look them up in an idiom dictionary, and see what year they came into being. The current one? Since it's in omniscient viewpoint, I'm likely to have a pass just to check on the viewpoint and make sure I don't have chapters/sections that are too distant, inadvertantly head hop, or any of the other issues relating to the viewpoint.

Third Pass: Checking for sentence problems and minor editing. I'll usually find a sentence and think of a better way to say it.

Fourth Pass: Proofreading.

kct webber said:

I edit large to small. Plot holes, big boring or unneeded sections, then re-structuring chapters, then paragraphs, then sentences, then look for the small stuff like adjectives and adverbs, said-bookisms, etc. Then grammar and spelling. Large to small--like carving a log into a figurine.

Click to expand...

That's almost exactly how I do it.

I let the book sit for at least two weeks, so I have some perspective. Then I use Holly Lisle's one-pass method, though I can't do it in one pass:

http://hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/one-pass-revision.html

The "discovery" exercise at the start is especially useful for focusing me on what the story's about. Lisle calls for revising in hard copy, and I find that most useful.

After that, I send the book to beta readers. Then I address their issues.

Then I read it aloud, looking at repetitions and awkward sentences.

Quick list:
Read once and fix anything glaring. Take notes on larger issues.
Go back and fix those larger issues.
Do a word hunt for adverbs, aux verbs, common problem words and fix.
Read again.
Wash, rinse, repeat until happy.

I let it sit for a bit, then I go back and start reading from page one. I tweak anything that jumps out at me and get a sense of how the story is from a reader's perspective. I usually have some things I know I need to fix (like if I changed something farther along but didn't fix it in the beginning, or a character who's arc I changed), so I keep an eye out for those places.I look for places to deepen conflicts, character arcs, and themes, ways to tie things together better. I take notes in a separate file so I'm not bogged down in the text as I'm reading.

When that's done, I look at my notes and fix any larger issues I found.

Next, I do some line edits. I have my list of words to check on and overused phrases (I have a few favorites) and I do a lot of find-replaces to highlight those areas. I go through them one by one and fix.

I leave it sit some more, then go back and read from page one again.

I have two great crit groups I work with, so in between drafts I have people to read my work and offer feedback. If you can find a good group, I highly recommend them.

I blogged about this last month when I finished the first draft of the second book in my trilogy if you're interested. I go into a little more detail there.

kct webber said:

I edit large to small. Plot holes, big boring or unneeded sections, then re-structuring chapters, then paragraphs, then sentences, then look for the small stuff like adjectives and adverbs, said-bookisms, etc. Then grammar and spelling. Large to small--like carving a log into a figurine.

Click to expand...

That's how I do it too. At the end of it all, I also run a search & replace on words I tend to overuse. The I read it out loud. I go back and forth between printed version and screen, but the last edit is printed, because I tend to find typos better that way.

I follow a top down approach:

1. focus on the plot holes, structures, character development, etc. The BIG stuff. Fix them first.

2. now rewrite the prose to make it shine. Clunky sentences? Awkward constructs? Bad word choices? Gone, gone, gone. Also, pay attention to "flow" at this stage. Fix POV problems, etc.

3. copyedit: grammar, spelling errors... the technical stuff.

Reading out loud helps a lot, especially when determining the flow, the voice, the cadence, or during the copyedit phase.

When I find myself stuck in phase 3, spending time just tweaking things, that's when I know I should call it done.

After I've finished the first draft I:

Set it aside for about two weeks or so, and work on other mss.

Then it goes into several rewrites.

When I think it's polished, I print it out (saving it as a new doc, single spaced, draft mode). When reading the hardcopy printed out this way, I catch many holes in the story and spelling errors.

Oh, and as maestrowork said, reread it out loud.

Linda Adams said:

First Pass: I start with the big stuff and work through that. For me, that means I look for places where I need to expand. I always tend to write short (left over from years of short story writing), so I end up having to make a pass to find places to add word count. For example, the characters make an important discovery, and I wrote it short--didn't give it much attention. So I had to go back and expand it from a paragraph to a couple of pages. For some reason, I don't see this when I write or revise; it's not until I edit that I can see where I short changed the story.

Click to expand...

I do this too as a first pass, as I also underwrite. I also tend to leave scenes hanging or start new scenes the same way I started the one before it. I read for that stuff, fixing typos and grammar stuff as I go. Often I'll add sentences or whole paragraphs.

The I read for verbs/word choices/repetition.

For the novel I finished last year, that created four new drafts, the final one the longest.

I don't like to think too much when editing. I'll read what I've written to see if I like the way it sounds. If I don't, I'll tweak it until I do. I would have already taken care of plot holes before I sit down to write, so that's one less thing I have to fiddle with.

I heard about an interesting approach recently, though I've never tried it myself. It was mentioned by Donald Maass, I think.

Basically, you take your printed manuscript, and you toss it in the air, and scramble the pages, and get them completely out-of-order. Then, go through and read each page and make sure there is some sort of conflict represented on every one of those pages. Big or small. If a page lacks conflict, insert some. It doesn't have to be much. A hint of frustration in the dialogue. A stubbed toe. Whatever.

Shuffling the order, I suppose, helps you distance yourself from your own notion of the plot.

I detailed my editing process here.

I normally do 3 edits.

Edit 1. Big plot holes. This includes writing additional scenes and scrapping some. I normally do this on screen.
Edit 2. Plot details. I make a list of details to check out and modify, I look out for small inconsistencies and mistakes in the plot/setting/descriptions etc. I fix very clonky dialogue and make notes for edit number 3. I normally do this on screen.
Edit 3. I follow Holly's One Pass Manuscript Revision method. This is a 2 step process of hard copy editing + on screen editing.

I should add that editing is different from writing a new draft for me. Editing means amending some of the existing words, whereas redrafting normally involves writing it again from scratch.

For my web-novel, I did 2 drafts, and 3 edits of the 2nd draft, so you might say I did 5 drafts but I think of it as 2 drafts + 3 edits of draft No 2.

I do a few major things when I'm finished with a first draft.

First, I let it sit until it's "ready". I usually have no idea how long that will be, but it'll hit me one day that my manuscript is ready to be edited.

Once it's ready, I'll read over it once. The broad edit. This is where I'm usually deleting stuff and fixing weaknesses in the plot. This could also be called the 10% edit, because one of the best formulas I ever got for writing said "Second draft= first draft minus 10%"

After my 10%, I look at my plot. Is it awesome? Or does it fail? I make it awesome by adding clarifications and descriptions (my own personal nemesis) and let it sit again.

Finally, I go back and get rid of all the said bookisims, dialogue tags and clunky sentences. Honestly, I do that all the time, but this is the first time I'll do it on purpose.

Touch up a little on grammar and get my sentences flowing real nice and it's off to beta!

I edit as I go, chapter by chapter. Lately, I'll write a chapter one day, and the next, go over it with a fresh set of eyes. Then once the whole MS is done, I'll let it sit for a few months, then go back and start the next edit. If I can, I try to find someone to read it and look for the big picture. I also will read chapters at my writer's group and post chapters on our web site forum.

I then may let it sit for a while as I gather rejections. Then since I almost never get agent feedback, I'll go through it again for another fresh look, edit some more, put it down again for the next round of rejctions. If I actually get a feedback letter, I use that as the basis to go through it again. However, I've received 5 feedback letters out of 610 rejections, so don't wait around for feedback from an agent!

These are things I look for when I edit, posted awhile back. It may not be suitable all the way through for a first draft if there's still a lot of work to be done on it, more a polishing/perfecting edit.

* just
* too many -ly words - describe! don't over-rely on adverbs.
* looked, gazed, stared, etc. People look, yes, in many ways, but no need to tell us your characters are doing it all the time.
* overuse of he said/she said or any variation on said. Sometimes you can have untagged dialogue with no reader confusion.
* pacing - patches that are too slow for too long, or a story climax that happens to take up half the book.
* description - have you used it enough to firmly establish setting? Remember that we have five senses (more if you've written a paranormal).
* are your character voices distinct or are dialogue tags required for you to figure out who's saying what?
* tone - are the scenes from a character's POV consistent throughout the story? (assuming you use more than one POV, and even if you don't)
* active v. passive language.
* plot sense - is it comprehensible? any holes? any dodging of difficult areas that could actually enrich the story?
* spelling - do it right.
* punctuation - it's your friend, but don't sit on top of the comma. That's making it too close of a friend.

Anything drastic you think of while you're editing: wait. Make a note and keep going. Read it all the way through, keeping your drastic change in mind. See if it stays with you as you go through the manuscript. If it's still with you at the end, start to flesh it out, but make no permanent, big changes until you've given the current draft a full read and the new idea a chance to develop and settle in your brain.

I agree with Dale - Jerry Cleaver's Immediate Fiction is an excellent resource.
Not only for editing and rewriting, but also for the basic concepts of excellent writing.

1. I read through what I have so far.
2. I scrap out scenes that are unneeded or affect the flow/pacing of the work.
3. I read paragraphs, and mesh together ones that are redundant
4. Lastly, I check for word use. I go over word count, reducing liberally. I make sure that every word counts, and what I want to connote is clear to the reader.

5. I go over this about 7-8 times, doing as many as 20 drafts of one scene.
6. I cross my fingers and send to betas.

I always do a fairly thorough outline (synopsis) before I start writing so I don't have a lot of plot holes or character issues to deal with while I'm writing. For the first quarter or so of the work, I typically go back and reread from the start before writing anything new, and I edit as I read. In the second quarter, I go back three chapters and read before writing, also editing as I go. When I hit the halfway mark, which is often a slump time for me, I print out what I have thus far and do a hardcopy read-through and edit. I take notes on where I'm going next, referring back to my outline. I find editing on hard copy reveals issues that I tend to skip over when I'm screen editing. Then I go into the computer version and enter any edits/changes that I wrote on the hard copy.

Then I write the last half, again reading through the last three chapters at the start of each writing session, and editing before I write anything new. By the time I reach the end, the work is pretty tight. I print it all out and set it aside for a couple of weeks and work on something else. Then I do one last read-through of the entire work with final edits. I look for overuse of adjectives or adverbs, try to strengthen some of my verbs, and eliminate weak words like "seems to," "sort of," "might be," and "somehow." I look for the word "that" because the vast majority of them are unnecessary, and I also look for some words I tend to overuse, such as "moment." My characters always seem to have tons of moments. And I cut anything that doesn't seem to fit with the overall tone of the story, something I often can't recognize until I've had some time away from the work.

Beth

I read through my work a whole bunch of times, giving myself a week or so of a break in between to see it with fresh eyes, and just edit as I go. Then usually I come up with ideas to improve the plot or characters and add that in. But I always make sure to edit a few more times than I think I need to, just to make sure.

There's an old saying that goes something like, "First write with your heart, then write with your head."

A good way to edit, I've found, is to read your story/book aloud to yourself. Doing so allows you to catch flaws in your prose easily, especially with your dialogue.

Another good piece of advice, this one from George Orwell, is as you read each individual sentence search for words that might not be quite necessary, then remove them and reread the sentence. If the sentence maintains the same message/meaning without the word you removed, then leave it out. In this way, you trim all unnecessary fat and tighten the prose.