The Great Editing Question

Have you completed the first draft?

If so, why so short? If not, keep writing.

What audience are you writing it for? If so, check the guidelines and make sure you get in the approximate length.

Even for YA novels, you need at least 60,000 words.

If you are writing for a market that accepts that length, ignore all my questions.

And yes it does get eaiser. You find your groove and you slide in that and it flows. Doesn't mean your work gets to a point that you don't need editing, but it definitely gets easier. You find out what works and what doesn't, what words to avoid and phrase types, making your rough drafts sometimes better than your first finished manuscript. The more you write and work on your writing, the better it will become unless you aren't editing your work and learning.

On the editing, I'd go with whatever you feel comfortable with. Some people get a great deal of benefit out of retyping because it helps their thought processes. For me personally, it's easier to work through the individual chapters and revise right on the screen. It all depends on what works best with the way you write.

As to the second, it's yes and no. Yes, some parts will get easier as you learn them, but then you'll find new parts that are painful to learn.

No, it never gets easier. It stays just as hard, only on a higher level.

Vuligora said:

Oh, it isn't finished. It will probably end up as a trilogy it's plans are so long. But I have to go back and edit simply because my inner writer doesn't want to write anymore until the past is straigtened out. I am not getting across a few very important scenes the right way and I need to go back. I just need info on how other people edit. I am lost. Help.

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Don't write a trilogy, for if you can't sell the first one, the next two won't sell either. Trilogies are for established writers. And anyway, at 117 pages, you've barely begun your book.

You can edit now, or edit later. I do both: I edit as I go, and then I go through the ms several more times once I've finished. Editing directly on the screen is fast, but when you print it out, you will see even more mistakes. When you read it aloud, still more. Beta readers will catch more, and then editors, but you will never find all the mistakes.

But don't worry, the more you write, the easier it gets.

My 2¢:

How I edit depends on what's wrong with it. If it's a matter of just plain flat writing, I will usually rewrite the whole thing fresh, while still trying to write from the same Point A to the same Point B (in a lame effort to avoid continuity problems later on). If it's a matter of certain paragraphs or sections that aren't working, I'll just rewrite in the same file.

And in my experience it never gets easier. I always find myself striving for some perfect something that's always just out of reach. Granted, that elusive goal is much higher than when I started, but it's still out there dangling like a carrot. But that might just be me.

It seems to me - if you're bent on a trilogy, and even if you are not- it's going to be one heck of a slog if you have to keep going back and rewriting and editing to achieve that unreachable 'perfection' as you go. What if you reach the end and then decide it's not quite right - which it probably won't be - you still have to go back and revise and edit once again. Why not finish it first, keeping notes on what you intend to go back and fix.

I find the creative side of my brain works best when it's free from any editing thoughts and vice-versa. Some folks find outlining in advance helps keep things on track.

In my experience, it never gets easier because you become much more aware of what is good writing and what is mediocre and keep setting higher standards for yourself.

writing

The longer I write, the harder it gets. When I first started writing, I didn't know enough to to realize everything I did could be better. What I wrote was publishable, but still not nearly as good as it could have been, or should have been.

The more experience I get, teh more I see the flaws, and the harder it is to fix them. If writing ever gets easy, you're probably stagnating.

As for editing, going back and starting over, it's up to you, but trust me, when reach page 117 the second time, the urge will be strong to go back and start over yet again. There's something called "the 100 page wall" in novel writing. It afflicts many, many new writers, and it's said there are more 100 page, unfinished novels out there than all the finished novels ever written.

It's true. I know 117 pages seems like a lot of writing, but it really isn't. Most new writers reach page 100 without too much trouble,and then they stall. At this point the urge is strong to go back and start over, or even to get a new idea in your head that seems ever so much better, and to abandon the first novel for the new idea.

I'm not saying going back and starting over won't work. Sometimes it does. But it is a dangerous tactic, especially for new writers. You're going to have to go back and rewrite once the novel is finished, anyway, even if you rewrite the first hundred pages ten times now. It's usually best to finish the novel first, and then go back to page one.

As for a trilogy, this, too, is usually not the best tactic for a new writer. If the first novel doesn't get published, there will be no trilogy. Worse, if the first novel does get published, but doesn't sell well, the publisher won't ask for a second book.

Even if you want to make a trilogy from the world of your novel, it's still better by far to make book one a standalone novel. It will sell much easier, and can still be made into a trilogy, should the reading public like it.

It's your choice. You're in control of what the novel is, how long it will be, and whether or not it's a standalone.

When I'm in the middle and find that what I'm writing currently has changed what needs to go before it (which happens a lot), I usually just make a note of what needs to change and then continue as if that change had already been made. Stopping and revising would likely be a waste of time as my conception of the start of the story keeps changing throughout the process of writing until I get to the end. Only when I've reached the end can I easily tell what the beginning should really be.

That said, you may be different to me, and you might really need to do your revision here and now. There are a lot of different ways of revising. Retyping from scratch I've found useful when there are major problems to fix... I did this to my first novel because the characters were so flat you'd probably not notice them if they were sideways on to you. Otherwise, there are a variety of possibilities. Read through your manuscript, make a list of what you need to fix. Then come up with some reasonable scheme to fix them.

Here's one technique I found interesting.

I keep a "Things To Change" document, bulleting out the things I want to go back and edit. I think I'm like you....it drives me nuts knowing I need to go back and fix something. This way, by officially jotting it down I get a sense of closure and am able to move on without losing too much momentum.

James D. Macdonald said:

No, it never gets easier. It stays just as hard, only on a higher level.

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Amen.

Every day new ways pop up to challenge you. New ideas, new expectations. For me it's not always a higher level, it's just a different kind of difficulty.

Told my editor with my first book that I wanted to have stickers that said - The Next Book Will Be Better.

This feeling lingers. The next book, still unwritten, remains my best work, until I start writing.

annie
Luanne Jones (Heathen Girls - MIRA)

Does it become any easier?

It becomes easier to write good, but it's still work—still industry. But, there's an interesting cycle you fall into: the more you write,the better you get; the better you get, the more you enjoy it; the more you enjoy it, the more you write, and so on.

"put head ideas onto paper."

I love this.

Tish Davidson said:

In my experience, it never gets easier because you become much more aware of what is good writing and what is mediocre and keep setting higher standards for yourself.

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I agree.

I also find revision is always necessary, not just editing, which I tend to do as I go, but actual revision of story organization, adding or deleting plot threads and characters, and pumping up descriptions. I discover that what seems perfectly clear and vivid to me in my imagination has not made it to paper. For this reason, I am spending less time on editing as I go, for I find myself cutting out great swaths of prose. Once the story takes its final form is soon enough for careful editing.

If it can't get any easier, please at least tell me it gets difficult in different ways -- or, failing that, that one learns to deal with the difficulties more gracefully. (I'm less than a month from querying agents and constantly battling the rapid-cycling OMG I am crap.)

As for the original question. Unless you absolutely must start from the beginning -- the story won't move forward as it stands -- I'd keep going. Nothing kills momentum quite like restarting an unfinished story, even when it's necessary. I speak from personal experience.

I just write overtop the original when I'm editing, even when I'm totally changing the scene. I often find the rewrite process the most fulfilling and creative part of writing, but that's just me.

At first I went back and revised occasionally. But I learned, as has been suggested, that it slowed me down considerbly.

Later I just wrote to the conclusion. There were flat spots in the text, but since I knew I'd have to come back and rewite anyway, I continued and now it is completed. I still don't quite like a few details about my ending so I'm tweaking it a bit before I start the revise and rewrite process.

Re the Great Editing Questions:

Whenever I go back in to work on something in progress, I do whatever I am inspired to do, whether that's revise or slog on, and then I save it under a different name, like Work in Progress 3 May 06, and then the next time, Work in Progress 6 May 06, etc. That way I don't lose anything really good, and I can go back to something if I need to.

As for length and trilogies and all, if you're going for a trilogy, it would probably be a good plan to "outline," however you interpret that, the three books, so you know at least roughly what happens in each one, so that you can properly pre-figure events that need leading up to. (We all know that "outline" doesn't need to mean I. A .1 .a., right?)

I definitely agree that getting the first draft finished should be your highest priority. Plenty of time for editing later, and (I think) you can do a better job of editing when you have it all in front of you.

Good luck!

Blessings,
Ashleen

With my first novel, I wrote the first draft as fast as I could. Whatever popped into my head went onto the page. I have always believed that the first draft should be written as it comes to you. Then, you can go over the entire thing and revise it. Do away with what is irrelevant, add things that are, tighten the pace (if it needs it)...etc... Then, when you have an entire first draft, you have a whole, and you can chisel away at it to bring it closer to your vision. However many drafts and rewrites it may take.

For an example of how drastic the changes can sometimes be, I have posted the first chapter of my novel in the Share Your Work section (the title is FALL in the horror genre). I listened to feedback from other writers here, and changed a lot of things. Feel free to look and compare the two.

What I find frustrating is, just when you think you have it as close to perfect as you feel it can be, you will always find another way to tell the story. It's interesting, even exciting, but frustrating at the same time.