Editing for Flow, Part 1:
Everyone's writing ritual is different, and I've talked about what I do before, but today I thought I'd reiterate and then actually give an example. So first, my writing ritual. When I sit down at the computer, I usually begin by rereading whatever I wrote the previous day, if not more. For example, for books, I usually reread from the beginning of the chapter. Since it takes me typically 3 or 4 days to write a chapter, I'm not going back that far, and I find that doing this brings me back to the story, to the little themes I have going, and refreshes my memory on the most important part: the emotional state of mind of my characters. Once I'm back in the appropriate headspace, I can continue writing new material and the new material usually flows well from the previous material.
But that's not the only reason I reread the old material. I also reread in order to make line edits and changes to help with the flow of the old material. Basically, a first pass revision of the material. After 2 or 3 days of rereading and revising at this level, the end result is usually smooth. Sometimes this revision ends up being more significant, when I realize that a particular scene truly sucks and needs to be excised, or I realize that the intent of the scene is good but it has the wrong emotional feel and needs to be reworked. But in general, there are just minor tweaks that make the writing flow better, that make it more readable. And what I mean when I say this is that it makes the fact that the reader is READING the material less obvious. Everyone's had the experience of reading right along, caught up in the flow, and then hitting a sentence or paragraph that just doesn't parse. This kicks you out of the flow, out of the story, and you become aware of the fact that you're actually reading, as opposed to just living the story. I'm trying to iron out all of these little bumps and wrinkles during this process.
This is not the same thing as revising the book. I can't revise the book at this point, because the book hasn't been finished. I don't know what's important and what's not, what scenes have to be included, which ones need to be cut because they ended up being unimportant, which ones need to be combined to make the story more compact, etc. So I'm not worrying about that at this stage. I'm focused only on making the reading experience smooth.
So, two purposes to the reread of the previous material: recapture the flow of the story and the characters, and to smooth out any wrinkles I may see along the way. Again, this is just how I find I operate best at this point. You may or may not be able to work this way. I full admit that it takes me an hour just to reread and edit the old material, before I get started on new stuff. If you don't have that kind of time, then doing this is probably not a good idea, and there are other tricks of the trade to get you back into the swing of things--tricks that work much faster than this.
With that in mind, I propose a little challenge, something to help everyone see what it is exactly that I'm looking for and fixing during this phase. This will be helpful on many levels, I think, because I can then explain why I changed certain things, and in the process show you the line edits that can be so hard. Why did I change that word? Why did I rearrange those sentences? Etc.
Here's the challenge. I'll post a scene from the new novel, Well of Sorrows. This is the rough draft scene, meaning exactly how it appeared the first time through, without any revisions or any editing done before hand. It's exactly what my mind came up with on the first go around. I'd like all of you to try your hand at editing it. Note the editing part. I'm not looking for an expansion of the scene, or a complete rewrite (which it may or may not need). I'm looking for a line-by-line look at the scene, with corrections to words and sentences that will make the flow of the scene better.
So, try your hand at this line-by-line editing process for this one scene. Ask yourself as you read it where you feel as if you're stumbling a little. Ask yourself if changing this word or that word will make it smoother in those spots. Sometimes a word change won't work. So ask yourself if you need to restructure a sentence, or perhaps more than one sentence. Perhaps you'll need to restructure an entire paragraph or two in order to smooth out the wrinkles.
Next week, I'll post the revisions that I made to the scene, and try to explain why I made those changes, what went through my head, why I made the decision to alter this or that or the other, etc. This is something of an experiment on my part, since it requires your participation. Feel free to post your edits of the scene, or snippets of your edits, here in the comments. And in the meantime, you get a sneak peak at the new book.
First Draft (Unedited):
His father returned to the hut after dark.
Colin sat before the fire. His mother sat on one of the sleeping pallets, Colin’s torn shirt in her lap, her needle and thread flashing in the light as she mended it. A pile of assorted clothes sat next to her, shirts and breeches and linens from a few of the surrounding members of Lean-to that also needed repair.
They looked at each other a moment after his father ducked through the entrance, his mother pausing in her work briefly. Then his father’s gaze fell on Colin.
He moved toward the fire, reached forward to ruffle Colin’s hair, but Colin ducked his head and shifted out of the way.
“Colin, come here.”
When Colin didn’t move, his father squatted down next to him by the fire with a grunt and held out his hand.
“I have something for you.”
It looked like a ball of string.
“What is it?”
“Take it.”
When Colin took it from his father’s hand, his father settled down beside him. Colin unraveled the loose ends of the straps and realized that it wasn’t made of string, but of leather, and that in the center of the bundle was a wide rectangular chunk, the straps woven through it, one on each side. One of the straps had ties on the end; the other had a knotted ball.
“It’s a sling,” his father explained after making himself comfortable. He grinned. “I made it this afternoon.”
“You made him a sling?” his mother asked sharply. “What for?”
“So that he can protect himself,” his father barked. Then he drew in a shuddering breath and said more calmly, “So that he can protect himself from Walter and his gang.”
His mother’s silence spoke volumes.
“Ana, he needs something he can use to protect himself from those bastards. He needs to be able to fight back.”
“He shouldn’t need to fight back at all.”
“No, he shouldn’t. But I don’t think anyone in Portstown, least of all the Proprietor, is going to do anything about it. Walter’s the Proprietor’s son for God’s sakes! Colin’s almost twelve. I think he can handle a sling. I had one when I was his age. Unless you’d rather I give him a knife to defend himself with?”
His mother frowned. “No. I don’t want Colin running around with a knife.”
“Then the sling will have to work.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I can’t do anything about finding work, at least not now. Let me at least try to fix this.”
Colin thought his mother would argue more, but she only closed her eyes and shook her head before returning to her mending.
Colin’s father breathed a sigh of relief, barely audible. Then he turned to Colin, and smiled. The first real smile Colin had seen on his face in months.
“Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you out to the plains and we’ll see if I can remember how to use it,” he said.
This time when his father tried to tousle his hair, Colin let him.
Everyone's writing ritual is different, and I've talked about what I do before, but today I thought I'd reiterate and then actually give an example. So first, my writing ritual. When I sit down at the computer, I usually begin by rereading whatever I wrote the previous day, if not more. For example, for books, I usually reread from the beginning of the chapter. Since it takes me typically 3 or 4 days to write a chapter, I'm not going back that far, and I find that doing this brings me back to the story, to the little themes I have going, and refreshes my memory on the most important part: the emotional state of mind of my characters. Once I'm back in the appropriate headspace, I can continue writing new material and the new material usually flows well from the previous material.
But that's not the only reason I reread the old material. I also reread in order to make line edits and changes to help with the flow of the old material. Basically, a first pass revision of the material. After 2 or 3 days of rereading and revising at this level, the end result is usually smooth. Sometimes this revision ends up being more significant, when I realize that a particular scene truly sucks and needs to be excised, or I realize that the intent of the scene is good but it has the wrong emotional feel and needs to be reworked. But in general, there are just minor tweaks that make the writing flow better, that make it more readable. And what I mean when I say this is that it makes the fact that the reader is READING the material less obvious. Everyone's had the experience of reading right along, caught up in the flow, and then hitting a sentence or paragraph that just doesn't parse. This kicks you out of the flow, out of the story, and you become aware of the fact that you're actually reading, as opposed to just living the story. I'm trying to iron out all of these little bumps and wrinkles during this process.
This is not the same thing as revising the book. I can't revise the book at this point, because the book hasn't been finished. I don't know what's important and what's not, what scenes have to be included, which ones need to be cut because they ended up being unimportant, which ones need to be combined to make the story more compact, etc. So I'm not worrying about that at this stage. I'm focused only on making the reading experience smooth.
So, two purposes to the reread of the previous material: recapture the flow of the story and the characters, and to smooth out any wrinkles I may see along the way. Again, this is just how I find I operate best at this point. You may or may not be able to work this way. I full admit that it takes me an hour just to reread and edit the old material, before I get started on new stuff. If you don't have that kind of time, then doing this is probably not a good idea, and there are other tricks of the trade to get you back into the swing of things--tricks that work much faster than this.
With that in mind, I propose a little challenge, something to help everyone see what it is exactly that I'm looking for and fixing during this phase. This will be helpful on many levels, I think, because I can then explain why I changed certain things, and in the process show you the line edits that can be so hard. Why did I change that word? Why did I rearrange those sentences? Etc.
Here's the challenge. I'll post a scene from the new novel, Well of Sorrows. This is the rough draft scene, meaning exactly how it appeared the first time through, without any revisions or any editing done before hand. It's exactly what my mind came up with on the first go around. I'd like all of you to try your hand at editing it. Note the editing part. I'm not looking for an expansion of the scene, or a complete rewrite (which it may or may not need). I'm looking for a line-by-line look at the scene, with corrections to words and sentences that will make the flow of the scene better.
So, try your hand at this line-by-line editing process for this one scene. Ask yourself as you read it where you feel as if you're stumbling a little. Ask yourself if changing this word or that word will make it smoother in those spots. Sometimes a word change won't work. So ask yourself if you need to restructure a sentence, or perhaps more than one sentence. Perhaps you'll need to restructure an entire paragraph or two in order to smooth out the wrinkles.
Next week, I'll post the revisions that I made to the scene, and try to explain why I made those changes, what went through my head, why I made the decision to alter this or that or the other, etc. This is something of an experiment on my part, since it requires your participation. Feel free to post your edits of the scene, or snippets of your edits, here in the comments. And in the meantime, you get a sneak peak at the new book.
First Draft (Unedited):
His father returned to the hut after dark.
Colin sat before the fire. His mother sat on one of the sleeping pallets, Colin’s torn shirt in her lap, her needle and thread flashing in the light as she mended it. A pile of assorted clothes sat next to her, shirts and breeches and linens from a few of the surrounding members of Lean-to that also needed repair.
They looked at each other a moment after his father ducked through the entrance, his mother pausing in her work briefly. Then his father’s gaze fell on Colin.
He moved toward the fire, reached forward to ruffle Colin’s hair, but Colin ducked his head and shifted out of the way.
“Colin, come here.”
When Colin didn’t move, his father squatted down next to him by the fire with a grunt and held out his hand.
“I have something for you.”
It looked like a ball of string.
“What is it?”
“Take it.”
When Colin took it from his father’s hand, his father settled down beside him. Colin unraveled the loose ends of the straps and realized that it wasn’t made of string, but of leather, and that in the center of the bundle was a wide rectangular chunk, the straps woven through it, one on each side. One of the straps had ties on the end; the other had a knotted ball.
“It’s a sling,” his father explained after making himself comfortable. He grinned. “I made it this afternoon.”
“You made him a sling?” his mother asked sharply. “What for?”
“So that he can protect himself,” his father barked. Then he drew in a shuddering breath and said more calmly, “So that he can protect himself from Walter and his gang.”
His mother’s silence spoke volumes.
“Ana, he needs something he can use to protect himself from those bastards. He needs to be able to fight back.”
“He shouldn’t need to fight back at all.”
“No, he shouldn’t. But I don’t think anyone in Portstown, least of all the Proprietor, is going to do anything about it. Walter’s the Proprietor’s son for God’s sakes! Colin’s almost twelve. I think he can handle a sling. I had one when I was his age. Unless you’d rather I give him a knife to defend himself with?”
His mother frowned. “No. I don’t want Colin running around with a knife.”
“Then the sling will have to work.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I can’t do anything about finding work, at least not now. Let me at least try to fix this.”
Colin thought his mother would argue more, but she only closed her eyes and shook her head before returning to her mending.
Colin’s father breathed a sigh of relief, barely audible. Then he turned to Colin, and smiled. The first real smile Colin had seen on his face in months.
“Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you out to the plains and we’ll see if I can remember how to use it,” he said.
This time when his father tried to tousle his hair, Colin let him.
