Too scared to start editing

In reality, if you want to become a professional writer, you're better off doing the editing yourself. As you edit, you learn the skills that you need to eventually write a better first draft. Of course, critiquing other people's writing helps with this tremendously, too - you critiquing other people's stuff being far more valuable in learning skills than other people critiquing your stuff.

I can't say that editing scares me, but I will say that I do tend to find it overwhelming. So, I break it down into more manageable chunks with a firm plan in place. I've listed my editing list (which, itself, is subject to further editing ) on my blog. Check it out - maybe it'll be useful.

Atlantis,

Congratulations on finishing the first draft!!!
What you're feeling now is absolutely, a 100% normal. First of all, you do need a break from the book. Maybe not 12 months as your brother suggests, but then again, it depends on how quickly you can distance yourself from the story.

One thing is for sure -- now you need a considerable break, you need some rest. It might only take a week, but you do need to get the whole thing out of your head. You need to reward yourself big time, for Christ's sake! Go buy yourself a cake, or join a gym, or visit a few writing sites like this one, but just relax. And remember: everything's going the way it should. If you have a good feeling about the novel, that's the only thing that matters.

Second -- please don't listen to your parents. First drafts are never good enough -- you know it, we all do, but they don't. Give them a few examples of those novels that went through dozens of rewrites before they got into print. Just tell them that no editor in their sane mind will consider a 1000-page manuscript.

And I wouldn't suggest professional editing, either. You don't want somebody else to finish your baby book for you, do you? What would work very well, though, is submitting it to a critique group. If it's SF/F as it seems from your title, you can't do better than Critters. I'm a member and I've just finished critiquing a wonderful novel there -- a 100% publishable, but together we've fished out so many little problems, both plot and style wise! The difference between the original and crittered versions was incredible. Just grab a bit of rest, brush it up a little and submit it to Critters.

Good luck! Congratulations!!

L M Ashton said:

II've listed my editing list (which, itself, is subject to further editing ) on my blog. Check it out - maybe it'll be useful.

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L M Ashton, what a wonderful site and tips! Thanks a lot! I'm going to use your advice, and God knows I need it!

So, you have taken a slab of marble and chipped and chiseled it down to where you can see the vague outline of a bird in what appears to be flight. It could be an eagle, a swan, a hummingbird, or even a vulture--all exquisite animals in their own right. Don't you want give it that flight? Don't you want to see which bird it really is? You have only one guarantee at this point. If you stop now, it will be a Dodo.

If you can't make a decision on it, you've just made a decision.

Hey, Fresie, I developed that list because I needed it. You know, like the others said, you're absolutely not alone.

my brother thinks I should have 12 months off from the novel before going back to it.

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While you should take some time away from it, a month or six weeks would probably be reasonable. And, in those six weeks, start thinking about your next project.

My parents think it should have been mailed out yesterday.

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It's good that you realize it needs more work first. A lot of agents get books that might be good but because they haven't been edited at all, the books end up getting a pass.

I've started reading a couple of editing books and its all a little overwhelming. I've never been that good at spelling or grammer. I'm just not good at spotting errors.

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This is actually why you need to take time off from the work for six weeks or so. When you read it right now, because you are intimate with the words, you fill in the corrections mentally without realizing it. With distance from it, which the six weeks will give you, the mistakes will jump out at you.

To reduce the overwhelming nature of it, just pick one aspect of editing and look for only that. I did a historical, and I went through the entire book just looking for modern idioms and editing those out. I did the same thing for repetitions. The search and replace will also be your friend. I've used that for phrases that need to be edited out. I just run a search, have Word highlight it, and then look for the highlights.

But this is for the simple things like chopping words and proofreading. For the more complex aspect of dealing with the story, you might want to look at this workshop on Using an Outline to Edit (it starts at the bottom). I liked it because it's a very different way of editing and might have helped me on earlier projects before I started revising.

Good luck!

Linda Adams said:

For the more complex aspect of dealing with the story, you might want to look at this workshop on Using an Outline to Edit (it starts at the bottom). I liked it because it's a very different way of editing and might have helped me on earlier projects before I started revising.

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I clicked on it, and it says Access Denied...

PS Oops, sorry, now I see, it's the Forward Motion site. Okay, I can sort it out, then. Thanks for the link!

Fresie said:

I clicked on it, and it says Access Denied...

PS Oops, sorry, now I see, it's the Forward Motion site. Okay, I can sort it out, then. Thanks for the link!

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Sorry, I forgot--it's probably in a password protected area.

Editing is your friend. Use her vigorously. The harsher you are with your work, the happier she is.

embrace your inner editor. You cannot get far in the writing world without her.

Good luck!

Scared to edit? Never - your precious jewel will never shine if it's not polished.

Look at this way: would you rather be stuck with a 1,000 page book you know needs editing or end up with a decent sized book you're happy with?

Is anyone else ever scared to edit? Yep, sure. In the past I've had the tendency to look at my own work through rose-coloured glasses. While I intellectually knew it needed editing, I always ended up liking everything too much to do much more than a few tweaks here and there.

The fact that you already know you have to cut a few characters suggests that you are willing to make hard decisions, which will stand you well.

I certainly recommend taking time off. What you should be aiming for, in taking time off, is being able to come back to your story with a fresh perspective. The longer the better; perhaps not 12 months as your brother suggested, although he is wise to suggest you take considerable time. I'd recommend at least two months (and longer if you can stand it). Sometimes time is the best teacher.

Others have suggested in the meantime you try doing some crits on others' work (for example, on the Share Your Work board here). This is great advice. I found that the more I could recognise problems in others' work, the more I could see problems in my own.

I look at editing as a challenge. I've put the words to paper (or computer screen). Now it's time to make those words sing. If you need to take time off before you tackle it, do it. Sometimes you need a fresh pair of eyes. It helps those gaping plot holes become more noticeable.

A book that's a thousand pages long can seem like an unwieldy task. Perhaps writing up an outline of it? A few lines per chapter, just to give you a good breakdown of the events in order, the people involved, and the outcomes of those events. It could be a useful start to see where cuts can be made.

Atlantis said:

I've just finished a 1,000 page plus tome that took me four years to write. I'm in the middle of having a break from it. I'm doing a couple of short stories. After being stuck in my last project for so long it is really refreshing to do something different so much so part of me doesn't want to go back to Atlantis Reborn. Its SUCH a difficult project. The characters are so hard to write and the plot is in peices. I'm not going to abandon it all together (four years of hard work down the drain!) but at the moment I'm struggling to find the courage to go back to it. The plot is in shambles and I need to cut at least 400 pages from it and 6 characters are going to land on the chopping block. Part of me is worried I can't do it. I'm worried the moment I look at it again I'll have a panic attack and decide its all rubbish and rewrite the whole thing. Plus it doesn't help that I have my parents and even my grandmother bugging me to send it out to agents. It is SO not ready. I think it has potential...its just at the moment its a bit like an overgrown bush...it just needs pruning

Is anyone else ever scared to go back and edit? my brother thinks I should have 12 months off from the novel before going back to it. My parents think it should have been mailed out yesterday. I've started reading a couple of editing books and its all a little overwhelming. I've never been that good at spelling or grammer. I'm just not good at spotting errors. I've been tossing up the idea of getting it professionally edited after I cut the whole thing down to a reasonable length.

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First thing: don't listen to the family and the friends. They mean well, but they don't generally know what they're talking about.

(for people whose family/friends are savvy, okay, listen to them. And your brother is right, you should take some time off the MS, but not necessarily a year. A few weeks or a few months, and be writing all the while.)

You learn to spot errors by practicing spotting them. You have to look through your MS with a fine-toothed comb for spelling and grammar and usage errors, and it'll probably be tough at first. But it will get easier.

In your case, the first thing I would do is write out all my scenes on notecards. One notecard per scene. Arrange them all in the order you think they should be in the final draft--even if they're all out of order now.

Next, remove the notecards that don't advance the plot or the characters (the story). With 1000 pages, that should probably be a lot of notecards.

Now with those notecards removed, there are probably at least a few characters who really don't have a purpose anymore. The next step is pruning those. Figure out which subplots do the most to advance character. Remove the others, or if possible, redesign the subplots you are leaving to have a bit more heft and do double-duty on characterization.

The last thing I'd read for is sentence flow and grammar and spelling. That way I don't get partial to so many sentences after tweaking them endlessly and when I do the big cutting, I hold back because of those sentences.

Edit the biggest stuff first. Then move onto smaller stuff. It's not that daunting once you just dive in, trust me.

I was scared to edit my first time, i took a break for 3 months and went back to it. There were parts I read and thought "wow this sucks!" and other parts that actually seemed pretty good, someparts were so good I have a hard time believing I wrote them. I just keep reading through and polishing it, making every scene and character and sentence better and tighter. When i finished my first draft I thought I was done, but each time I go over it I know its getting better. Now its almost ready to send out for real.

Don't be scared of editing, it takes something you wrote for you and makes it readable for everyone.

I edit right after I finish my first draft, because I only write the storyline and most of the chars personalities are left out. I implement the personalities and any scenes I feel need to be added for the 2nd draft.. 3rd draft I cut out what needs to be and make sure my grammar and punctuations are right and stuff. Then final draft is made and I read it one last time for anything out of ordinary and pass it to my family for errors =)

I try to take a 3 or 4 month break from a story, after I have written it. That way 4 months from now when I start editing, it'll be like I'm reading it for the first time, and I will catch more mistakes than I would have if I had edited it as soon as I finished writing.

The average book is usualy 150 - 175 pages, so you need to do a lot more than get rid of 400 pages... you need to cut closer to 700 pages. Your best bet is to divide and conqure, via a multi volume set. As it stands now you have a 5 to 7 volume set on your hands, not a single book.

You got to ask yourself, would you read a 1,000 book? Take out some book you do read, and look at the page counts. Unless you are reading Harry Potter or Stephen King, you will find a trend in page counts: 95 pages; 121 pages; 157 pages; 179 pages; rarely anything longer than 200 pages. Even the huge Harry Potter only ranges from 225 - 498 pages per volume.

Another thing you need to look at: Webster's Dictionary and the Bible. Page count? Both 1500 pages each. Yep, your 1,000 page book is as big as the common 15lb. school dictionary or the Bible itself. You'll have to find a special publisher, one able to deal with a 1,000 page print-up, (which requires special binding techniques btw) and actually there are only about 12 printers world wide that have the equiptment to print up such a massive sized book, and they all only deal with non-fiction. Even getting it self-published via LuLu is not an option for you, because they can't print up books over 730 pages!

Cutting 400 pages is still going to leave you with 600 pages, roughly the size of the average trilogy. You might want to look at your book and ask yourself if it could be turning into a trilogy. It could be a better option.

Now, because your book is soooooo BIG, I suggest that you literaly divide your 1,000 pages into 3 stacks of 333 pages each. Now take stack #1 and call it volume one of your trillogy. Stack #2 would be volume two and stack #3 would be volume three. Now instead of thinking of it as "you book", think of it as "your trilogy". Put stacks 2 and 3 aside and forget about them for now.

Now take your "volume 1" and start editing that. If you still plan on one book as you goal, than you will want to do deep editing cuts, and reduce you 333 pages to 75 pages (cutting 258 pages). If you want to try for a triliogy set of books instead, aim to reduce your 333 pages to 200 pages (cutting 133 pages). Allow yourself 2 or 3 months to edit this section of your book... up to 6 months if you are cutting it down to 75 pages.

Now, if you have planned to go the trilogy rought, now is the time to start sending out querry letters, and doing your final edit of volume one. Do not start editing stacks #2 and 3 yet. Focus fully on volume one. After you have gotten it published, than you can start editing stack #2. (This will be about 18 months from now assuming a publisher grabs your volume one immediatly.) After volume 2 is published, (about 36 months from now) than you can start editing stack #3. After volume 3 is published, (about 54 months from now) than you can start on you next book or set of books.

However, if you continue as planned in your OP than you will be doing this instead:

If you are going the one book rought, than it's time to start editing stack #2. Once you have finished editing stack #1, put it aside and start editing stack #2. Again, you'll need to cut it down to 75 pages, just like you did with stack #1. Allow for 3 to 6 months to get this done. Once finished cutting stack #2, start on stack #3.

Once you have finished editing stack #3, you will have turned your 1,000 page mess into a 225 page book. Now, 225 pages is still a big Harry Potter sized book, but still managible. You next step will be to do a final edit, of the 225 pages all at once to make them read smoothly straight through, from start to finish. Once you have done that you can start sending out querries.

Take a deep breath.

Let it out slowly.

Repeat as necessary.

Then, back to work.

You don't want to make me have to hurt you.

EelKat said:

The average book is usualy 150 - 175 pages, so you need to do a lot more than get rid of 400 pages... you need to cut closer to 700 pages. Your best bet is to divide and conqure, via a multi volume set. As it stands now you have a 5 to 7 volume set on your hands, not a single book.

You got to ask yourself, would you read a 1,000 book? Take out some book you do read, and look at the page counts. Unless you are reading Harry Potter or Stephen King, you will find a trend in page counts: 95 pages; 121 pages; 157 pages; 179 pages; rarely anything longer than 200 pages. Even the huge Harry Potter only ranges from 225 - 498 pages per volume.

Another thing you need to look at: Webster's Dictionary and the Bible. Page count? Both 1500 pages each. Yep, your 1,000 page book is as big as the common 15lb. school dictionary or the Bible itself. You'll have to find a special publisher, one able to deal with a 1,000 page print-up, (which requires special binding techniques btw) and actually there are only about 12 printers world wide that have the equiptment to print up such a massive sized book, and they all only deal with non-fiction. Even getting it self-published via LuLu is not an option for you, because they can't print up books over 730 pages!

Cutting 400 pages is still going to leave you with 600 pages, roughly the size of the average trilogy. You might want to look at your book and ask yourself if it could be turning into a trilogy. It could be a better option.

Now, because your book is soooooo BIG, I suggest that you literaly divide your 1,000 pages into 3 stacks of 333 pages each. Now take stack #1 and call it volume one of your trillogy. Stack #2 would be volume two and stack #3 would be volume three. Now instead of thinking of it as "you book", think of it as "your trilogy". Put stacks 2 and 3 aside and forget about them for now.

Now take your "volume 1" and start editing that. If you still plan on one book as you goal, than you will want to do deep editing cuts, and reduce you 333 pages to 75 pages (cutting 258 pages). If you want to try for a triliogy set of books instead, aim to reduce your 333 pages to 200 pages (cutting 133 pages). Allow yourself 2 or 3 months to edit this section of your book... up to 6 months if you are cutting it down to 75 pages.

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No offense, but I'm not sure how sound this advice is. I have maybe two or three books on my bookshelf that are under 200 pages. I haven't read a 1000 page novel, but I did enjoy a 918 page one last year. Of course since font size and paragraph spacing can vary, pages are all irrelevant. It's word count that's important.

As someone else suggested, try taking a break from your work and crit other people's stories for a bit. Hang around in Share Your Work for a month giving and reading crits, and you'll get enough hands-on experience to take on your own book. If you don't already have one, figure out a method to keep the entire story in some sort of outline, spreadsheet, or synopsis so you can better keep track of your characters, plot, and themes. It sounds like you already have an idea of where to start your cutting. Just keep in mind that if you've got a will strong enough to write this tome, then you certainly have what it takes to edit it!

Nicole

In response to Eelkat--

Series work when the storyline both spans a major arc and the subplots are very major. But not every massive story can be divided into parts.

The longest Harry Potter book is in the 800s as far as length goes. The Order of the Phoenix is about 260,000 words.


I think taking it scene by scene is the best way to go to get a cohesive story. If you edit in great big novel-size thirds, your story will feel like it's divided in thirds, even if it's not.

NicoleMD said:

No offense, but I'm not sure how sound this advice is. I have maybe two or three books on my bookshelf that are under 200 pages. I haven't read a 1000 page novel, but I did enjoy a 918 page one last year. Of course since font size and paragraph spacing can vary, pages are all irrelevant. It's word count that's important.

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Absolutely! But as you say, a printed page and a manuscript-formatted page differ hugely. On average, a Courier-12, double-spaced page is 200 to a maximum of 250 words. That makes 4-5 pages a thousand words, accordingly 400 to 500 pages for a 100K novel, but 100K is a lot for a first-time writer.

I have read novels of 300K words (that would make a 1500-page manuscript), but they were all by established authors and edited to near death, not a word wasted.

I never worry about how large (or small) my first draft is- it's a moot point- I think that letting it sit((however long)) - then printing it out (use kinkos or ? and have it bound) place a red pencil and sticky notes in your hand and READ it...just make notes and use stickies...THEN figure out where your next draft takes you-
Congratulations and good luck!

Some time away from it can be a good thing, but when you're ready to go back to it, you'll have to adjust your attitude.

From your description of the work, you already know it's going to take a lot of cutting. The fact that you know that is one major hurdle that's out of the way. To make the necessary cuts, you have to develop a sadistic attitude toward your work. It's not coincidence that most writers refer to the "cut rewrite" as "killing my babies."

For the cutting rewrite, you have to look at your work the same way a hungry wolf eyes a herd of reindeer: looking for the weak and sickly. You have to delight in murdering off all the weakies, because by "thinning the herd," you're making the novel stronger.

And please don't think I'm being cute here -- published writers often talk about this process in exactly the same terms, and relate how they become almost maniacal in their zeal to slash out all the weak spots.

Above all, NEVER shrink away from cutting a "beloved" part. "When in doubt, cut it out!" It never fails to amaze me, how whenever I read anything I've written that gives me even the slightest sense of being "not quite," cutting it out is almost ALWAYS the best cure, and I can see my writing improve before my eyes. (And BTW, I'm published.)

[Everyone else stop reading here -- I'm going to repeat myself]: If you can find it, rent TerminatorII, the director's cut. It's about twenty minutes longer than the studio-edited theatrical release, and Cameron (the director) freely admits the studio-edited version is superior. All the cut parts are explanatory scenes, laying out the differences between the new Terminator and the one in the original movie. Cameron thought they were absolutely necessary for the film to make sense, but when he saw the studio release, he realized that none of them was necessary, and they only slowed the pacing without adding anything to the story. He concludes, "It's a lesson in how little is needed to tell a story."

So when you're ready, work yourself into a killing frenzy and have at it. Happy hunting.