The Power of Ediitng Your Writing

 I often write about the importance of good editing. Our poster today tells us to write without fear and to edit without mercy. 

That second piece of advice is golden. Slash! Cut! Revise! All the things we must do to those precious words we wrote in the first draft. Stephen King is oft quoted, and one of his that fits our topic today is “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.” This successful writer knows the importance of good editing. He also knows that it is a difficult thing to do.

What to change. What to cut. What to rework. All questions we must ask ourselves through the editing process. The reason we edit is to make what we have written stronger, more interesting, and more clear. 

We must check that we used the right tense throughout. We need to replace as many passive verbs with active ones as is possible. Sometimes, to do that, you must revise the order of your sentence rather than merely substitute one verb for another. 

We should check for overuse of adverbs which are often unnecessary. We must look for too many  adjectives. One or two works, adding more than that to describe a noun is overkill. 

When we edit, mechanical things like spelling and punctuation are important. No argument there.

Something else that is of prime importance is clarity. Be sure that your reader will understand what you've written. The writer knows what is happening, but she/he doesn't always write so that the reader is sure of what is occurring. 

When we edit, we must look for redundancy. Repeating words or even ideas does not make for strong writing. Some writers fear that the reader doesn't 'get it' the first time, so he/she repeats the thought, maybe using different words, but still the same thought. This is where we writers must give a little credit to our readers. Say it once, and they'll know what you're talking about. Say it again, and they may get a little bored. Repetition of words in a sentence or in two or three successive sentences also becomes boring for the reader. Watch for this problem when you edit. 

Maybe we should turn a well-known quote into one for writers. Editing isn't for sissies. It's a tough job. Do it well, and you're quite likely to find success. Skip through it or don't do it at all, and you'll probably receive a rejection. 

Don't ever underestimate the power of a good editing job. Do it once, twice, or three times--whatever it takes to turn your draft into a marketable piece of writing. 

Reading Books Twice and Editing Your Writing

My Book Club is reading a book for this month that I had read when it first came out. Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale was a bestseller for a very long time. I decided I'd skim through the book to refresh my memory, but once started, I was hooked and I read the 400+ page book in entirety. For anyone who has not read it, the book is about occupied France during WWII, the misery, deprivation, and cruelty the French people endured for the many years of war. A fine story about two sisters and the different roles they played in that period of France's history and also beautifully written by Kristin Hannah, who has had many excellent books published. If you haven't read it, I would definitely recommend it, but be prepared to have your heart hurt.

I found that I not only got the story again but noted more details than the first time around. Have you ever seen a movie more than once and noted that you 'saw' so much more on the second or third time? It's the same with books that we read again.

All of this brings me to today's topic. As I was finishing the book last evening, I thought about the idea of seeing more in the story this second time. It's no different from the things we write, put away and then read and work on again. 

How many times have you read in this blog that you should put a first draft away to mellow a bit before you proofread, edit and revise? I guarantee you will see things that totally escaped you when you read it over once after the first draft was completed.  

You'll find mechanical errors such as spelling, punctuation, spaces (none or too many)between words, and more. Sentences that sounded just fine when you wrote them might suddenly look far too long and involved. Clarity might need working on. Dialogue, if there is any, could need some revising. Characters might need further development.

So, why didn't you see it when you wrote it in the first place? Your brain was concentrating on getting the story down, the idea across or whatever your main aim was in writing the draft. After you have ignored it for a few days, or even longer, you 'see' it in a different light. 

Just for fun, go into your files and pull up something you wrote five or ten years ago. Read it. You may be surprised, even dismayed when you do. When I look back at some of my old stories, my first thought is always that I could write that so much better now.  Maybe the idea of what you wrote is still fine, and parts of it are most likely written very well, but you'll most likely find plenty of places where you could have done a little better. 

I believe that the more we write, the stronger writer we become. Looking back at your early writing and comparing it to what you write now will probably show this. 

When I urge you to put the first draft to bed for a few days, it's not just an idle suggestion. It is meant to help you produce the best piece of writing that you can. 

Editing Your Writing

When you've finished writing a first draft, wouldn't you like to sit back and say It's finished! and then move on to a brand new project?

I think we all wish we could do exactly that. Instead, we know that editing is important. An editor who receives a first draft and proclaims it a keeper is probably a fictional person. Rare would be the writer who can produce a polished product on the first go.

There are a few things to remember when you edit:

• Let the first draft rest for a few days, or more, before your first edit. *
• Look for repetition of thoughts and words
• Check the verbs to see where you can exchange a passive one for an action verb.
• Look for redundancies in the information given.
• Watch for overuse of both adjectives and adverbs. Less is always better than more.
• Check punctuation.
• Do a spell check.
• Watch for clarity throughout.
• Look for places to add sensory details.
• Check to see if emotion comes through.
• Check that you have been consistent in use of tense. 
• Is the title the very best? Have you played with several before choosing one? 
• What about spacing, indenting--the way your piece of writing looks at a glance?
• If there is dialogue, is it natural? Interesting? 
• Would a few similes and metaphors add to what you've written?
• If it's fiction or memoir, have you given a sense of place?

You probably noticed that I put the first selection in bold and starred it. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. If you attempt editing immediately upon finishing the first draft, you'll catch some things that need correcting. If you wait for days or even weeks, you'll look at your draft with a different view. You'll catch many more problems. You'll feel like you're reading something new and will be surprised at what you find. 

New writers often ask how many times a writer should edit. Good question. My answer is that you should edit until you feel satisfied. Again, let the piece rest a while between edits. There are writers who would edit over and over and over and over again. Too much of anything is not good. There must come a time when you say OK, that's enough.

(Monday post on Sunday evening)

Why We Edit Our Writing

(NOTE: I AM POSTING FOR FRIDAY THURSDAY EVENING AS I AM TRAVELING THE NEXT FEW DAYS. NEXT POST WILL BE TUESDAY, AUGUST 13)

I beg to differ here. You don't 'have' to write unless you want to, but if you're a writer, you might just feel like you do 'have' to right. But that's the lesser part of this post. 

What will happen if you write a draft, read it over and think it sounds pretty good? You might be tempted to start submitting it. And then? More than likely, it is going to bounce back with a rejection. 

There's a reason for editing. It's to make those first drafts a better piece of writing. Some writers edit multiple times. There are even some who keep editing and never submit. The fear factor comes into play in that case. 

More than once, I have urged you to put the first draft in a file and let it sit there while you move on to doing something else. Give it a few days, a week, or more before you make your first edit. Why? Because after that initial piece of writing sits and simmers, you are going to see it with different eyes than the day you finished the first writing. 

You'll see little mechanical errors that are easily corrected. You might notice that one or two areas need clarification. You could notice that your verbs tend to be passive rather than active. There are all kinds of things that show up after you've given that first draft a rest. 

Beginning writers are often eager to start submitting, so they want to skip that time-consuming editing process. My keywords for writers are patience and persistence. Writing a draft, letting it sit a while and then editing require a healthy dose of both those words. Take your time getting a piece of writing ready to submit. Don't rush. If you do, it is going to spiral back to you faster than a jackrabbit crosses the road. 

So, do edit because it is the right thing to do, because it will bring benefits in the long run, because you want to be the best writer you can be. 

Don't Be A Repetitious Writer

A friend shared this Snoopy cartoon strip on facebook this morning. Maybe all writers should adopt this lovable guy as a mascot. He never makes it big in the writing world but he also does not give up. He's out there pecking away on his trusty typewriter again and again. We laugh at his antics with editors and the things he writes, I wonder how many times we recognize ourself in some of Snoopy's writing accounts. 

Today, he shows us the humorous side of being repetitious. Seeing Snoopy do it makes us laugh. It's not so funny, however, when it is a problem in our own writing. Repeating the same idea or same words leads to a boring reader. It brings out the irritability of an editor who reads a submission with constant repetition. The story itself would have to be outstanding for an editor to accept with revisions. No doubt, he/she would spell out those revisions quite clearly. 

When I urge repeatedly to let a first draft simmer on the back burner for a few days, or even longer, I have good reason. One is that immediately after writing a new essay or story, you can't see errors. All you see is the main idea of what you've written. Let it sit and when you read it again, the problems will jump out. More than once, I've read my work later and mentally went What? and wondered how in the world I'd been so repetitious or used a plethora of passive verbs or wrote an entire piece with no sensory details. Or maybe mixed tenses. 

The keen eyes of the members of my online writing group often catch things I never noticed. They are reading A. for the first time and B. objectively. Thus, the errors jump out. Many times, the critiquers point out that a sentence can be deleted, or even a whole paragraph. Their comment is usually something like You have already said this; you don't need to repeat it.

So, why do we tend to repeat things, whether words or whole ideas? One reason is that some writers fear the reader isn't going to get it. Thus, they say it again, maybe in a different group of words but the same idea. Scratch that worry off your list. Most readers do get it. Another reason is that we run out of new ideas or new words and so it's easier to repeat than to come up with new stuff. Do I dare say that we become lazy sometimes? Yes, I'll say it because I know I've done it myself. 

Snoopy knew he needed some more editing for his story. Don't let yourself be the Master of Mistress of Repetition. Slash those repeated words or ideas and replace them with new ones. You'll make your work far more publishable if you do. 

The Editing Process Polishes Your Work

Look at this stairway of famed books for children. I counted 13. That means 13 authors wrote a first draft. Undoubtedly, 13 authors edited that first effort once, twice, and even more times. Rare as a red rose in the snow is the book manuscript that stands ready to be published on its first writing.

I've often made the comment that the writing is easy while marketing your book is the tough part. Well, that was said with several grains of truth, but let it never be said that writing is easy. Anyone who has tried it will attest to that. I'm a person who likes to get a project done and then move on to the next one. I could do that when making a quilt or sewing a dress for a little daughter but not so with my writing projects. Those must be revisited many times before I can call them finished. Don't forget to let the project simmer a few days or more before you do the editing. That's key to the process.

Newer writers might wonder if editing their work means only checking for typos, punctuation, misspelled words and proper capitalization. While all those things should be looked at, there are others to be added to the list.

1. repetition:  This is bigger than you think. When I critique in my online writers group, one of the things that jump out in someone else's story is repeating words or ideas. If you use the same word in two consecutive sentences or, gasp, even three, you risk boring your reader. It may sound foolish but it's true. Same with ideas that are repeated even though you may use different words. Most readers will pick up on the fact that you're telling them the same thing twice. Writing book authors will tell you not to do it, they'll say you must respect your reader's intelligence.

2. sentence length:  When you look at your first draft, pay attention to how long or short your sentences are. Too many lengthy ones make the reader wear out and maybe even give up reading. Alternate short sentences with long ones, and I don't mean exactly every other one. Do consider tossing in a short sentence between a couple of long ones. Occasionally, a writer will use several very short sentences together for emphasis, and that's fine. There are exceptions to every rule or method. Think about those many short sentences in early reading books. As an adult, they'd irritate you if all the sentences were only a few words each.

3. clarity: When I write a story, especially a memoir piece, I know exactly what the situation was, I know the backstory, I know the setting. Readers do not know these things so you must be certain you write in such a way that all those things are clear. As you journey through the editing process, ask yourself if things are as clear as they should be. This is one thing that having another person go through the manuscript is invaluable. Anything not clear will jump out at them immediately. A good case for editing on your own, then asking someone else to do another edit.

4. unnecessary words:  Once upon a time, I was dubbed the Queen of Unnecessary words. I awarded myself this honor (or dishonor) early in my writing world. In the first online critique group I belonged to, using too many unnecessary words was the item marked most by those who critted my work. The moderator of the group did not use the finesse others did when pointing it out. She acted like a mother who had been disobeyed and read me the riot act more than once. It was good for me as the importance of not using words like just, very, that is, why, who is, which was and others (depending on where they land in your sentence) appeared very clear. By getting rid of these redundant or superfluous words, your remaining sentence will be much stronger. We use a lot of those unnecessary words when we speak to one another, but in our writing we need to be more concise.

5. passive verbs: Watch carefully for overuse of passive verbs--those that show no action--words like was, is, are. They're used by a lazy writer. Make it a habit to find active verbs, words that show us what someone is doing. Jump, run, batted, smashed, darted are words that bring the reader an instant mental picture. They are also far more interesting. I once pointed out in a critique that the writer had used a passive verb in every sentence in a lengthy paragraph. Boring! Practice using active verbs and it becomes a habit.

These are only some of the things to look for when you do an edit. Plot changes deserve another special editing process. Doing the ones I've listed will strengthen your writing, will make it more interesting to the reader, and make it more likely to be published.  

Writing is a step by step process. If anyone ever told you it happens easily, don't believe them. Capture the publishing prize by working through the process until you deem the work ready to market.