A Week In Writing: Editing

Welcome to the wonderful world of editing....ech. What? Edits aren't always pretty? No. As a matter of fact, edits can be a royal pain in the butt, but without them, our stories would be about as pretty as a me without coffee in the morning...not a sight you EVER want to see.

Editing is a process by which we make our work better. That first draft, which seems so perfect after it's been written, upon closer inspection is usually filled with flaws. Typos, grammatical errors, misused words, and heck, storylines that made sense at 1 AM which in the light of day seem alien, as if someone else had written them.

So how does a writer edit? Spell check, grammar check, a critique partner? All of the above, and more. Take me, for instance. I never use grammar check, frankly because I think it's awful. The computer would have me switch half of my "theirs" to "there's" incorrectly. If I accidentally use "a" instead of "an" grammar check often lets it go. And there are numerous other offenses I won't even get into. Now I will use the spell check, but only after I'm finished my entire MS. No, I rely on the writing skills drummed into me from an English teacher father, an old critique partner, and the many wonderful editors it's thus far been my pleasure to work with. (Not a big grammar geek, you say? Well, a bit later I'll hit on a few options to streamline your work without a head full of word rules. )

All that said, here's a glimpse into the process... I'll take the five or ten pages I've written the night before. Before I begin writing, I scan the text. I review it for grammatical errors, content, and word repetition, which is a huge problem I'm contantly fixing. Then once that's done, I feel free to write new stuff. This short editing process 1) cleans up mistakes I missed the day before in my hurry to put words to paper/computer and 2)puts me back into my prior writing mood. I've found it's a good way not to overedit, since I only go over my words once before writing, and in smaller chunks, maybe 5-10 pages at a time. Of course, this is only on a first draft. Much more editing occurs after the manuscript is finished.

But let's say you don't know what to look for. Here are a few editing glitches to be wary of:

1. Their vs there vs they're. Your vs you're. If you can break the words apart into "they are" and "you are" in your sentence, then use the contractions. This goes for all contractions. Watch possessive "its" vs "it's" too. "Its" is possessive, but uses no apostrophe.
2. The run on sentence is a killer. I went on vacation to meet the man of my dreams and my mother happily watched my dog Fido. Two separate sentences. Either fix it by I went on vacation to meet the man of my dreams. My mother happily watched my dog Fido. OR I went on vacation to meet the man of my dreams, and my mother happily watched my dog Fido.
3. Homonyms can mess you up and make you sound like an idiot. Compliment--praise or admiration. Complement--something that completes another. Your scarf is lovely. (compliment) That scarf really complements that coat. They go well together. (complement)
4. Using the same word four or five times in a paragraph. And let's face it, if you write romance, and specifically erotic romance, several words come up A LOT. "Hard" and "pleasure" immediately come to mind. *grin* Having an electronic thesaurus really comes in handy.
5. Blonde vs blond. This debate will go on forever because the word is accepted both ways, and each publisher seems to have one which they prefer.

I could go on and on about common grammatical mistakes, but I won't because I'm starting to bore myself. Two books I highly recommend to help you are The Little, Brown Handbook, which is used in some elementary and middle schools but may be hard to find. An easier book which hits all the high points and I just LOVE is Painless Grammar by Rebecca Elliott, PhD. It runs for about nine bucks and can be found in any bookstore. And hey, it's intended for 6th-8th graders, so it's very easy to understand.

Why such a fuss about editing? Because you want your book to be the best it can be. And believe it or not, an edited book will read quite different from one that's not. It's amazing how much clearer your work will be to you and how much more enjoyable it will be for the reader.

If you have or can get a good critique partner, I'd highly recommend it. Mine is spitting out kids like a Pez dispenser, so we're on hiatus. (Hi, Rene!) But she would often catch things I'd miss even on a second read-through. As the writer, you know what you mean. But the reader won't catch it, so that second pair of eyes can be invaluable. And when you do submit your work, you want it to impress the publisher enough to ask for a full manuscript. So polish, polish, polish.

Oh, and something I didn't yet mention. Once you've finished your story, put it away for a few weeks before looking at it again. Write something else in the meantime. Then, when you return to your piece, you'll note a lot more since you've been distanced from it. And trust me, you'll still receive edits from your editor no matter how good you think it is. FYI, on my release Tied and True from Loose Id, I must have undergone at least ten rounds of edits. No lie. And this was a polished piece. Nothing was a huge fix, but each time an editor, line editor or proofer went through it, they caught something someone else hadn't. It was a long process, but I absolutely love the end result.

In summation, a few things to look for when editing:

• grammar, spelling and word usage
• a critique partner
• allowance of time between the finished product and rewrites
• small editing throughout the piece to get it finished (you can overdo edits to the point that you never finish your story, always editing. And that's bad.)
• first drafts are never published
• write with a dictionary, thesaurus and grammar text by your side

Okay then. This sums up today's post on editing. Come on back tomorrow and check out an interesting topic, the merits of both epublishing and print publishing.

Marie