I'll be dedicating another blog post to talking about it, but for now, I want to touch on editing.
Some people hate it. Not me.
Why do people hate it?
It's probably because they view it as work and think they're murdering their darlings that they've slaved over for months. I can see why people would think they're murdering their darlings. Scenes being cut, lots of words lost etc.
Before I actually touch on editing though, I want to say why I don't dislike editing my own work. When I do a rough draft, it's not in a nearly unreadable state. The content is mostly fine as well and I don't plan beforehand. With this in mind, what I need to edit for is grammar, tightening, readability and spelling. Writing the rough draft is where I feel it's actual work, albeit very enjoyable work. (Granted, I'm a short story writer, as I don't pad things out and it means a novel may be difficult for me. But so far, The Manor is a longer story and not much different to edit, though I've had to make minor content changes. And to give an idea on how short my writing is, I'm on chapter 4 with 2,927 words written.)
So, why is the editing process a necessary 'evil'?
For a lot of writers, their first draft is wordy and their content is possibly poor. Also, it's possibly badly written in terms of grammar and spelling.
With the rough, first draft, you're creating the story. You're getting the basics down, albeit in an unrefined form. It is only with redrafting and editing that you begin to refine the piece and turn it into something that people would want to read.
Let me show you a few examples of the first two paragraphs in The Manor:
(straight from my head, non-edited) The manor, partly
obscured by rolling fog, housed on a hill towered above the village. Abandoned
for over a century, it stood a relic of ages past. And looking at it just outside
the village pub, it hit Robert that it was all his now. A place to call home,
especially when writing, using his trusty old typewriter. He was old fashioned
like that. Then there was the all important solitude the place would offer him.
A place where he could wallow in self-loathing, without risk of being
disturbed.
He locked his car, heard the confirming beep and headed
inside the pub. It was relatively quiet inside, with just the odd customer
lounging about with the staff either seeming like they’d kill to have something
to do or just chatting amongst themselves. (132 words.)
(edited)
Robert could see the manor, situated on a hill and with the sea behind it, from the village cafe. Abandoned for over a century, it stood a relic. He only just realised that it was all his now. A place to call home, especially when writing. Then there was the all important solitude the place would offer him, so that he could wallow in self-loathing, without risk of being disturbed.
He locked his car, heard the confirming beep and headed inside the cafe. It was relatively quiet, with few customers lounging about and the few staff largely idle. (99 words)
Robert could see the manor, situated on a hill and with the sea behind it, from the village cafe. Abandoned for over a century, it stood a relic. He only just realised that it was all his now. A place to call home, especially when writing. Then there was the all important solitude the place would offer him, so that he could wallow in self-loathing, without risk of being disturbed.
He locked his car, heard the confirming beep and headed inside the cafe. It was relatively quiet, with few customers lounging about and the few staff largely idle. (99 words)
(now for the fun part, how it actually looks in my word doc currently) Robert could see Tthe manor, situated on a hill and with the sea behind it partly obscured by rolling fog, housed on a hill from the village cafetowered above the village. Abandoned for over a century, it stood a relic of
ages past. And looking at it outside the villagepub, Quick Fix, it hit
Robert He only just realised that the manorit was all his now. A place to call home, especially when writing, using his trusty old typewriter. He was old fashioned like that.
Then there was the all important solitude the place would offer him., so thatA place where he
could wallow in self-loathing, without risk of being disturbed.
He locked his car, heard the confirming beep and headed
inside the cafepub. It was relatively quiet inside, with fewjust the odd customers lounging about and
the few staff largely idleabout with the staff either seeming like they'd kill to have something to do or just chatting amongst themselves.
(End of examples)
I hope this helps in showing how you might go about editing your own work. Outside of content editing, much of it is to do with tightening and improving your work's readability, alongside making it come alive and eliminating repetition.
I'd like to add that I can already see a few places that I can probably further edit in those two paragraphs (I'd like to eliminate one 'few' as an example in the second paragraph if possible and the first paragraph needs to be edited for clarity, I think). So the job is not done yet with those two paragraphs and they'll quite possibly need several more revisions.
It's a process that is continually repeated until you say 'enough is enough' and 'I have to let it go'. Ultimately, always keep in mind that your writing will never be absolutely 100% perfect before self-publishing or sending it off to an agent/publisher. The only thing you can do is get it in the best shape possible before you decide to take the plunge and self-publish or send it off. In addition, despite what some people may think, an editor would unlikely be able to make something absolutely perfect either. Why? Because there is so much subjectivity involved, even where language is concerned. Like, I may want a comma somewhere and someone else may disagree. How many times have you picked up a book and ignored or added in commas, as an example?
Finally, while it's the opposite of what I do, a piece of advice is to resist the urge to go back and edit things. Wait until you've finished your rough version. I can get away with doing it because it doesn't take me long to make edits and it's not like I'm rewriting entire scenes. So, even though I do the occasional edit, I'm still making quite good progress in terms of furthering the story.
