Editing and revising. It’s that part of the writing process where you scoop up the pile of words that you’ve splattered across the page and try to make something neat and shiny out of them. Something you wouldn’t be embarrassed to show in public. There’s the idiom that when writing a first draft, you must accept that it is going to stink. I would make the claim that not a single writer can produce a manuscript that goes to the printer without a single change. Therefore, revision must take place.
This is Paperback Writer’s take and technique for this essential phase.
As she puts it (language warning!):
If you find you’re reluctant to change even a single word in your story, you’re either 1) the best damn writer in the world or 2) you’ve fallen in love with your manuscript.
You must be willing to….what’s the phrase? Murder your darlings! Chop off those witty comments and snippets of dialogue and let them writhe on the floor. Yes, those clever bits that don’t really add to the plot, but do a dandy job of showing what a funny person you are. Surgically remove those, with all the weeping and bloodshed that it requires, and then move on. Take another suggestion from Paperback Writer on this.
If you are so hung up on your original work and just can’t bear to cut out that oh-so-funny scene that is bloating the wordcount– save a copy of the complete first draft, put it in a pretty box under your bed, and then get back to work.
I’ve actually done something like that in my revision process. I have backup files saved of every previous draft that a manuscript has gone through. When I get the mental scissors out and start ‘a snippin’, I just save the manuscript as a whole new file and go to town, secure that the previous incarnation is intact in case I ever decide to go back and reinsert what I’ve taken out or altered. Can you guess how many times I’ve done that? That’s right. Nevah! Of course, for some of my older stories, which I have since laid by the wayside, it means I have six separate draft files sitting there. Though it is sometimes fun to open them up and see what I wrote five years back and chuckle at the stodgy attempts.
I tend to give a manuscript several scan-throughs, with a different editorial focus each time. When I first finish a draft, I give it a look to fill in any spots I accidentally never finished, do a grammar/spelling check, and an initial trim of wasteful words. Then I let the manuscript sit for at least a couple days to give myself mental and emotional distance from it. When I bring it back out, it’s time to prune. I do another run to lessen my tendency to be overly descriptive by removing lots of excess metaphors and similes. Clarity and brevity are my goals here. Text searches for “like” and “as if” generally help. All this time, I’m making notes on plot issues, inconsistencies, characters and subplot threads that need to be resolved. Once I’ve got my mind wrapped around these, I do a final revision where I tackle all these issues and make the necessary story changes from page one onward.
Then, with the manuscript hopefully looking much less thrown together, it’s time to get some initial feedback from various sources. That’s where I am now. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks, I’ll get some constructive criticism from folks that will point out various strengths and weaknesses of the story, and I will once more give it a solid rework.
Whew. Writing that all out makes it seem a lot more complicated than it feels on my end. Anyone else want to share their editing and revising process? Don’t forget to scroll down to the end of that link, as Paperback Writer gives a bunch of helpful links on the topic.
I see that smile.