An Advice Post? From Me? You Bet--How To Make Edits Work For You

You bet your sweet patootey.

Normally, I talk on this blog as a writer.  Today, I'm putting on the editor's hat, so take a deep breath and get ready.

Let's talk about edits, and how to make the process work for you.

The editing process is a collaboration between an editor and author to make a good book into a great book.  This fact is something that professional writers--and editors--inherently understand.  Without that collaboration, the quality of the story is diminished.  But unfortunately, I'm seeing a disturbing trend among writers that look upon editing--or even critiques/beta reads--as insults.

First off, if you can't take criticism you're in the wrong darn business.  How are you going to handle rejection, which is a major part of any writer's life, if you can't take criticism?  Exactly. You won't. As you approach the editing process, you need to stop and check yourself.  Regardless of who accepted your work for publication, I can guarantee you that the story is NOT perfect.  I have yet to see a story that doesn't require editing.  Some require a lot less than others, granted.  But every manuscript that has ever crossed my desk (including my own) needs that critical, unbiased eye.  So, repeat to yourself: there is no such thing as a perfect story.

Again.  There is no such thing as a perfect story.

Once you've convinced yourself of that, you're ready to begin the editing process with the right attitude.

Second, your editor doesn't make corrections just for the hell of it.  Believe it or not, most editors would love to get a manuscript that only needed a couple of typos fixed.  I've edited hundreds of manuscripts in my career, and I have NEVER found a manuscript yet that only needed a couple of little spelling corrections.  NEVER.  When I go through a manuscript, I am looking for anything that doesn't quite work--continuity issues, anachronisms, underdeveloped story arcs, character problems, grammar, punctuation and spelling.  I'm looking for pet constructions, overused words, weak sentence structures.  And why am I looking for all these things? To make the story BETTER.  Sure, I could just go through and fix typos and a few dangling participles, but then I wouldn't be doing my job.  What's the good in releasing a story that's spelled perfectly, but with a character that's talking on a flip cell phone in 1989?

You're right. No good at all.  Between the reviewers who would flay the author alive and the readers who would hurl the book across the room and never buy another of that writer's books, a lazy editing job has far-reaching ramifications that are bad.  Really bad.

Third off, when you're reviewing your editor's first set of edits, take a deep breath before you lose your temper.  Look--countless times when doing edits, I've yelled something uncomplimentary at my computer screen, like, "You idiot!  I already explained that in the last damn chapter!" That's normal.  But usually, when I think about the comment further, I realize that the editor is pointing out a flaw in my story.  Maybe I didn't make the reference clear enough.  Maybe I was too vague.  Maybe (and this is usually the case) I forgot that the reader doesn't know everything in my head.  Regardless of what the problem is, the editor has pointed that out for a reason--and that reason is usually to make me think. 

As an addendum to that, the worst thing you can do for your story or your career is to lose your grip over your edits.  Getting into a sniping battle with your editor is without a doubt right at the top of the list entitled "Bad Career Moves."  Most of the time, the writer is contracted to perform reasonable edits on their stories--and very rarely are the edits not reasonable.  When the editor leaves a comment on your manuscript, don't be stupid enough to leave a snippy comment back.  You're not obligated to take every editing suggestion in regards to content--but you are obligated to be respectful and professional when you disagree. By approaching your edits in a confrontational manner, all you're doing is shooting yourself in the foot. 

Literally.

Doing edits is a stressful time for any authors.  It's hard not to take some comments personally.  You can help by making absolutely certain that your manuscript is as clean as possible when you submit it to your editor--formatted correctly, checked over thouroughly for spelling and grammar--

(Oh! And spellcheck/grammar check on your word program?  Worse than useless.  Go through your manuscript with a grammar book (I like Strunk's) and doublecheck any spelling you're unsure of.  As of late I've seen way too many manuscripts with basic homonym errors--their/there/they're or to/too/two.  Any of those issues should be eliminated before your editor ever sees your manuscript!)

--and analyzed for continuity issues (ie--making sure you resolve all your plot and subplot storylines).  This is just basic professional courtesy and will save you and your editor a lot of time.  And then when you get your manuscript back, remember that every bit of work your editor put into your manuscript, every comment and correction, every suggestion or red-lined strikeout, was done with YOUR welfare in mind.  To make YOUR book better.  To help YOU learn how to improve your writing.  Instead of being resentful, be grateful that your editor cared enough to make such an effort on your behalf.

And then, in the next manuscript, implement what you learned from your last edits into your new story.

Your editor is your best damn friend in the period between the acceptance of your manuscript and the release of your book.  If you keep that in mind, the editing process will not only be positive and productive, but will help you to become a better writer.

Clearing Out My Vision

Yeah, I know.  The post title sounds like I need to get new contacts.  That's not what I'm talking about though. First off, I don't wear contacts. Twenty twenty vision, thank you very much.

Second, I'm talking about writing.

Sometimes, you get so caught up in the story that you're writing that you almost become willfully blind about it.  Yeah, the words may have rolled easily from your brain onto the page, but you can't really see the whole picture when you're writing that first draft.  I know I can't. Building a good story is like baking a great loaf of homemade bread--you have to let the dough rest for a while so that it can rise to its fullest potential.  Something I'm noticing a lot in manuscripts from new writers (and even some not so new writers like myself) is that overwhelming urge to rush that story into the oven, to serve--continuing my culinary metaphor--a half-baked loaf of bread.

Let me explain.

Once you've written that first draft, put it away. Don't immediately turn around and start editing it.  Let it sit for a few days. Write something else; outline a new project or revise an old one.  Once that daily dose of the completed story wears off from you, take the first draft back out.  Go to your favorite reading chair--someplace away from where you work--sit down and read what you've written. Read it like, well, a reader would. Someone other than you who might have come across the story in a bookstore.  Don't make notes on it, don't start editing with your red pencil.  Just sit down and read all the way through without stopping.

Then, you need to come face to face with what you've written.

Is it enjoyable? Did it hold your interest? (Here's a hint: if your fingers start itching to rearrange sentences, the answer to these first two questions is 'no.') Is the main character credible.  Do you like him or her? Do you care about what happens to her? Is the conflict tense? Is it easy to figure out the solution to? (especially important for mysteries.  If you send me a mystery and I peg the bad guy within the first few pages of his introduction to the story, then it ain't much of a mystery if you know what I mean.)

You have to be totally honest with yourself. If you're not, you're not doing yourself any favors.  You'll send your poor manuscript out to someone like me who will give you all the honesty you never wanted. A writer has got to teach themselves not only to take the cold, hard facts an editor or agent would, but to recognize those flaws first and correct them.  If you have even the smallest niggling doubt about how something is working out, don't wreck your story's future and send it out.  Keep it at home, work on it some more, entrust it to some critical (and brutally honest) eyes other than your own.  Learn to not only accept criticism, but to yearn for it.

Clear out your vision.  Sure, it's your baby but you have to be able to look at your baby with wide open eyes and say, "You know--I don't think it's ready yet." Then take it back to your desk, open the file back up and work on it some more.

Before you think I'm just spouting off advice because I think I'm entitled to, let me correct you.  I'm spouting off this advice to myself more than anyone else.  I am not infallible.  As a matter of fact, I have numerous, grievous flaws as a writer.  And every time I think I have one hell of a story and get excited about shopping it around, I've sent it out too soon and watched it die beneath a pile of rejections and a surplus of 'unfortunatelys' in my inbox.

Trust me. I know of what I speak. Don't make the same mistakes I make--do better than me. Clear out your vision about your manuscript.  It's a hell of a lot easier to do that before you send the story out than to try and disinter it when it's almost--but not quite--too late.

Taking A Step Back

You know, I think writers need to take a step back every once in a while.

Hold on--before you get all riled up and think this is a pronouncement from the muses or whatever, let me explain myself a bit.  This has been coming up a lot lately, both in my editing work and my writing so I think it's worthy of exploration.

One of my writers (yep--I have the editor hat on at the moment) and I were talking about her latest WIP.  She was ready to bang her head against the wall (figuratively) because she felt the manuscript needed some major revisions but couldn't figure out exactly where.  Now, I've been there.  I've been there a lot.  Hell, I bought property there, so I could makes those moments more comfortable with some plush furniture and a few well-chosen but soothing pieces of art.  Oh, and a margarita machine. Margarita machines make everything better.  At any rate, I told her to send the manuscript to me and forget about it for a few days. I would look at it as a reader not an editor (the distinction there is important) and get back to her with my thoughts on it.

So then today, a thread shows up on Absolute Write about turning off your inner editor.  My response was simple--the inner editor (a mythical beastie if there ever was one) doesn't need to be involved in the act of creation.  If you get distracted by all those squiggly WordPerfect lines in your first draft, shrink your window down to only a few lines and just keep on writing.

This is easier said than done.  There's a lot of pressure on writers these days to be better technically. We need to know our grammar, spell words correctly (and according to common usage in your native form of English), punctuate appropriately and avoid passive tense.  We have to keep from head hopping, keep our narrative voices distinct and precise and for God's sake, avoid all those darned adverbs and exclamation points!

In other words, we're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to write perfectly...erm...well. 

Yet, the whole purpose, the raison d'etre of a first draft isn't to write perfectly, it's to tell the story. Plain. Cold. Simple. Tell the story. Not tell the story while minimizing participial clauses, but to take a character or set of characters from the beginning of the story (better drop them right into the action) through the conflict to the ultimate resolution of the plot and, if you're me, killing a few Elves along the way for fun and profit.

Nowhere in the directive "tell the story" is there anything mentioned about grammar or point of view. You know why? Because those issues are addressed in revisions. Because the first draft is not the final draft. Most writers (at least the ones I know) revise and edit obsessively after their manuscript is born.  It may only take me a month to write a 150,000 word manuscript, but it'll take me at least half a year to get it done. When it's done, it will have lost a ton of words--mostly adverbs. I confess.--and the words on the page are *hopefully* better than the original ones.  All those dialogue tags with adverbs?  Those become sentences of action. Instead of "he barked angrily" after a snippet of conversation it's "He slammed his fist into the trunk of the closest tree, oblivious at first to the nasty mixture of bark and blood on his knuckles." There's nothing really wrong with "he barked angrily" but in order to give the story more life, the active sentence is better.

Writers are stressed out enough as it is.  Few people will ever understand the sense of accomplishment one gets from typing the words "The End" on the final page of a hundred thousand word novel. Unfortunately, writers think that all one hundred thousand of those words have to be perfect at the moment they are written instead of at the close of an exhaustive and thorough revisionary process.

That's simply not the case.  It doesn't matter what the words are in the first draft. No one sees that draft but you, the writer, and maybe a really trusted beta reader.  What matters is that the first draft tells the story, from beginning to close, in such a manner as to engage the reader.  You don't get cast in a play and open the next day; you have a lengthy rehearsal process.  What writers need to realize is that the first draft is the rehearsal process for a novel.

So take a step back. Ignore the little voice that's arguing with you about the best way to write that sentence. Just get the story down. Then, when the first draft is done it's time to catch your breath.  Close down that file (save and back it up first!) and take a few days off. Then, and only then, go back to it, read it all the way through and then--and only then--whip out the trusty red pencil and rip it to shreds.  Trust me. You'll be happier and probably healthier if you remove the pressure for perfection from that first draft.