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DesdemonaDeBlake — 7 Tips for Editing a Novel
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Published: 2015-02-09 00:49:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 3905; Favourites: 105; Downloads: 0
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7 Tips for Editing a Novel
Once you, a friend, or a client have finished the first draft of any type of work, you reach the editing stage. Unfortunately, I have found very little literature as to the editing process, save for grammar tips and some technical clean-ups. For this reason, I am writing a few quick tips for editing the first draft of a written work—particularly works of fiction.
Tip 1: Let the story sit.
I have heard that C. S. Lewis let his stories sit an entire year after their first draft before he edited them. There is a two-fold wisdom in this. First, time gives you a chance to detach from the story you are so emotionally invested in—forces you to take a step back. From a more detached perspective, you will be able to edit your work subjectively and not so emotionally. Second, letting a story rest gives you time to forget it. This is important because when authors read their own work, they tend to fill in the gaps of information with what is in their head. In other words, they can't see what it missing because their brain already sees the story vividly, even without the written word. A year may be a bit much, but I advise writing a draft for a new novel or writing a short-story before ever returning to your previous work.
Tip 2: Read the story aloud.
Even if you are only whispering, reading a work aloud allows your brain to hear the structure of sentences. If one comes out a little wonky, your subconscious will pick up on it and send a wonkiness signal to your conscious mind, helping you to find errors that you would have otherwise missed.
Tip 3: Check your point of view (POV).
When you go back through your story, read it through the eyes of the narrator or focus character. Make sure that your audience can see all the important details that the POV character can see. If the POV character is looking someone in the eye, for example, make sure that he or she cannot see that the other character has their fingers crossed behind their back.
Tip 4: Don't be afraid of the delete button.
If you are a good writer you will use less than 5% of the text from your first draft, if that. Think of the first draft as setting the foundation of a building. By then end of the construction, you don't want to see the wood planks or steel beams or concrete holding the building together, and neither do you want to see the building material that is your first draft. It's still there, and it is meaningful, but it is not meant for your audience to ever see.
Tip 5: Mark what works, what doesn't, and what you have learned.
As you are editing your first draft, do so visibly and keep a copy of your first draft. Mark what worked in the story, what did not, and what you learned in every chapter. This way you can more effectively clean the rest of the chapters, firmly established what you learned from the previous draft (bringing growth to your skills as a writer), and have a copy to help teach other writers the techniques you learned early on.
Tip 6: Focus on the three worst flaws in your draft.
As you edit, find the three greatest weaknesses in the draft. Then, write them down, write down how you plan to solve that problem, and then go through the entire manuscript with those three flaws as a sort of checklist to edit each and every chapter by. This will hone in your editing focus and make your writing much more purposeful, while also not giving you too much to handle or remember.
Tip 7: Find a brutal editor or reader.
The most important step in being a writer is finding someone to read your drafts who will tell you the truth, regardless of your feelings. This person must be encouraging, telling you what they liked about the story, but also have the guts to comment about what they hated—hurting your feelings and putting a burning pain inside you to fix the problems and make your art even better than before. Harsh? Perhaps, but true writer are not in the craft for the warm feelings of constant praise, but for creating the best imaginable work as a gift to the world.
Feel free to comment with other suggested resources. Any questions about writing? Things you want me to discuss? Comment or send me a message and I will be glad to reply or feature the answer in a later article.
Originally posted at www.facebook.com/JosephBlakePa…
And: josephblakeparker.wix.com/theb…
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Comments: 29
Inspired by Tip 7 on this journal, I have a plan for stages in the editing of my proposed HG Wells The Time Machine spin-off trilogy. I plan to start with the overviews and outlines and get those edited by a good editor before writing the actual thing of prologues, chapters, and epilogues as to be more efficient. But I have something that I would like to talk to you about in your inbox with a note as to not spoil it for other people since I plan to write a 'whodunnit' type of story..
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Interestingly, I wrote a little guide to editing article back in October, too. We covered some similar things, and some things were completely different! I love different perspectives.
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Sounds cool 
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Here you go! Mine kind of had an indie slant, since I've worked mostly with indie authors. keithdraws.wordpress.com/2014/…
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I definitely see the parallel points. And yours does go into a more practical look of actually sitting down and writing, and strategies to use when getting people to edit your work--which is really useful.
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I think both are so useful, though. When you went into pinpoint grammar issues, I was like, "Well crap, why didn't I do that?" 
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Definitely
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This kind of goes along with #7, but I would add "Have two people read your work - one who is familiar with your voice/style and one who is not. They can tell you if you are consistently you, or not."
I have read a few drafts of one friend's work and while each was a bit different, I could definitely tell they were his. Kind of like reading Stephen King for the umpteenth time - you still know what you're going to get.
But then I have read drafts of another friend and they felt clumsy - like he was still trying to figure out what voice to use in his writing.
Some new writers think "I want to be the next [insert well known author here.]"
Stop. Don't. Just, no.
Don't try to be that guy or sound like that guy or even attempt to disguise yourself behind a cheap mask of that guy.
Readers will see through it every time.
As a reader, if I wanted to read that guy, I'd be reading that guy, not someone who is not him trying their damndest to be him.
Write like you.
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The more people you manage to find to read your book, the better. I just say 1 because finding just one reader can be a daunting task,
On one hand, I agree that you need to have an original voice, eventually. But beginning writers find their voice by emulating the writers that they like, editing their work, writing new drafts, and with time and effort finding where their style diverges from their favorite author's. It's how you learn writing techniques. Kind of like if you want to create your own martial art, you should probably learn some of the major styles that already exist so that you can begin to learn what you can do with your body and so you don't just spend all your time recreating a style that already exists in a better form. Of course, you need to be aiming to be yourself, eventually, and you will fail as a writer if your ultimate goal is simple mimicry.
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OK, see, this is my problem! I write fanfiction, and only use the first draft, unless I see an obvious mistake while writing it. Yeah, that needs to change
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I've read most of your articles and I love them. Do you ever beta for anyone? Or would you be willing to?
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Haha, I'm sorry. MY DA lingo understanding is not quite up to fluent yet. Do you mean test reading a story?
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Yes. Sorry!
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I replied to your message in a "note". Please let me know if you did not receive it.
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Finding someone good to read over a novel can be daunting ;-; I just finished my first short little fantasy novel, and I spent so much time trying to rewrite and edit the crap out of it >.< I'm my own worst critic and I was expecting bad comments about my work, because I never considered my writing as anything great, not by a longshot. Maybe that's just me and my overly paranoid self.
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I agree, it is very difficult. But letting it sit for a few months while you work on a separate project does wonders for refreshing your vision on the story.
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For me, being satisfied with what I can write is probably my biggest struggle >.< Since writing my sequel story, I started looking at other writers on here, just amazed at how people were able to make words flow so effortlessly. It made me extremely envious to be like them. And one of my friends here (who happens to be a fantastic writer) was willing to read a bit of what I had, and he really enjoyed it. I was shocked! I think maybe I was just overreacting and thinking no one would like anything I did ;-;
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I've never seen as differing opinions on the number of times a story needs to be (re)drafted before it can be considered okay, or how big or small the percentage of what remains is to be expected. Just what IS the norm? Where do those numbers keep coming from? Doesn't it depend on subject matter, planning, length, techniques, complexity, relative skill level?
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My opinions on the matter come a lot from Stephen King, who says that he redrafts a half-dozen times and then sends to an editor, and then redrafts some more. And in my personal experience with editing, it usually involves complete rewrites in order for the editing to be real editing and not just an advanced spell check. And yes, lots of it does depend on the factors you mentioned... But this being a guide for editing your first draft specifically (the goal of the first draft just being getting a story down on paper, not editing as you go), I would think that the variables wouldn't have as much an effect so early on.
Another factor is what type of writer you are. In my research, I've learned that the majority of modern writers do very little editing and rewriting, creating opinions that much lower numbers and percentages of change are necessary. In these cases, the writer sells a very unpolished draft, the publisher buys them, and then the company's editor does the same amount of rewriting and redrafting--perhaps less if they are very experienced. I'm of the opinion that the writer should make their work publishable without an editor, so my percentages and numbers will, of course, be higher.
But yes, very good questions, and I'm glad you brought them up. Might address it in a later article.
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I had no idea that going with anything less than a as-good-as-publishable manuscript was even acceptable, experienced writer or no. I can imagine a veritable hen with golden eggs can get away with that, but isn't an editor going to become very expensive very fast if they need to do all that work on top of the usual fixes?
Just how far does that third-party-editing go? Turning passive voice into active voice, bypassing adverbs, cropping out purple exposition? Re-writing dialogue? That would greatly influence style, would it not? Won't that make a book a collaborative effort rather than the creative brainchild of one author?
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Haha, It is pretty expansive. Lots of books are also the product of publishing companies going through their slush piles of submissions, and just picking something out that is popular with marketing that year. Even if it's not good, it's worth polishing up if the topic is selling. I've done a little bit of real editing work and... yes, they have to be almost completely rewritten. It's very sad. Not to mention how much the good-ol-boy system plays a part in whose manuscript is chosen for editing. And yes, that would make it a collaboration, but books sell better when the reader can imagine just one writer hashing out a story on their own. From what I learned, publishing is all a money game. And self-publishing is the writer's best friend, so long as they can edit and publicize for themselves. The only problem is that writers don't always have the resources to do that.
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It IS pretty depressing... I'm not sure if I'd feel accomplished if my stuff was used as the bare bones for something made to look like something that's popular at that moment...
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Agreed. I encourage you to continue crafting your work until it is the best it can be. Then, get a brutal test-reader and take their advice seriously. Then, once you have a bruital test-reader give you the thumbs up, publish it yourself.
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I couldn't sell to more than a hundred people if I were to be self-published.
Are self-publishers even being taken seriously by reviewers and such? Indirectly, everybody still assumes that if you had to go for self-publishing, you weren't good enough to appease a traditional publisher, and therefor not a safe bet to read.
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It's still more difficult to be self-published, and there are lots of assumptions both because they're often true and because the publishing companies don't want us to be able to self-publish, but self-publishers are achieving more and more success, especially as bookstores continue to be shut down and e-readers become so prominent. It's worth researching, and there is a lot of literature available on the topic--most of it free.
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Thanks man. Will do!
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Excellent tips. One thing that I always try to do with my stories is have a physical copy that is legible and has room for notes. Things that you want to add, change, etc. It is easier to adjust things on the computer, but when you have a physical copy it adds a sort of togetherness and you can see things such as how well it transitioned from one chapter to the next and what you might do to fix it.
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Thank you! And yes, I agree with you completely. Another option I've found helpful is the "comment" feature on my word processor--which allows me to make similar notes outside the document. Of course, that's mostly for long distance editing for other people. When possible, a physical copy is the best.
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