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Phases of Editing – One Author’s Process
As I have been going through the editing process with Nowhere Feels Like Home, I felt it might be time to talk a little bit about the phases that I go through when editing. I will state up front that these phases are my phases and not all authors edit in the same way, just as they don’t write in the same way.
Phase I – Repetitive word editing, or as I like to call it, getting the wuzziness out. I happen to be a very wuzzy writer (meaning I use the word was as if it were going out of style), and it simply won’t do for a finished product. I generally find all of the highly used repetitive words and attack some of them based on those which I feel I may have overused.
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Editing – Where Do You Start?
You’ve finished writing your story and if you are anything like me, you feel like doing a few fist pumps in the air, and taking a victory lap. Walking on air, you’re bursting with pride. You finished. What an accomplishment!
Then, the reality starts to set in. The creative process is finished, but the race is not yet run. Looming in your future is the arduous task of editing your masterpiece or as I call it at this point, my monstrosity. Where do you start? What can you look for?
Editing for Continuity
One of the things that you have to watch for when you are working on a story that is a continuation from a previous work is continuity, or even within the same story continuity errors can crop up. What do I mean by continuity? If you give your character blue eyes in one book, then you can’t give that same character brown eyes in the next book, unless you are deliberately having the character wear eye changing contacts for a reason integral to the plot. As you are reading this, I know that you’re thinking to yourself, but I would never make that sort of mistake. Believe me, it is much easier than you think to make those sorts of errors. In the world of TV and Films, there are people whose job it is to ensure that all of those details are attended to, and mistakes will still creep in. I’m sure you noticed things when watching one of your favorite TV series.
The Hook
When writing a story, you have to capture your audience (the reader) so that they want to continue reading the story after the first few paragraphs. It is said that for movies, the screenwriter/director has 10 minutes to get you interested in the story that is going on, or they will lose you.
Story Flow
The flow of the words on the page can help create a mood for the reader without you having to spell it out specifically. Short, punchy sentences packed with verbs heighten the feeling of anxiety or action, while longer sentences full of adjectives may give a calmer, more relaxed feeling.
Writing Tags
Since I am getting ready to start working on some new material, I thought it would be a good time to share with you some of the things that are important to determine before you begin writing. In order to help you do your best writing, you have to know what it is that helps you focus on the writing.
Voice and Point of View
Before you start writing a story, you need to determine what voice and point of view you are going to use.
How Writers Write
There is a popular theory that if you had a room of monkeys typing on a keyboard and infinite amount of time, they would be able to replicate all of the great works of fiction or indeed any book ever written.