Revisions, and why we do them

It's that time of year again, where teachers and students get down to the business of learning.  As many of you know, I teach writing.  And part of writing, and of teaching writing, is revision.  I have a fairly short assignment that I'm doing with one of my classes, one for which I asked students to submit a draft last week so that I could go through and suggest changes.  Only about half the class sent drafts to me originally, then I had a few stragglers submit theirs after the initial ones were returned.  I still have yet to see about a quarter of the assignments.

After the first batch of suggestions and edits, I told students several times to re-submit their work so that I could go over it again.  Less than half of those who submitted have done this, but more are trickling in now that I've begun to hand those back.

Those that haven't submitted drafts by now are out of luck, as the assignment's due next week and I don't see them again until Tuesday.  Of those who've only submitted a first draft, several have asked why they'd need to submit again, considering, as they put it, "You've already corrected all the mistakes, so why bother?"  Then there's the third group, some of whom are horrified to receive a second edited / commented draft that seems to have more writing on it than the first.

I think I'm going to have to put a handout together on the stages of editing, explaining what instructors (and editors) are looking for in the various drafts of a document.

Personally, I like to do at least four sets of revisions.  The first set focuses on larger problems, the most significant of which are barriers to reader comprehension.  The second set focuses on logic, flow, and (for technical writing) accuracy of content.  The third set involves a closer look at document flow, and a first-pass detailed edit.  It's not until the fourth set of revisions that I'm looking to do a detailed copy edit ... and that's if we've managed to get to this stage, as sometimes I have to do two or three passes looking for and fixing barriers to comprehension.

The long and short of it is that multiple edits are needed, especially if you want to produce the best possible document, whether it's a technical report, a poem, or a novel.

Perception and misperception

I'll admit it.  I'm a bit of a grammar snob.  Okay, more than a bit, but seriously people, if the first impression you're going to make on someone is through the written word, would you mind proofreading what you're sending out before you hit ?  The source of my ire this evening is a tweet from a popular provider of literary services, a tweet that suffered from a case of plural/apostrophe confusion.  I'm sure they're nice people, but I certainly wouldn't want my work edited by someone who gear's up for things.  

Snarking aside, there's a reason people suggest time and time and time again that your cover letter--whether for a poem, short story, article, book, or whatever--should be perfect.  This is the very first impression that people have of you and your work.  And, perception being what it is, we tend not only to favour first impressions, but also to hang on to negative first impressions.  Not what you want to be doing, especially if your intention is publication.  

So while a typo might be an oversight, the resulting misperception on the part of the reader about your grammatical prowess (and thus your overall writing abilities) is going to be difficult to change.  Take the time to carefully proofread everything you send out, otherwise you might find yourself the victim of misperception.  

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: Where the People Are

It's been a busy, busy summer so far, and I'm just beginning to reach the almost caught up stage, just in time for things to get busy again in a few weeks.  In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of reading and editing, during which one thing has stood out:  where the people are.  I don't mean missing characters, or where they are in relation to your setting.  What I mean is where they areas the action's happening.  

I've read a few books lately where characters seem to teleport into and out of scenes on a regular basis. You think you left so-and-so back in the restaurant, and suddenly they're in the thick of the action ... but where'd they come from?  Were they there all along, or did they just appear?  Readers need to know.

So, when it comes to self-editing, take a close look at each scene and/or chapter, and at the characters who appear in it.  Is it obvious that they were present all along, or are they lurking in the corners, doing their best wall-flower impressions, only to leap into the action when they're needed most?  Continuity is important, as it prevents readers from being pulled out of the story by awkwardness, and a little bit of attention to detail in instances like these can go a long, long way.

Self-editing for fiction writers: Character sketches & character continuity

It's been a busy week around here as I'm winding up a couple of editing projects, getting some of my own writing organized, and getting ready for summer holidays.  Part of my organizing was creating extensive character sketches for one of my works in progress.

I haven't always been a big fan of character sketches.  After all, the sketch doesn't end up in the finished work, so there's part of me that looks at it and thinks it's a waste of time.  As an editor, however, I can say that these are one of the most valuable things you can write for your work.

Writing is, for many of us, an organic process.  Many fiction writers eschew outlines, and those who do use these find that sometimes characters develop minds of their own and go off in unexpected directions.  This is one place in the editing process that character sketches can really help.  If we know that we're dealing with a 100-year-old vampire, are we going to expect that same character, on a whim, to start behaving like a whiny teenager?  Likely not.  If we have a complete sketch of that character, we're going to have a far better idea, as writers and editors, of (1) how to identify when a character is behaving "out of character" and (2) how to fix that behaviour so it is in character.

My best suggestion, to improve character continuity and ensure that characters behave and react appropriately, is to make sure that you know what is appropriate for that character.  It might be as simple as creating a one-paragraph character sketch, describing the character from his/her own point of view.  Or it might be more complicated, involving a character "interview" using a tool such as the Proust Questionnaire or one of the many other character questionnaires available online.  Regardless, it's time well spent.  And anything that decreases editing time is a good thing, in my books!

Self-editing for writers: Don't edit while you write!

You've got an awesome idea, and have only to get it down on the page.  So you sit down, pen in hand (or fingers on keyboard) and you start writing.  Only you don't like the look of your first sentence, so you go back and revise it.  Then you look at the next two, which aren't stellar either, and revise them.  You write another sentence, then discover another error with your *first* sentence, so you go back and revise that, then an error leaps out from the sentence that you've just written, so you fix it.

STOP!  This kind of writing leads to two things:  a perfect first paragraph, page, chapter ... and nothing else because you haven't written anything else.  Too busy editing, you've forgotten about writing.

I know it's difficult.  We all want our writing to be perfect, but that doesn't mean it has to start out that way.  Words on a page (or series of pages) first, then revise and edit.  Please, please, don't edit while you write.  That way lies madness (and a heaping pile of unfinished manuscripts)!  So don't forget about your writing.  Do it first, and fix it later.  There'll be plenty of time for that when your manuscript is complete.

Self-editing for fiction writers: Starting over

Have you ever had one of those moments, when a manuscript gets rejected for what seems to be the umpteenth time, with a short form letter, and you think:  but I *know* this is good?  I think most of us have, and if you haven't, you're pretty damned lucky ;-)  Yes, there are famous writers whose work was rejected many, many times before it was published, but there are also those who went back to the drawing board, redrafting their work time and time again.  And that's where I'm going to suggest that you start again, from scratch.

I have a couple of short stories floating around in the moment, both of which were finished at the last minute (yes, even I don't follow all of the rules all of the time), which did manage to get shelved for a few days before that final edit, but something about each doesn't quite sit right with me, even now.  The one has issues primarily with the final scene, so I'll revisit that one another day, but this week's major writing project is the revision of second of these two stories.

This second story's premise is sound, the plot line is good, but it doesn't quite strike home the way I'd like it to.  My solution?  Rewrite the whole thing, from scratch.  I've got my notes, there's no dithering around about what happens, but I need to tell this story in a different way.  I'll likely keep the perspective the same, telling things from the point of view of the protagonist, but there are other details that I think should change, and which will change, if I can keep myself from referring to the original draft.

It sounds a bit odd ... after all, you've already written the story, so why re-write it?  But it can and does work.  You may not keep the second draft, but you may find that there are elements of that second draft that, when pieced together with the original, make a much, much better whole.  Sometimes it's just a change in perspective, other times it's a change in tone, different details ... the myriad ways in which the human mind works.  So try it out.  See what happens.  You just might surprise yourself with the results.

Self-editing for poets: Kill your darlings

Okay, okay ... I know it's a cliche, but sometimes they're the best thing to use because they epitomize what you're talking about, so it makes sense to embrace them, at least once in a while.  I've been doing a lot of poetry editing of late, of both my work and my clients' work, and the one thing I'm really noticing, at least in my own, is that sometimes (okay, to be honest, it's most of the time) those lines that you think are just perfect ... they're the ones that have to go.

I'm not sure why this is, but sometimes I suspect that these lines are meant to be the behind the scenes essence of the poem, something that needs to be written, but which shouldn't remain on the page.  Sometimes, I'll write a poem that's darling-less, but not often.  Usually there are one or two (or more) lines that I look at and say to myself, "This, this is just perfect."  Then I cringe, knowing full well that those are the very lines I will likely need to cut.  It's amazing, too, the impact that these cuts will have.  Somehow, other lines and words that were good, but maybe a bit flat, spring to life.  Then, with a bit of pruning of the remaining lines, the poem shines just a bit more brightly.

So give it a try ... take those darlings and push them to the side, and see where your newly bereft poem takes you.  And if you can't quite bear to part with your darlings entirely, you can always save them for another day, another poem.  I have an entire section of my poetry journal that's devoted to poem-less darlings.  What I'll do with them?  No idea.  BuUt at least they're not entirely gone.  ;-)

Self-editing for fiction writers: Character "voice" in dialogue

I sat down this morning, requisite cup of coffee in hand, to take a close look at a short story I'd written a few months back.  It's one of those stories, the ones that you know have a good character and good plot arc, but there's something a bit off that you can't quite put your finger on.  This particular piece has been workshopped twice, to a bevvy of wonderful comments, but the slight problem lingers, which irks me.

A close inspection now, after having shelved it for a few months, revealed a small, but significant problem:  the main character's voice wasn't appropriate in the dialogue.  She's in her early sixties, children grown and gone, a housewife (how I hate that term, but that's a story for another day) with little confidence in herself and her abilities, grew up in the late 50s, and is a consummate worrywart.

She doesn't say much, 28 words out of 727, and only two lines of dialogue, which was part of the problem.  Those two lines were significant, which had been my intention, but I hadn't looked closely enough at exactly what she was actually saying in those two lines.  And therein lay the problem.  She'd lost a bit of her lack of confidence (and for no apparent reason), her words displaying a surety about herself that she shouldn't have possessed (a surety I only caught when I went through and read the dialogue, and nothing else, aloud).  A few minor changes, along with the addition of a bit more nonverbal communication on her part, and I'm pretty sure the problem's solved.

Congruency and consistency across and within characters is important, so make sure, when editing, that your character's dialogue (and "voice") match the character you've constructed.  Also, because dialogue is meant to be spoken, it's a good idea to read it aloud.  If your character doesn't quite sound "in character," it's likely that they aren't.

Self-editing for fiction writers: Making description active

We've all read one of those books.  You know the kind.  The ones where the action is wonderful, the characters are complex, and you're hooked on the story.  There's just one problem:  the extensive descriptive passages that seem to have nothing to do with the story.

If you're like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about physical setting before you write.  I usually have a pretty clear idea in my head of what things look like, where they are, and how/why they're significant to my characters.  And I've been known, in first drafts, go just write a descriptive sequence, knowing that it'll have to be changed at a later date.  After all, readers will want to know what the setting looks like, at least to an extent, but I know that they're not going to want to read two pages of description of a character's apartment.     Your characters will need to interact with the setting, changing setting elements from active to passive.

That big, black leather couch under the window?  It shouldn't just sit there and do nothing.  It doesn't have to grow legs or do anything odd, but passive description can be wordy and awkward.  After all, it seems a bit weird to have Johnny come home, then say to himself, "Oh, there's my big, black leather couch under the window."  Instead, think of ways in which Johnny might interact with the couch.  Does he stub a toe on it as he goes past?  Does he fling his jacket onto it?  Shoo his cat off it?  Flop into it after a long day at work?  Any one of these changes the description from passive to active, and active's where it's at.

Passive description example

Johnny opened the door of his apartment and walked in.  There was a big, black leather couch under the window.  The silver blinds were drawn.  The coffee table was piled with newspapers and magazines.

Active description example

Johnny opened the door of his apartment and walked in.  He flung his leather jacket onto the couch under the window, then reached up to open the blinds, much to his cat's delight.  She hopped up onto the back of the black leather couch, surveying the outside world.  Johnny went to drop his keys on the coffee table, then thought better of it.  They just might get lost in the pile of newspapers and magazines.


Keep in mind, both of these are drafts, which I've deliberately left as such.  There's still a considerable amount of tweaking that needs to be done, even with the second example, but both should give you an idea of how to incorporate description more actively into your writing.

Self-editing for fiction writers: Point of view

I spent yesterday evening tinkering with a short story I'd been working on for a while.  Something about it wasn't quite working, and I just couldn't put my finger on it.  If you'd seen me, you might have thought me a bit bonkers, as I paced from one end of the house to the other, manuscript in hand, muttering to myself.

I didn't want to give up on the story, but I also didn't want to completely redraft the entire thing.  I took a close look at a few things, including scene structure and dialogue, but both of these worked.  What wasn't working, however, was the point of view from which the story was written.  There was a lot of action, but I'd originally written the story in third person, which is fairly common.  Shifting things around a bit, I changed it from third person to first person, using "I" and "me" throughout.  A bit more tweaking, and the story read much better.  I'm still not finished with it, but it's now far, far closer to seeing the light of day.

My self-editing advice, thus, for fiction writers is to take a close look at perspective, point of view, and narrative voice.

• Whose perspective are you telling the story from?  Does it work?  Might another character's perspective work better?
• What point of view are you using to tell the story?  If it's first, try third.  If third, try using first. 
• Look at your narrative voice, too.  If you're using third person objective, perhaps try using third person subjective or third person omniscient.

Self-editing for fiction writers: Editing practice

Editing is one of those things that's really hard to teach.  You kind of have to learn by *doing* more than anything.  An ear for language, a good understanding of grammar, and general nit-picky-ness help, too.

I've been dabbling in drabble of late, primarily because I don't seem to have a lot of uninterrupted time in which to write.  I have several longer projects on the go, but was looking for something I could finish in one to two sittings, so I'd at least have *something* done.

Writing drabble is an excellent way to practice your editing skills.  Why?  If you're like me, your first draft (and your second, and your third, and your fourth) will be way over the 100-word limit.  To get your story down to 100 words, you have to look at each and every single word.  Does it belong?  What does it do?  Can one word work where you've got several?  How much can you cut and still keep the essence of the story?  What is the essence of the story, anyway?

More interesting, at least to the grammar geek in me, is that writing in such a short form forces you to interact, on a very intimate level, with the words on the page, and with their underlying structure and function.  You end up engaging with your work so closely that you'll learn a lot about how you write and the types of things (whether literary conventions, words, or phrases) that frequently occur within your writing.  Regardless, I think it's an excellent exercise to expand your editing horizons.  Telling a story in 100 words, exactly, is harder than it looks.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: A Clear Second Look

If you're like me, you've heard this advice  time and time again.  Once you've finished a piece of writing, you need to set it aside for a while so you can take a clear second look at it.  This is excellent advice, advice I often give to my clients and students ... but it's advice that writers often don't follow (myself included).

My house is crazy-busy most days, and writing time is something I grab where I can during the week.  Weekends are a bit better, but between the laundry, baking, and general household chores that need to be done, I still don't get as much writing time in as I'd like.  This leads to a very time-starved kind of writing, where I'm scrambling to meet deadlines.

I start out with the best of intentions, but sometimes life just interferes.  This week, for example, my writing time has been limited because the youngest (of the broken arm) isn't cleared for outside activities until at least April 23rd, which means no afternoon daycare until at least then.  And without afternoon daycare, and with an increasingly stir-crazy four-year-old, I can honestly say I'm not getting much of anything done unless it's late at night after everything else is done.  Everything I've written this weekend (including this blog post) has depended on my clear second look hack.  Let's take a look, shall we?

A clear second look for the time-starved writer

If I know I'm going to have to edit almost in medias res, I do everything I can to have one writing session first thing in the morning (that's 5:30 around here ... ugh) and another after supper.  This leaves me close to 12 hours between writing sessions.  I'm not going to catch as much as I would if I had days or weeks to put my project aside and then come back to it, but I think I do a fairly good job following this method, and I think you'll be amazed at what you find, even using this time-crunched technique.

1. Split your writing / editing time into two sessions, with at least four hours between chunks.
2. Go do something that's not writing-related in the time between sessions.
3. When you're ready to edit, here's what you're going to do:
1. Print your project off and grab a highlighter or two. (I usually use two colours, one for errors and one for flow.)
2. Read your project aloud (to yourself, the dog, the cat, your imaginary friend ... doesn't matter who.  Just do it.  No cheating!)
4. As you're reading:
1. Highlight any grammatical, spelling, capitalization, and technical style errors.
2. Highlight any passages where flow is off.  These are places where transitions between sentences, ideas, and paragraphs don't quite work, and where characters might be doing one thing, then suddenly veer off in another direction.  
5. Take your marked copy back to the computer and make the necessary changes and revisions.  
6. Repeat the reading aloud process (steps 3 & 4) once more.
7. Cross your fingers that you've caught everything.  ;-)
8. Submit!

Self-editing for fiction writers

     "It is wrong.  You should not do that," Jack says.  His arms are crossed grumpily across his frumpy suit.

     There's little question that editing, whether you do it yourself or have someone else do it for you, is integral to the writing process.  But if you're like many writers, you enjoy the process of writing, but aren't so fond of editing, especially if it's your own work.  I'll confess that I struggle with self-editing, even though I work as a professional editor. 

     So arm yourself with these five strategies for revision to amp up your writing, and tackle the persnickety problem of self-editing.

Shelve it

You've heard it before, but if you're like me and often working to a deadline, you might wonder if it's really worth putting your project away (for a few days, a few weeks, even a few months) before you take out your editing pen.  Trust me, it's worth it.  Even if you only have a few hours, put it aside, go do something else, and come back to it later. 

Often, when we're up to our eyeballs in a project, we miss things because we've been working so closely with the material.  Some of these will be little things, like double words, protagonists who start off with blue eyes and have green by the end of the story, and characters who don't talk or behave quite true to their established character, not to mention plot gaps, things we may have forgotten to write, and other odd happenings.  Setting a work aside allows us to gain perspective and to look at it with fresh eyes.  And you'll catch far more awkwardness and mistakes than you would if you hadn't given the work time to percolate. 

Be a reader, not a writer

It's true:  writers think differently than readers.  When you're editing, make sure that you're thinking like a reader.  Don't forget to think about your particular breed of reader and why they read.  You want hook them, keep them reading long past the time they'd intended to stop.  So think about the things that draw readers in and keep them interested.  What might your readers think?  How might they feel?  How might they react to your character?  To the plot?  To the setting?

Do a close read and edit

     Oftentimes, writers skim through when they edit.  After all, they know their own work, they know who did it and how, and they know how the story ends.  While skimming is tempting, don't succumb to the temptation.  A close, line-by-line edit can be a powerful tool, and can help you to catch things that don't quite work, things that are easily missed if you're skimming to edit.  Break your work down into manageable chunks, whether by scene, by chapter, by section, or by stanza to make line-by-line editing more manageable.  Editing like this requires focus and time, but it's well worth the payoff:  a more cohesive and better-flowing product. 

 Read it aloud

     This sounds rather silly, and I know that people often look at me as if I'm a bit batty when I suggest it, but it really does work.  If you're uncomfortable reading aloud to yourself, read to someone else (or, even better, have them read it to you).  If all else fails, your dog/cat/fish can be a captive audience, and they really won't care if your writing falls flat. 

For some reason, we can "hear" some errors that we have difficulty seeing on the page, which is why reading aloud works so well.  We'll catch awkward turns of phrase, sentences that are too lengthy, and descriptive sequences that seem to go on without end.  So take the time to read it aloud, and make sure that you're truly listening when you do.

Read, lots

In my experience, writers who read a lot write better than writers who don't.  When reading others' work, take a look at what works, and what doesn't.  If a particular passage really strikes a chord with you, take the time to write it out, long-hand with a pen on paper, to get a feeling for how it was written.  When you come across something you really like, as a reader, take a look at it as a writer, focusing on the elements that went into it, and how those elements connect with the reader.  Read as much as you can, from a variety of sources, not just within your own genre.  After all, the more you read, the better your writing will get. 

Conclusion

There are many, many other suggestions out there--a quick Google search for "how to self-edit" results in 275 000 hits--but editing, whether you do it yourself or not, has a significant impact on your final product.  Just take a look at how a fairly minor edit changes our initial example.

"It's just wrong," said Jack, his grumpiness evident as he crossed his arms tight against the frumpy suit he'd insisted on wearing.  "You shouldn't do it."

It's still not perfect, but it's a far cry from the stilted original.  A closer edit, taking into account the five suggestions we've looked at, would help it even more.  So shelve your work, read others' writing, then return to your work, read it aloud as a reader (not a writer), and do a close edit.  See how a little perspective, and some elbow grease, can change something drab and mundane into the kind of prose (or poetry) that jumps off the page, grabs your reader by the throat, and drags them kicking and screaming into your fictional world.  

Self-editing: what do writers need to know?

I've been working on a number of rather disparate projects over the last several weeks, which is beginning to make me feel a bit scattered.

That being said, one of my topics certainly is related to each of these projects, and that's the topic of self-editing.  It's something even I'm not overly fond of doing, but it's definitely something that needs to be done.  Sometimes it's relatively easy, and sometimes it's an horrendous uphill slog in the middle of a raging prairie blizzard.  Regardless, it's something I have to do, even if it requires a minimum of an afternoon and two (!) complete pots of tea.

I've been reading a bit, of late, on this obviously popular topic--a quick Google search for "self-editing" results in 31 600 000 hits.  Understandably, Browne and King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is on my list of things to read, despite critiques that damn it with faint praise.  We'll see what I think when I'm through it.

So the question is:  what do writers really need for advice, as a checklist, as a toolkit, when it comes to self-editing?  Help with line-by-line editing is certainly on that list, as are dealing with plot and characterization.  What about self-editing poetry? What else should be there?  What else would help you, as a writer?  I'm curious.