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.

Apparently, I'm technologically challenged

It's coming up on the end of spring grant writing season, which means I've been *very* busy over the last several weeks.  Believe it or not, I had posts scheduled for each week ... but apparently I can't count or something, as I somehow managed to schedule everything for 2014, not 2013.  *sigh*

On another note, I'm currently fighting with my computer, a bare two months old, which has decided it needs to use 87% of its available RAM every time I turn it on.  I'm busy tweaking, but am getting rather irritated with the whole thing.

My point, here, is that I've been sucked into the technology vortex once again.  Don't get me wrong, as I love the tools that technology gives writers, but I sometimes think we spend too much time fussing with the tools, and not enough time writing. 

So this afternoon, while my computer's chewing away at a complete system scan and defrag, I'll be taking a pad of yellow legal paper, an HB pencil, a sharpener, and a good eraser outside with me so I can do some writing the old fashioned way. 

I'll sort through my scheduled posts tomorrow, but for the moment I'm off to do some writing. 

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!

"Cornered" short story published today!

My short-short-short story (a form otherwise known as "drabble") titled "Cornered" was published today at The Were-Traveller!  This is the one I was griping about a while back ... I was stuck at 102 words and needed to cut two, managed to cut one, then spent an hour (!) tinkering with it to get that last word cut.  Thankfully, it's now found a good home, in esteemed company ... there's some awesome work available in this edition.  Go check it out!  You know you want to!*

_____
*Yes, I realize I've used my monthly allotment of exclamation points in one blog post.  Sometimes, you've just got to use more than one.

Monday Author Website: Rachel King

Today's site isn't exactly what I expect of an author site, and reminds me of the work of several of the mixed media artists that I have the privilege to "play" with on occasion.  But this site can certainly hold its own, even amongst stiff competition.

Rachel King, New Zealand Author

I stumbled across Rachel King's website while looking for something else, but it intrigued me enough that I stayed to take a look around.  I like the layout and the arranged randomness of the home page, which includes images relevant to her novels, a text box with a brief "Latest News" section, and the list of links to her work, about page, and blog.  

The pages within her site all carry over from the same theme, and their simplicity makes it easy for the reader to navigate through.  I especially like the sidebars for each novel (Magpie Hall is my example, here).  The cover image for the novel sits atop four icons that link to separate links:  (1) about the book; (2) background; (3) reviews; (4) buy the book.  The simplicity is striking in an age of cluttered pages, and the originality of the icons really helps her site stand apart.  

I was certainly intrigued enough by her design to click through to her books, despite the fact that I was somewhat crunched for time.  So I'm recommending three things:  go take a look at her site, then check out her books and her blog.  I've ordered a copy of Magpie Hall, which I'll be adding to my summer reading pile.

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.  

Monday Author Website: Caroline Tiger

In my aimless surfing, looking for good author websites, I've discovered a few interesting things.

First, there are a lot of "5 Elements Your Author Site Needs" pages out there, all with varying suggestions, and many without a real idea of the function / purpose of an author site.  In my technical writing classes, I repeat time after time:  know your audience and your purpose.  If you haven't identified these, you're going to waste a lot of time writing copy that's not going to get read or used the way you intended it to be read or used.

Second, there's not a lot of what I'd call "real" information out there for authors on website building.  Yes, authors know that they need to follow the rules of web design and the rules for writing copy for the web.  But no one really addresses the extra elements that author sites need and, if they do, they don't go into enough detail for my liking.  I want to know more, damn it!

Thirdly, and call me nit-picky if you will, there's often no rationale behind why element or concept x should be included in your site.  Personally, I want to know why something should be there, especially if I'm spending time and money to add it!

Anyway, enough blathering, and on to today's site.

Caroline Tiger's Web Site

This simple, easy-to-navigate site provides the reader with connections to Caroline's latest book and articles, gives a brief overview of who she is and what she does, and links to her three blogs.  At first glance I like the site, and can see why it ended up on one of the lists of "good author websites" I surfed through last week.

The layout is easily scanned, the links across the top of the page are simple and clear, and the page is not overly lengthy.  No scrolling is required on either my desktop computer or my iPad in vertical orientation, and only minimal scrolling is required on the iPad on horizontal orientation.

The information is clear and concise, and her "About" section gives an information-packed overview of who she is and what she does (and has done).

A closer look, however, reveals a few problems, none insurmountable, but a bit off-putting, just the same.  While I like the set-up of the home page (brief about section, recent book and blurb, and recent articles), the most problematic for me are the artifacts in the Welcome text, which can easily be edited out.  In addition, the font size shows up quite small on every computer/monitor/smartphone/tablet combination I've tried ... it doesn't seem like a big thing, but even little problems or irritants to a potential audience can result in that audience moving on to another site.

That being said, I quite like her "Books" section.  It's easy to see what she's written, there's an informative little blurb for the top three books, and she's included a small image of the cover.  I also like the mouse-over text for each image, which begins "Read more about book x."  I'd like to see the same type of blurb for the books in the "Other Books" section on this page, and I'd also like to know which of the books listed is the referent text for the Financial Post's comment, as this isn't information that's listed anywhere.

My only other quibble with Caroline's site is that it doesn't appear to have been updated recently, and neither have her blogs, which might make a reader move on to another site, if it seems that nothing much is happening at the moment.

Regardless, I like this site, and it's drawn me in enough that I'd probably go looking for her books the next time I'm in the library.