How I Edit

by K.M. Weiland @ Word Play

No two writers write in the same way. But even fewer writers edit in the same way. We all wield our red (or blue) pens (or pencils), hacking flabby words and injecting strong verbs and nouns in their places. We all share the end goal of a crisp, clean, beautiful final draft. And we all pull out rather large handfuls of hair on the road to that final draft. But the methods we use in fulfilling these edits are often quite disparate. Each of us has to find the method that works best for us, and often that method continues to evolve with every passing project. The method that works for me won’t necessarily work for anyone else. But, for what it’s worth and in hopes that you mind pick up a few useful tips (or, at the very least, that you might identify what won’t work for you), this, my friends, is how I edit.

Among writers, there are approximately five different methods of editing:

1. Write the entire first draft, then edit. (Woe be to this editor if he starts proofreading before finishing the draft, lest he never finish.)
2. Write until you figure out where the story’s going, then go back and edit the first half of the draft to match the rest of the story. (This is often the method favored by “seat-of-their-pants” writers, who find that outlining stunts their creativity.)
3. Write to the end of a scene, then edit. (A very linear approach to editing, this allows the writer to establish each building block of his story as he goes.)
4. Write to the end of a chapter, then edit. (Extended version of the scene-by-scene edit.)
5. Write a little, edit a little. (Favored by both procrastinators and obsessive outliners, this method is probably both the most dangerous and the most precise.)

Were this a multiple-choice test, I’d be forced to check Option #5 as my method of choice. Fortunately, however, in the no-holds-bar world of writing and editing, we’re allowed as many choices as we like. Therefore, the approach I’ve developed over the years tends to encompass all five choices—in reverse order.

I rarely begin a story without knowing where I’m going with it. As a result, I am often freed from the desperate rush to fill that great white chasm of paper between me and The End. Since I know how my story will end and how each scene will build toward that end, I’m free to polish each sentence and each paragraph as soon as it appears on my screen. All things considered, I am a very slow writer. Except on rare occasions when the words (usually dialogue) are flowing almost too quickly for me to record, I will type one or two sentences, maybe even a whole paragraph, then sit for a few minutes, idly rattling my fingers against the space bar and mulling over what I’ve just written. After a tweak or two, I move on and repeat the process.

Instead of re-reading each scene as I finish it, I prefer to read over the page or so I wrote the previous day. Before I continue writing where I left off, I read everything I wrote the previous day (which usually amounts to half a scene), making little changes and checking the general flow of the words.

Over the course of my last two projects, it’s become my practice not to divide my stories into chapters until I’ve finished the project. I simply break at any logical point (in Dreamers Come, for example, each “chapter” encompasses one day in the life of my hero), regardless of word count, and call that a chapter for the time being. Whenever I reach one of these logical breaks in my writing, I stop and take a day off from active writing in order to proofread that “chapter.”

One of the best tricks I’ve snagged for my editing repertoire is what I call the “50-page edit.” Every 50 pages, I print my entire manuscript, sit myself down with the hard copy and mark it up with my red pen. Aside from the obvious benefits of word polishing, this allows me to reacquaint myself with scenes I may have written as much as a year previously. I’m able to get a good idea of the overall feel and pacing of the story. Old subplots, snippets of foreshadowing, and minor characters that I may have otherwise forgotten are once more brought to the forefront of my memory. Plus, the week-long break from active writing is often a much-appreciated chance for rejuvenating my brain cells.

Finally, when I’ve typed those coveted words “THE END,” I buy myself a brand new ink cartridge and print the entire manuscript. As a rule, by this point, I’ve read most of the story as many as 10 times, and much of the rough verbiage and weak scenes have already been discarded. After reading through the complete draft two or three times, I pronounce it temporarily finished and, knowing it’s the best I’m capable of by myself, send it off to a few trusted critiquers.

Although this method slows down the first draft, I have to believe it speeds up the overall process. Instead of overwhelming myself at the end of the first draft with plot problems, dead-end subplots, and clunky prose, my completed first draft is a relatively clean, sharp product.

I’ve often read about people who focus on one problem in each edit. For example, in the first edit, they might ignore the plot problems and focus only on typos. But I’ve never been able to do this. If I spot a problem, no matter how small or large, I’ve never been able to pass it by. Therefore, I rarely focus on any one thing in particular in any given edit.

If I happen to stumble across the need for a major rewrite or clean-up (such as I just finished in Dreamers), I won’t bother printing the manuscript. It’s much, much easier to cut and rewrite major portions of text on the computer. For fine-tuning, however, I prefer to look at a hardcopy. Once the story itself is free of bugs and I’m ready to proofread, word by word, for typos, I use a blue pen to mark beneath each word, ensuring my mind doesn’t read words that aren’t on the page.

After I’ve corrected any problems spotted by my critiquers, I generally toss the manuscript into the closet for a few months until I can gather some fresh perspective. I’ll edit it once or twice more, throw it back into the closet, wait a few months more, then edit again. Stories are never finished until they’ve been forced into the irrevocability of print. Some of my stories I expect to be editing until the day I die.