EDITING

Editing!!! You hate it! You need it! It's the toxic boyfriend that every storyteller shares. I want to get into my personal editing process because it took me years to learn how to appreciate and actually enjoy the process. This is geared toward prose writing, but editing still comes into play with most story formats. These days, it stresses me out to put a story out without going through my entire editing list. It is a crucial part of my writing process, and it makes me a better writer every time I go through all these steps.

Writing the first draft is always the toughest part, because it takes a lot of motivation and dedication to push through all the way until the end. That’s why it’s typically not recommended to edit while you write the first draft. All your focus should initially be on actually getting to the end of the piece. When I was still struggling to finish pieces, I would often get lost in the weeds trying to fix the beginning of a piece before I’d even finished it, but it is so much easier to edit a completed draft than it is to try and wrangle something that’s still growing. (These days, I can get away with a little editing as I go, because I know I can finish pieces and I don’t let myself work on major rewrites until it’s over. But I have a decades long history of finishing pieces so I know when it’s okay to take shortcuts and when I need to do things the old fashioned way. When in doubt, GO SLOW.)

While writing the first draft, it helps a lot to identify weak areas in the story as I’m writing it. I use scrivener, which is great for being able to just scrawl into the sidebar “go back and make this scene more X or less Y”, or leave myself reminders about certain details that need to get brought up sooner, or circled back on later. Not only does it save me time to pre-plan what will need to get polished up later, but it actively improves my skill as a writer when I’m able to say “okay this isn’t up to standard yet”. It’s even better when you know what your scenes are missing, and I actively encourage all writers to look at their own work as a reader and an editor in order to try and familiarize yourself with your own strengths and weaknesses. If you haven’t figured that out yet, an editor can help you! Reading other books is also invaluable when it comes to learning how to evaluate your own work! Compare and contrast, baby.

If I’m in the middle of writing a piece and I realize there is a major change needed in the text I’ve already written, it’s always in my best interest to take detailed notes on what I want to fix, rather than dropping the fresh writing and going back to fix an unfinished beginning or middle. I just keep writing from that point as if I’ve already fixed things, leave lots of notes for myself about what the ideal fixes will look like, and then once I’ve written the ending that I feel is best, I go back and make my beginning match the ending I wanted! Endings are much harder to write than beginnings for me, so they always get priority.

If you have a bad memory like me, leaving yourself notes is going to be a crucial part of the entire writing process. Part of the notes I leave myself are a list of questions I intend to ask any first reader or editor! Getting an editor is great, but all editors are different, and you can’t expect a uniform experience even between your own pieces. A writer is not just a writer, but also a director. You need to know what you want out of your own work, so that you can help direct others when they’re helping you. An editor does not come pre-loaded with the correct expectations and reads on your work, so it’s super important to be able to ask them bluntly what worked and what didn’t. But if you don’t even know what you’re trying to accomplish with the piece, you can’t expect an editor to pull that out of thin air, or to read your mind.

Before I even get to the editor stage though, passes happen first. As I’m writing the first draft, I’m often discovering what it is I want for individual character arcs, subtle plot threads, symbolism, etc. So as I’m laying down the tracks with the first draft, I will begin identifying the passes that I’d like to do before finishing the editor draft. A pass is when you read through the piece with a specific focus. Often, that means doing a pass for every mention of a certain character to ensure consistency, or doing a pass for cohesive and immersive setting descriptions, there could be a pass for the A plot vs the B plot, or a specific pass for any nsfw scenes. I do a lot of passes, as many as a book needs before it reaches a point where I think it’s doing what I want it to do. Only then do I go back to my list of questions for my editor and pass it off to them.

Important to note, there are different kinds of editors so it’s really good to establish up front what you are expecting from your editors! Is this a strict grammar edit? A substantive edit? Do you need someone familiar with editing sex scenes? Action scenes? Mysteries? What do you need and what do you want this person to look out for? Talk it out before you hand somebody your work and ask what they feel suited to, what their strengths are as an editor, what they do and don’t enjoy reading, etc.

I like to request a few things from my editor to look out for while they’re reading. I always want to know 1) any moment that pings as something they hope to see come back later (that could be as simple as a mention of a potential kink, or something that may play into a larger mystery at work, or even just a character trait that they’re hoping to see reflected in the text), and 2) any moments of confusion within the text, whether that’s losing track of bodies on the page, or getting confused by word choice. I also usually ask a handful of questions after they’ve read the whole draft so I can get the first raw reactions to the story and weigh that against what I’d been hoping for. I don’t want to lead someone by the nose by asking up front “how does X scene feel” because it sets up the editor to expect certain things. I value raw reactions so it’s important for me to wait until the end to get impressions on things like character reveals or emotional conversations—any of the major drama moments. Maybe you and your editor prefer a different system though!

Honestly, to me, the most important part of the editing process is leaving room for someone to say that your work elicited an emotion you weren’t anticipating, and figuring out if that’s an error that needs correcting, or a potential new direction to strengthen the piece. Growing as a writer means adapting to your strengths and weaknesses, and if you’re really good at nailing a certain kind of emotion, it’s good to try and master that instead of fighting it. The more comfortable you are with your strengths, the easier it will be to learn how to branch out from there, using that strong area as an anchor. But sometimes you write a scene thinking you’re getting at one thing and it turns out you’re making your reader unexpectedly sad or angry, and you just need to change the language to smooth it over. We all have blind spots, and that’s part of what makes editors invaluable.

For a long time, I was told I write strong characters—which meant my exposition needed work, and especially my action scenes. It was through my interest in depicting believable characters and dialogue that I learned to infuse my exposition with character voice, and to anchor action scenes through that same voice. Chain these things together until you’re able to shore up your weak spots. A good editor will be able to help you identify these areas, and help make suggestions on how to even out your piece so all the areas shine—but you can help this process along by taking an active interest in your own process.

Here’s a huge editing hint: if you don’t enjoy writing a scene, your readers are probably not going to enjoy reading it. There’s a long standing piece of writing advice that I’ve held near and dear to my heart for so many years. SKIP THE BORING THE PART. Sounds obvious, but I know a lot of writers struggle with transitions. When I first started writing novels, my old teacher pointed out that I ended every chapter with the protagonist going to bed because I wasn’t able to figure out how to end a scene, so I just ended the day instead. A good story doesn’t need to show every minute of the day, and a good writer will carry their readers through without explaining every detail ad nauseum. This gets especially tricky writing action scenes, which includes sex scenes. Striking a balance between clarity and engaging language is always tough, which is why a lot of people wind up sacrificing personality in their prose for dry and precise language. When in doubt, cut anything that reads too dry/clinical/boring, evaluate what’s left as unclear to the reader, and try to convey the missing information in as few words as possible. Then try to mix those clarifying words into the character voice or the horny/tense/dangerous tone you’re trying to establish with the scene.

Again, a good editor will be able to tell you when your transitions are too boring or don’t match the tone of the rest of the piece. This is all the more easy to watch out for when you know what tone you’re trying to achieve! Tone is another aspect that I will often do a specific pass for on longer works. Sometimes, if you’re writing an entire novel, it’s easy to lose focus or fall into old habits in order to keep yourself writing, so it’s smart to keep an eye out for that when you’re doing your first read-through after finishing a draft. Does the beginning of the book sound the same as the end of the book? Read your first and last chapters side by side and if they don’t sound similar, and you don’t know why, that’s an excellent thing to ask someone else to read for and help you pick the piece apart to figure out where you changed tracks.

My entire process looks something like this

1. First draft, no rewrites allowed, just leave notes on what I know I need to fix

2. When first draft is finished, do one start-to-finish read-through, catch typos where possible, and take even more notes on what needs to get fixed so I can identify major passes that need to happen

3. Begin working on specific passes. This is where most of the major rewrites will come into play. If I can lump two different passes together, I will, but again, if you’re like me and you struggle with bad memory, it’s best to keep things simpler

4. Give the piece to editor with a list of things to look out for while reading and keep a separate list of questions for when they’ve finished the piece

5. Address any notes given to me by the editor and create a new draft based on that

6. If there’s time, have the editor read the piece again to see if I’ve effectively addressed all the notes they’ve given me, and to make sure I didn’t accidentally create a new problem in my attempt to fix an old problem

7. Oftentimes I will just ask scene by scene if I’ve clarified what needs to get clarified, but everyone works differently! Ask your editor how they like to work

8. If possible, get someone else to do a final proofread pass for any last minute grammar checks! Bringing in a fresh set of eyes for final typos is best so they’re not overly familiar with the piece and won’t gloss over as many things because they’ve grown used to the rhythm of the piece

9. Final read-throughs on my own. There is no such thing as a perfect book and I can always catch another typo or a silly detail I forgot to mention but I don’t expect to release a story 100% free of typos

Editing is so crucial! First drafts are made to be messy! They are impulsive and instinctual and emotional pieces where I often overstate the unnecessary and spell out concepts instead of letting metaphors speak for themselves, because I’m still figuring out where everything goes and what I’m accomplishing. Recognizing this about my own process has helped to really make me enjoy going back in there and whipping those messy drafts into shape. It’s incredibly satisfying to figure out how to make a piece even better than it was before! Sure, I could release a first draft and leave it at that, but I know what I like to read, and it’s not a first draft! I want the mystery, I want the subtlety, I want to be trusted by the author to draw my own conclusions.

Editing is how I get a piece to go from “interesting” to “gut punch”. I allow myself to be as messy as possible in the first draft, which makes the writing more enjoyable, and then I let my organizational brain take over, which makes the editing more enjoyable. The more I take notes and plan ahead for editing, the easier and more satisfying it is to watch the piece become even better. Writing and editing is a fun puzzle if you can let it become one.

Ironically, this little piece of writing is unedited, so if you have any questions for me, please ask below! I’m happy to talk shop about writing and editing. And if you have suggestions for topics I can address in the future, let me know! It was MY OWN EDITOR who gave me the idea to write this post. I hope I didn't make an offensive amount of typos.