As with skinning cats...

There's more than one way to edit a manuscript!

(A page from my original manuscript of Rock Steady, with edits.)

I seem to have spent a lot of this year editing. I’m always fascinated to read blog posts that describe the three steps / nine essential elements / forty-two rungs in the editing ladder. I learn a lot from them, but mostly what I’ve learned is that, like with everything else, there isn’t one way.

I already know (know for sure, I’ll carve it into stone for you, if you like), that there isn’t one correct or even ideal way of writing. Part of the writer’s journey is discovering your own process or processes. I’ve plotted and written all my books in different ways, and I’m learning that my approach to editing varies from project to project, too. Here are some things that work for me. Which may not work for you. Know thyself!

1.      The order of things

Many approaches tell you to make the big edits – story, structure, plot, character – first, then work your way down on successive passes to writing style and finally line-edits. The one thing that seems to be relatively constant for me is that I work the other way around. Perhaps my brain is nit-picky and pedantic, but I can’t see past spelling or grammar errors and word repetition in order to focus on the big things. So I go for the quick win of fixing the trivialities, and then I can see the wood for the trees. Sometimes.

2.      Edit as you go along

Again, the common wisdom is to vomit the first draft rapidly and without looking back, in case you get stuck in endlessly editing chapter one and never finish your story. Or perhaps so as to avoid becoming stuck in salty tears, like Lot’s wife, in staring horror-struck at the Sodom and Gomorrah of your opening efforts. But I find that starting each writing session with rereading what I last wrote, fixing a couple of things as I go along, helps get me into the story so that by the time I finish reading, I’m into writing gear and ready to roll. I suspect it also helps keeps tone and characterization consistent, especially when I’m not writing every day.

3.      Make multiple passes

I know from my day job as a psychologist that the brain cannot focus well on detailed, analytical, sequential, left-brained aspects (spelling, grammar, whether to use affect or effect, were his eyes blue or grey) and creative, holistic, visual, right-brained aspects (characters, fixing plot-holes, amping up tension and emotion) at the same time. So I tackle these aspects separately. I write leanly, so I also add detail, red herrings, clues and descriptive elements in successive editing passes, like a 3D printer positioning layer after complex layer. Other writers might need to shave off excess words, like a carpenter with a lathe.

4.      One character, one voice

A really useful exercise for me is to use the search feature to find all the times one character speaks, and then check that her dialogue is consistent in tone, vocabulary, vocal tics, accent, expression, etc. I find this really helps to tighten characterization, too.

5.      Checklist

I once read a book where the author had a character “roll his shoulders”. The first time I read the expression, I thought, “Wow – what a neat way to describe a shrug.” But by the time I read it for the tenth time, I was just irritated. The more unusual a word or phrase is, the more it stands out and the less you get to use it. Every writer has expressions and words that they use too often. I keep an ever-growing list of mine and seek and destroy somewhere in the editing process.

As a therapist, I’ve learned to speak very gently and tentatively, so my first draft is usually full of words like maybe, perhaps, a little, somewhat, possibly, slightly, fairly. They’re on my pruning-list, too.

I also check for words/phrases like “I/the character saw, thought, wondered, noticed, looked (I use that one a lot), heard, knew, remembered”, etc. which usually have the effect of distancing the POV. (Compare, “Outside the cabin, the snow was falling fast and cold, but inside it was warm, uncomfortably so,” to “If I looked outside the window of the cabin, I would see snow falling fast, and I knew it would be cold, but inside I felt warm. I wondered if it was maybe too warm.”

6.      Fresh eyes

I approach my manuscript with fresh eyes by leaving it between writing and editing (and between successive edits) as long as I can bear without impatiently gnawing off my fingers (the nails are already gone). It’s amazing what you notice when you’ve gained some distance.

My fresh eyes also come in the form of my valuable beta-readers and editors – they teach me so much! But I do bear in mind that bit of wisdom (I think Neil Gaiman said it) which goes something like: believe your beta-readers when they say there’s a problem with some aspect of your manuscript, but don’t believe them when they tell you how to fix it.

7.      It never ends

I keep thinking of new details I want to add, even after the manuscript has gone to the printers. This is one of the reasons I’ve learned to be patient, to edit slowly, rather than to rush the process. I want my final product to be as finely-honed as I can make it, not a quick, rough-and-ready attempt.

Let me know your thoughts in Twitter (@JoanneMacg) or my facebook page.

Update - I've enabled comments on the blog, so let me know what you think :)