Hello everyone!
I hope you are having a wonderful start to your week! Today I want to talk about the whole process of editing, since (in case you didn’t know already) I am in the middle of editing my own writing draft.
So, let’s start off by talking about how I feel about editing right now.
All I have to say about is is that… it’s still a drag. 😂
It’s one of the most important steps in writing, since writing isn’t just coming up with the idea and then writing it all down. It’s mainly rewriting.
And rewriting.
And rewriting some more.
And… Oh yeah!
More rewriting.
I also think it’s important because as I’m still learning a lot about writing, I want to incorporate it into my writing and improve the story. Obviously.
Since it’s so important for me, this means I’ve been slow going on the whole process, so that I can take a good look at what I’ve written and if anything needs to be fixed. Right now, I’ve only been doing a chapter a night (unless they’re particularly short chapters, then I’ll do more). I don’t want to rush through the process, especially as I near the end of my structural editing process, otherwise I’m doing a disservice to the potential of the story. I love this idea and story concept, and I want to do it justice by making it the best story that I’m capable of making it.
After all that rambling, something else I want to discuss is figuring out what the editing process is going to look like for you. Everyone is going to have the same basic steps (structural edits, grammatical edits, post beta reader edits, etc), but as far as when each step is going to happen, pretty much depends on you.
For me, my first couple rounds of editing are mainly focused on structural editing. This means adding more to the story, working on fleshing out more characters, figuring out what plot points work and don’t work, etc. etc. As I mentioned in my previous writing post, The Life of Being An Underwriter, I have a tendency to not write enough in the story for it to be rich and complex as it could be. This means the story itself can be lacking a lot of the components that would draw the reader in, and keep them interested. Before I started my edits, I only had between 40k-50k words for my draft. At this point (I’m only about half way through my story) I am at around 75k words.
So WOOHOO GO ME! 🤣🤣
What can I say? I got to celebrate the little things in life.
Now though, I’ve been thinking more about what I want to do once I’m finished with this round of structural edits. What I’m thinking is probably finding a couple beta readers to go over my draft, and answer some questions at the end of each chapter, mainly focused on the plot and the characters. Once that’s done, I’m going to edit some more, this time though, focused on grammar and the technical side of it. Then maybe do another round of beta readers (maybe even the same ones) to see if there’s anything else that I should look at and fix.
Then…
I’m thinking of having a professional editor read it over, before I do anything publishing wise. I’ll have to look into freelance editors who would be the best fit for my writing; someone who’s familiar with editing fantasy, and, even going one step further, someone who is good at working with newer writers. Someone who won’t get frustrated easily if there are some more “newbie” type mistakes in my drafts since… well I am still learning a lot about writing (and probably always will be). That’s part of the fun when it comes to any creative field though, is learning new techniques that can help improve your writing, and challenge you to do things that you didn’t even consider ever doing.
I find that this editing process flow works best for me, because I want to make the big changes first (structural edits) before I do anything else. Then, after making all these big changes, I want other people to read it over, to check that everything still makes sense (it also gives me a break from this story before I do anymore edits). Then, after going through this round of beta readers, I want to go through and correct any grammar mistakes and do a more in depth edit all the technical aspects of the story. As for another round of beta readers, if not much has changed, I might skip this step, just because it would seem redundant at that point. Then with the professional editor aspect… I’ll have to see if I can afford it, and all that good stuff 🤣
And on that lovely note… that’s about all I have for my editing spiel today! I hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your week, and I will see you in the next post on Friday!
Erin 🙂
Twitter: @ENordhof
Prose: https://theprose.com/ennord
Eclectic Erin 