I’ve been digesting all the lessons learned from the writer’s convention. I encourage all of you to attend one, whether you have any manuscripts ready or not! It’s good to network with other writers. The first thing you think about when you talk about their books is this – “I never would have thought of that.” And not only that, you realize that you never would be interested in writing their book. Thus, the competitive aspect most people approach their lives with suddenly is not there. They wouldn’t be interested in writing my novels, and I wouldn’t be interested in writing theirs.
Comparing the authors I talked to with the average experiences of the authors who are part of the writing group I belong to (how’s that for a run on-compound sentence with multiple subjects and objects?), I’ve deduced a number of things from almost all of them. That’s the subject of the post a few days ago, and I’ll probably be writing on these learned lessons for a while.
But when I asked about editing, I either didn’t get an answer, or I got conflicting answers that implied most of them didn’t have an editing process. The woman with 14 books said she had an editing process, but didn’t go into what that was. Don’t read anything into it – hers could have been so extensive that she could write blog entries about my editing process being insufficient! Lack of information is not always a verdict!
Everyone’s so quick to jump to conclusions!
Digressive rant aside, I stand firm that aside from the business acumen of the writer’s platform and going through the traditional process of getting a literary agent, the secret behind writing fiction boils down to the very subject most of them really didn’t have answers on.
Editing.
I’ll admit, I hate editing. It often feels like drudgery. But my stellar first drafts become tighter, more clean, more powerful. I’m starting to see the skill of some of the authors I read growing up appear in my novels as the editing process begins.
You have a system to your editing whether it is a wistful “I don’t really need to edit, do I?”, to a more blunt “I have a thirty six stage editing process I use involving printouts, color highlighting and a three step checklist to ensure I didn’t skip a step.” One way or another, you have a system in place. Most people choose number one. Only a few choose the latter option, with the rest of us somewhere in between.
There’s not a lot of information out there on editing. Trust me, I own EVERY seminar from Writer’s Digest on the editing process, and let me tell you, most of them really were useless. The one written by a literary agent was the best, because right in the middle she did a data dump of every last word that needs to be slashed mercilessly from a novel. I was writing notes frantically. “Wait! What?”
I think there really needs to be a seminar – and I’m sure as soon as I’ve learned every last editing technique there is and weed through them, I’ll be the one to do it – that takes you through, “okay, let’s take your manuscript and the first thing we’re going to do is a structural edit…” etc.
Here’s your take-away on this. Please don’t disregard this information. It’s crucial. I know, I get it (no, I’m not about to ask you for money) – ever y writer hates editing. You just spent all that hard work writing your novel, now you’ve got to change all that?
But this is where the book is written.
Learn to edit your novels. There’s a number of steps, and I’ve written several articles already on it. I’ll be writing more as the year goes on. Structural edit, the removal of =ly words, removal of throat clearing phrases, removal of writer’s repetition (this can remove as much as a third of your novels’ word count!),The filter word slash and hack, the expansion edit (the one where you actually get to ADD words), and more. There’s a lot of techniques, and I even recommend one excellent online service – ProWritingAid. The feedback you gain from them is invaluable!
Edit your novels. Do not let ANYONE see your novel at all until it’s gone through extensive editing. When your last two edits do not really change your novel at all, then… it’s probably done.
This is where your book, as the reader will know it, is really written. Don’t skip this part.
