How I Do Edits
I have a strictly professional crush on my editor. I think she’s fantastic. Since my adventure has gotten blissfully boring to talk about (although I did lose a cat all day today), I thought I’d talk about the way I go through my edits. Not saying it’s interesting, but I’m supposed to be talking about writing once in awhile, no?
There was no letter this time, just a bunch of comments in the essay. Those are easier edits than the overall ones, anyway. I wrote and re-wrote this thing about three or four times. (There are a total of eleven documents to do with this one essay, if that gives you any indicator.) I wrestled with this one, let me tell you. I think if there had been fundamental issues, I would’ve screamed and cried and thrown in the towel.
When I get edits, I do them in passes:
The Easy-Peasy Pass: I tackle the easiest ones first. This is mostly going through, right-clicking, and accepting changes by my editor. Maybe changing a word or deleting a sentence. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it gets rid of a lot of red in one fell swoop.
Ahhh! Much better. Looks like I made a lot of progress.
The Sure! No Problem! Pass: Then there are the little changes, the ones that pretty much make no difference to me. Swap the order of this sentence? Sure! Delete this bit? Gone! Tweak this idea? Easy!
After that, finding the easy edits is hard.
The Procrastination Pass: Nothing actually gets done during this phase, and I keep looking at all the comments I’d rather procrastinate. These are the edits that are going to take some work. I might, um, actually have to write a WORD. Or maybe even a SENTENCE. In a few cases, it might even call for MULTIPLE SENTENCES. And worst of all, sometimes I have to go and LOOK SOMETHING UP. I go through at least once or twice and do nothing, in the hopes that another “easy-peasy” or “sure! no problem!” fix will appear.
After I’ve blogged about doing my edits, after I’ve played with my cats a bit, taken a walk, poured a glass of wine, vacuumed the carpet, fed the cats, and taken a nap, it’s on to…
The Grind Pass: These involve swapping the order of things, adding whole new paragraphs, fleshing out ideas, etc. Ugh. I mean, I have to THINK. I have to drink some coffee. In fact, these can wait until tomorrow morning, right? It’s ten p.m., and I can’t very well drink coffee now, right?
Besides, I had a traumatic day: I thought my cat had gone missing. The squirt was hiding all day. It’s ONLY a twenty-foot camper, and she still managed to curl up in a spot I couldn’t find. She didn’t come out for breakfast!!! I thought she’d escaped through a screen, so I was wandering the campground and crying, trying to find her.
It’s time for wine, not edits!
The Final Smooth: After all the work is done, I have to go through to smooth out the changes. Swapping the order of two sections means I’ll have to see what no longer makes sense. When you start changing words, you suddenly have the same word two times in a paragraph. Ick. Stuff like that. When you change one sentence, the rhythm tends not to fit in the whole paragraph. All has to be smoothed out.
And then it’ll be done!
It’s funny, as I was packing for this adventure, I came across a stack of my essays for my German lit minor. Wow! I was not a natural writer. You wouldn’t believe the stupid mistakes I made! (Of course, most of my essays were written the night before.) I’m astonished the professors gave me A’s. A few of the A’s were presented thus: “Nevertheless, A-”
After this, I have an endless bunch of fiction to write. Ahhh. Nothing like an essay to remind you how much you LOVE fiction.
So how do you do edits? You don’t go in ORDER, do you? LOL! 
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
Your cat was taking an all-day napping. Some days are like that when you’re a cat.
I do about the same thing in the beginning when I get critiques from my CPs. If it’s anything more complicated than simple sentence changes, I let them sink into my brain. Maybe I have to sleep on it or just walk my dog. Sometimes a chocolate break will be enough. Depends how energetic I am.
Have fun getting back into your fiction. I finally made progress today, and it feels good.
Yeah. But she skipped breakfast! It totally freaked me out! And this camper is so small, I could NOT find her anywhere!
A chocolate break! That’s what I need!
Yay for your progress! You’re on a new story, right? I’ve forgotten what the new story is!
My dear Natasha, whatever happened to “Nightmares First”?!
(I kid. Naturally, learning a piano piece is not equivalent to editing a manuscript. =P)
And while I certainly which I could respond as a writer with an editor, and all that fancy publishing jazz, you’ll just have to settle for my blander student/poet experiences:
When I write a paper for school——which you, of course, know I leave till the last minute——my version of editing tends to occur as I go along, lest my paper be far beyond the space allotted. (It took AP English to teach me that it is far more difficult to write a two-page paper than a ten-page one; how sad!) Then, upon completion, I proceed to slice-and-dice what needs slicing-and-dicing, until the paper is finally up to my (fairly high) standards. I actually fancy myself a good editor, although I don’t enjoy the process like some. (And again, I have no real experience with others editing my work, as I tend to be the one editing others’.)
As for my poetry…well, while I don’t know how it is for poets who are actually going to be published (*sigh*), I can say from my experience that people are terrified by the mere idea of “editing” a poem. I only received my first specific suggestions a week ago——to my shock and delight——but the norm continues to be criticism that is vague and unhelpful, with people just responding to the work as a whole. Perhaps I can see why, however, given that even people well-versed in poetry can make moronic statements about a given work that indicates they really haven’t a clue what went into it, and thus rather disqualifying them from offering any helpful advice.
So, as seems to be the pattern, I’m left self-editing. Should I be glad? XD
(Lastly, my apologies for the length of this comment; I suppose I got carried away. -____-;;)
LOL, Joey! Yeah, I’d hate to have me as a student!
Comment as long as you like! It makes me feel like I said something interesting! XD
I was totally going to ask for your help editing this essay, but I just couldn’t get it done in order to ask. Man, this one really kicked my butt.
My two little pubs do very little editing. One used to add a bunch of commas, but hopefully we’ve gotten past that. The other only says something if I’ve totally screwed up, which I’m thankful for, LOL. Needless to say, I’m a big fan of self-editing. I like the kind of writer it’s made me, even though all my early stuff out there REALLY SUCKS.
I always find it such a relief when an editor can help, but I tend to only let people who pay me tinker with things, or one copyeditor friend who’s a genius, LOL. And I still feel that one should strive to be able to do it all on one’s own, if necessary. That’s not to say that an editor would be superfluous, and that it wouldn’t be better without an editor’s eye, but… I like to go at it like I don’t and won’t have that luxury.
Editing poetry would terrify me! It takes me long enough just to catch on!
The way you do it is probably the smart way. I choose to take them in order, even if it means getting stalled halfway through. That way I have incentive to do the tough ones—easier ones are right behind!
LOL, Stephen! See? That’s what I used to teach my students to do. (See “Nightmares First” above in Joey’s comment, LOL.)
Using the easy ones as a reward is a good idea!
I am so sorry to hear that your cat was in hiding all day. That must have been so scary for you
I am glad that she is okay!
I don’t have a method to my edits. I try to do them in all in one pass, but sometimes there is something a bit more complex that I need to mull over for a bit so I write it on my to-do list so that I remember to come back. Usually I do three passes though. I edit my edits.
I was distraught, Lauren! She went missing again this morning, right at breakfast time! It was odd!
You edit, you edit your edits, and you edit your edit’s edits.
(Sorry, I’m in a happy mood.)
I edit as I write. Makes things a whole lot easier in the long run.
Sometimes when I get stuck at a particular passage I’ll go and do a brief editing/rewrite at another part of the story. Usually does the trick and I become unstuck.
I edit as I write, too. It does make things easier!
I like to start every morning with a little tweaking. It gets the gears greased and wheels turning!
You know what’s funny – or not? That is the way I do client edits. 1) A fast read and easy fix – the things that scream at me as I read them. 2)A slow read with the overall issues in mind, going line by line, graf by graf, editing and commenting on the larger and smaller picture and 3)a final read with the changes, adjusting as I go.
I think I should treat myself like my clients.
Duh.
LOL, Amy! Yeah, isn’t that funny?
That sounds like a great system. I never have that sort of time when editing friends, so I generally stick to the bigger picture. With myself, I just constantly edit, and pull back for the larger picture when necessary.
This is hilarious because it’s EXACTLY how I do edits. Right down to the couple passes searching for more quick changes.
I’m so glad Dixie came out of her hiding spot. Did you figure out where she was so you can find her next time?
Melanie, I think I spend more time on the Procrastination passes than on any other part!
I have no idea where she went. She did it again this morning, right before breakfast. I was so annoyed, because it was RIGHT after I’d slipped outside. I was afraid again that she’d gotten outside, LOL! I think she is sneaking behind the furnace and frig, but there is no way for me to get back there. I have no idea how she’s getting back there, but it’s the only remaining possibility!
I always do the easiest ones first myself. It helps get you started and off the blocks fast.
Totally, Charles! Gets the ball rolling. And then Newton’s law starts helping.
I never thought of the problem with having cats while living in a camper. Do they have beepers for cats like the ones on cordless phones? That would be a great solution!
I think it’s cool that you even have an editor! My editor was my mother-in-law. I have to admit – she was pretty good.
Hah! They have them for keys, too, right? I should put them on their collars, LOL! That’s great, Robin! It was funny, but now it sounds practical, too!
She was good!
What a great system, Natasha! I hope you don’t mind if I adopt it for my own use. Normally I just brew coffee and mutter, which is not much of a system…
Sounds like a system to me, Rick! In fact, that’s how I finished!
So how do you do edits? You don’t go in ORDER, do you? LOL!
Umm, yeah, actually I do. LOL! Start at the top, keep going. Not necessarily all in one session, although usually it is, so far; that’s the one benefit to writing short stories. I’m not looking forward to edits once I get my novel finished and submitted. O_O
Angie
An admirable technique, Angie! Good luck with the novel!