Editing Is Like Raising Children...

GUYS I FEEL SO ACCOMPLISHED. I'VE ACTUALLY BEEN WORKING ON MY BOOK. YAY!!! I've probably spent 20 hours, give or take, since last Friday working on editing or on my characters or world building. I feel very accomplished. But nothing like what it will feel like when I actually finish my edits, I'm sure ;)

One of the things I've had to do this week as I've edited is make a few sacrifices. Which is sometimes hard, but you've got to do it.

In Gail Carson Lavine's (the author of one of my absolute favorite children's books Ella Enchanted - seriously, you are never too old for that book. It is just so good.) book Writing Magic (that was a pretty great Christmas gift, Thank You Grandma!), she makes this comment about the difficulties of having to cut something you love, which I happen to love (her comment about it, not the cutting something you love.)

"You will sometimes write paragraph of staggering loveliness, You will! Probably you already have. You’ll want to have those paragraphs tattooed on your forehead where everyone will see them.

Then you’ll discover that they don’t help tell your story. Do not do not DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT bend your story to accommodate your brilliant words.

Revising and cutting take courage and self-confidence. You have to believe that you will write equally brilliant prose again. And you will. There’s no doubt about it. And some of your new brilliant prose will have to be revised or cut. But some will actually fit your story. Hallelujah!"

In this particular case it's not brilliant prose that I had to give up, but when I wrote the book I was very determined that I was going to write in 3rd person limited from the perspective of my main character. And I had every intention of sticking to that.

On Thursday I decided that I was pretty much going to have to add the perspective of the second main character and alternate chapters by POV.

I was really dead set against that when I started writing it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really kind of needed to add it. Because of my main character's position for most of the book, she can't be involved in a lot of the most important stuff going on, she has to be told or figure everything out second hand. Which isn't that bad. I knew that and still was determined to write it with only my main character's POV.

Then I also realized that it was sagging/boring in the beginning and at the end because she wasn't involved in anything. And I couldn't get her involved in anything without sacrificing some important plot points.

Also, the change in one character at the beginning seemed way to out of the blue without that perspective change... Writing from only the perspective of one character has its downsides.

Downsides which I have discovered in the past few weeks trying to edit this thing that I'm trying to turn into a readable book.

Maybe it's going to be the complete opposite for you; you want to have multiple character's perspectives but discover what's best for your book is to only have one.

Really I feel like that's what editing's all about. It's about doing what's best for the book, regardless of what you might want to do. You created this thing when you wrote your first draft. You gave birth to your child. Now you have to raise it into its own person. And you know most of the ideas about what will be good for this child. Go to school, don't eat glue, don't play with knives, don't shove beads up your nose, eat vegetables.

But at the same time the child (in this case your book... and I guess since we're all under 20 kind of sort of us...) needs to grow up into its own person. So don't be afraid to see it growing into something you weren't quite expecting, or doing something differently than you thought it would. As long as it's not on drugs and spending time in jail, you're good!

... well that metaphor came out of no where.

In addition to deciding to add another perspective despite my reluctance, I also figured out a lot more about my antagonist's past and reasoning, which really really needed to happen. An hour sitting outside in the shade with a pad of paper, a pencil, and my thoughts. Did wonders.

The Difference Between Editing and Revising

Okay so maybe this post was inspired by the assignment I'm supposed to have due on Monday and maybe I'm using this post as an excuse to not do that assignment... but... I'm posting something. That's good right?

Note to self: make a post on procrastination.

I'll do that next week.

*base drums and a cymbal*

Anyways.

This is a concept that a lot of people in my AP English class can't really seem to grasp. There is a difference between revising and editing. A lot of the time people, myself included, tend to use the two words interchangeably. I've told you all plenty of times that I'm editing my novel, but I'm really revising it (though there is a fair share of plain editing).

Editing usually entails going through and fixing spelling mistakes and grammar and awkward sentence structures. A lot of time when people think about first and second drafts and the like, that's the first thing they think of. That's pretty much all I did to my essays in 8th grade. And that's fine for an 8th grader turning in an essay for English class. That's not all right for someone submitting a novel.

Your first draft sucks.

My first draft sucks.

Margaret's first draft sucked.

It's safe to assume that every book you've ever read's first draft sucked.

Like a Dyson vacuum.

According to Google's automatic definitions, to revise means to "reconsider and alter (something) in the light of further evidence".

Second drafts are for changes. Real changes. You're supposed to reconsider and alter. Not just the spelling or the sentence structure. It calls for rewriting a lot of stuff. Getting rid of entire characters, adding entire characters, rewriting the first three chapters eight times, considering whether or not you're going to keep chapter 4, 7, and 13.

Just so far in my second draft, I cut out about 8 chapters of background information, added a minor character, changed the outcome of a pretty big scene, I'm trying to figure out how to seriously alter a couple of the other minor character's roles, expanding the first two chapters into more like four or five, changing the end... that's revising. And that's not even the end. Who knows what stuff I'm going to change for the third or fourth revisions? And then after that, who knows what my editors going to ask me to/suggest/help me work on changing?

Don't even get my started on the revisions Margaret's doing. She's more on like her 30th revision, but the prologue's changed who knows how many times, she's added a bad guy, her second main character's role has changed COMPLETELY, the situation surrounding her character's involvement in the plot has changed, the end has changed completely... It's ridiculously different.

Now, does this mean your other drafts have to be unrecognizable from you first, well, no. It still the same story, you should be able to tell that one is the product of the other, but should it be significantly better?

A resounding yes.

And you can always make more edits! Your book isn’t set in stone until it’s published (and even then there are editions where you can mess with stuff).

Whether you need to pay extremely, extremely close attention to editing is another post. Usually most people will say you should definitely make sure that it’s decent. No one wants to read a manuscript that’s riddled with errors. It automatically makes them less inclined to like what you’re writing. But it doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect.

Your first priority is revising though. Just about anyone with a solid grasp of the English language (and spell check) can produce a literary work that is edited and correct. Only writers worth their salt can produce a literary work with balanced pace and strong characters and gripping actions ect.

Moral of the story: Revise, don’t edit.

Fun example:

"'Never again', said the blackbird." First draft.

"Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore,'" Final draft.