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Shop Talk: Editing
Since I am currently revising a novel, I thought that I would natter about editing a bit. :)
Obviously this is just my process; everyone works a bit differently. And I work somewhat differently in fanfic and original fic, too. I need a lot more revisions for my original stuff, partly because my original fic is usually more complicated (there's more going on with the plot and especially the emotional plot threads) and also because a lot of the rough draft process, for me, is just working out who the characters are. Then I have to go back and revise once I've established in my own mind who they are and what they want.
Anyway, I've tried a lot of different things over the years, but the main thing that seems to work for me is an extensive annotation system using square brackets. I do this with both fanfic and original writing, although I make a lot more use of it with the original stuff (especially long projects).
As I write my way through the rough draft, I constantly mark it up with notes in square brackets. Usually I also bold them so they stand out. Sometimes this indicates a scene I will need to come back and write later, because I haven't quite figured out what's going to happen. ([here they talk & he tells her what happened out at the farm]) Sometimes it's something which will break my momentum to research that I need to look up later (["Ford" is a placeholder; look up popular vehicle models in 1935]). Sometimes it's a note on something I changed and need to revise on the rewrite ([everything from here onward is in the fall; need to change time of year in earlier chapters on revision]). Sometimes it's a note on plot or characterization which I might forget and/or I want to keep the subtext of the scene obvious enough that I won't forget what I was thinking when I wrote it ([he is angry here because he thinks she's having an affair due to what he saw in town, but she doesn't know that yet]).
The nice thing about the brackets is that, since I don't use square brackets for anything else, I can always search for them and find all my notes. (And yes, I could use something like Word's notes, but I write in a number of different word processors, only some of which have the ability to make annotations, and this works everywhere.)
After I've let a long manuscript sit for awhile (weeks to months) I do a thorough re-read and fix anything that is easily fixable, ranging from random word choices that jump out at me to bracket notes that are relatively simple to fix (such as shifting the timeline by a few weeks, so that all the different references to weeks and days have to be changed -- time-consuming, but relatively easy to do while reading through). While I'm doing this, I also work on a detailed plot outline, usually doing both a chapter-by-chapter plot synopsis and a timeline of when/where things happen. Sometimes I get fancy. On my revision of Homespun, which has a lot of POV changes, I used colored sticky notes to indicate which scene was from which character's point of view (and ended up shifting a number of them around, when the visual depiction indicated that some people were hogging their "screen time"). Sometimes the timeline is REALLY IMPORTANT, so I make a separate one in great detail -- I had a fake "calendar" for my urban fantasy novel with day of week/day of month, plotting out the major characters' movements from day to day. Sometimes the important thing is what's happening from chapter to chapter, or with the major plot threads, so I'll focus on that instead.
I also work on a detailed list of changes to be made. It's usually at the top of either my draft document, or my outline document, and looks something like this:
- change all references to J's hair color to red or auburn
- add scene in Ch 2 where J talks to K about L
- K's mom is dead; need to watch for references to her
- What happened to the money K stole? That plot thread just disappears. Either eliminate from earlier chapters or add scenes later
(These are just hypothetical notes, but this is what it looks like.)
I also save multiple copies of my rough draft every time I make major changes, using revision numbers -- 1.2, 1.3, 1.35, etc. The 1.0 draft is usually my first finished draft (though sometimes it's gotten so chaotic that I ended up with 2.0 being the first finished one).
Once I get all of this together, I will do the next major draft, crossing off all the stuff on my to-fix list, rewriting scenes, etc. I think of my drafts in terms of a house or a sewing project: first, you knock everything together, or baste the major seams, so that all the big parts are stuck together. Next you go through and do the more delicate stitches, or the broader finish work on a house (adding the sheetrock so the underlying structure is covered up!). Then I let this version sit for a while, and do a final careful read-through, which is the point at which the delicate finishwork is added -- fixing any small things that occur to me, and maybe bigger things that have now become apparent. This is a good time for fixing anything that became broken when new scenes were written or old scenes moved around during the first major rewrite. Sometimes a bunch of new scenes will need to be written at this point, necessitating another detail pass. And so forth. Generally the revising process is done when all the bracket notes are gone.
Obviously this is just my process; everyone works a bit differently. And I work somewhat differently in fanfic and original fic, too. I need a lot more revisions for my original stuff, partly because my original fic is usually more complicated (there's more going on with the plot and especially the emotional plot threads) and also because a lot of the rough draft process, for me, is just working out who the characters are. Then I have to go back and revise once I've established in my own mind who they are and what they want.
Anyway, I've tried a lot of different things over the years, but the main thing that seems to work for me is an extensive annotation system using square brackets. I do this with both fanfic and original writing, although I make a lot more use of it with the original stuff (especially long projects).
As I write my way through the rough draft, I constantly mark it up with notes in square brackets. Usually I also bold them so they stand out. Sometimes this indicates a scene I will need to come back and write later, because I haven't quite figured out what's going to happen. ([here they talk & he tells her what happened out at the farm]) Sometimes it's something which will break my momentum to research that I need to look up later (["Ford" is a placeholder; look up popular vehicle models in 1935]). Sometimes it's a note on something I changed and need to revise on the rewrite ([everything from here onward is in the fall; need to change time of year in earlier chapters on revision]). Sometimes it's a note on plot or characterization which I might forget and/or I want to keep the subtext of the scene obvious enough that I won't forget what I was thinking when I wrote it ([he is angry here because he thinks she's having an affair due to what he saw in town, but she doesn't know that yet]).
The nice thing about the brackets is that, since I don't use square brackets for anything else, I can always search for them and find all my notes. (And yes, I could use something like Word's notes, but I write in a number of different word processors, only some of which have the ability to make annotations, and this works everywhere.)
After I've let a long manuscript sit for awhile (weeks to months) I do a thorough re-read and fix anything that is easily fixable, ranging from random word choices that jump out at me to bracket notes that are relatively simple to fix (such as shifting the timeline by a few weeks, so that all the different references to weeks and days have to be changed -- time-consuming, but relatively easy to do while reading through). While I'm doing this, I also work on a detailed plot outline, usually doing both a chapter-by-chapter plot synopsis and a timeline of when/where things happen. Sometimes I get fancy. On my revision of Homespun, which has a lot of POV changes, I used colored sticky notes to indicate which scene was from which character's point of view (and ended up shifting a number of them around, when the visual depiction indicated that some people were hogging their "screen time"). Sometimes the timeline is REALLY IMPORTANT, so I make a separate one in great detail -- I had a fake "calendar" for my urban fantasy novel with day of week/day of month, plotting out the major characters' movements from day to day. Sometimes the important thing is what's happening from chapter to chapter, or with the major plot threads, so I'll focus on that instead.
I also work on a detailed list of changes to be made. It's usually at the top of either my draft document, or my outline document, and looks something like this:
- change all references to J's hair color to red or auburn
- add scene in Ch 2 where J talks to K about L
- K's mom is dead; need to watch for references to her
- What happened to the money K stole? That plot thread just disappears. Either eliminate from earlier chapters or add scenes later
(These are just hypothetical notes, but this is what it looks like.)
I also save multiple copies of my rough draft every time I make major changes, using revision numbers -- 1.2, 1.3, 1.35, etc. The 1.0 draft is usually my first finished draft (though sometimes it's gotten so chaotic that I ended up with 2.0 being the first finished one).
Once I get all of this together, I will do the next major draft, crossing off all the stuff on my to-fix list, rewriting scenes, etc. I think of my drafts in terms of a house or a sewing project: first, you knock everything together, or baste the major seams, so that all the big parts are stuck together. Next you go through and do the more delicate stitches, or the broader finish work on a house (adding the sheetrock so the underlying structure is covered up!). Then I let this version sit for a while, and do a final careful read-through, which is the point at which the delicate finishwork is added -- fixing any small things that occur to me, and maybe bigger things that have now become apparent. This is a good time for fixing anything that became broken when new scenes were written or old scenes moved around during the first major rewrite. Sometimes a bunch of new scenes will need to be written at this point, necessitating another detail pass. And so forth. Generally the revising process is done when all the bracket notes are gone.
no subject
I've just finished a novel length story and I'll be editing it next year and I found it helpful to have a TO DO document separate from the story to keep notes in like your bullet points, and I'm now using it for more notes that I've thought of while the first draft is with my beta reader (so that I keep my promise not to edit it while she's working on it, but I won't forget anything)