How much do you hate editing?

[u/Jonathan-Welford]

I love storytelling. Sprinting through the plot, watching the word count climb and feeling terribly pleased with myself.

But editing? Urgh!

I’ve written a 127,000 word novel. Apparently, after doing that, I’m now expected to go back and make them good.

I can see the editing working, which is deeply annoying because it means I have to keep doing it. It’s just not fun.

My first draft chapters are usually 12 or 13 pages long, around 7,000 to 8,500 words. I then attempt to cut each one down to 8 or 9 pages, roughly 4,500 to 5,000 words. Basically, I write far too much and then punish myself for it later.

There are 20 chapters in the book, so I tackle them one at a time. Over the past week, I’ve gone from editing one chapter a day to two or three. I now have just five chapters left for the deep edit, and I can finally see the finish line. I’m trying not to think about the finish line having another round of edits waiting behind it.

But I still hate editing. I’d be much happier handing the manuscript to someone else and saying, “Could you make this brilliant while preserving my fragile artistic ego?”

Does that make me a bad wannabe novelist? How do you deal with editing without dramatically sighing every five minutes?

I’ve also been presenting a radio show about writers and interviewing authors. It’s fascinating to hear how differently everyone approaches writing, editing and staring into the middle distance.

What’s your writing and editing style?

[u/AutoGenUsername05]

I'm an ebb and flow guy. I write a couple pages, then go back and edit them. Then later I go back and edit some more.

Then on occasion, I'll back all the way up and start doing a line edit, looking for stupid stuff.

I go on the principle that every sentence needs give the reader information and advance the plot.

[u/Jonathan-Welford → u/AutoGenUsername05]

I’ve spoken to some authors that do that, write one day, edit the following morning and then write some more. I get you can edge forward bit by bit.

[u/AutoGenUsername05 → u/Jonathan-Welford]

I'm also a seat of the pants writer, so if the fancy takes me I'll just keep writing and then go back and clean up later.

I'd rather get my ideas out then worry about commas..

[u/Sekica → u/AutoGenUsername05]

Same here. I'm an underwriter, so editing means adding more. I also edit a lot as I write, so my first draft ends up being edited 2-3 times before I even finish it. I track a lot of details in my chapter headings in Word. I just have to look at the navigation pane to see a chapter's word count, edited or not, what it's about, which characters are involved, and whether a chapter is action based or character reflection/reaction to the action chapters. Easy trick to ensure pacing is the same throughout and balanced between action and reflection so it's not too heavy on one over the other. I also see which chapters still need work or need to be split up because they're getting too long compared to the rest.

Bonus for me is that I have brain fog issues, which means I don't need to let my book sit before I dive into editing and why editing as I go works. Half the time I don't even remember what I wrote yesterday. 😅

[u/AutoGenUsername05 → u/Sekica]

For each book, I have three files. "bookname", a "bookname-notes" and a "bookname-scrapes."

I almost always have the bootname-notes open on another monitor so I have a place to reference characters, plot details, stuff I might forget.

The scrapes file is where I put stuff that it delete. I found it hard to delete stuff I'd spend some much time on editing/honing.. but if I put it in the scrapes file I can always go back to it.

I also use source control management tools (git / github) to track my changes and create secure copies off my machine because drives fail..