Editing 101: How Much, What Kind, and When?
From my Newsletter, Fall 2007.
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A couple of clients have been asking me how you know what level of editing to do when. They were all non-fiction people, but I think these guidelines apply to both fiction and non-fiction. However, with fiction, you may not get to the putting it together part until you’ve already done a first draft.
When you are putting together a book, you want to work from the top down, so that you don’t find yourself getting really detailed in a piece that may not belong in the book at all. So here are the steps I use:
1. Structure
This is the broadest part, where you put together the building blocks of what you have to say. The thing to think about is-what has to come before what? That is, what will the reader need to know before they can understand each piece?
This is the place where you will look from the furthest away perspective. It can be helpful to let yourself play with these blocks – literally. See what happens if you move them around in a different order. This works best if you actually put an abbreviation of each block on an index card and tack them on a bulletin board. Or put the structure up on some big paper, using different colors for different blocks.
2. Transition
Once you have the big ideas down, you need to think about how they lead into each other. I ask: Does the “what” flow into the next “what”? You could call these “bitty blocks.”
3. Refinement
This is the first stage of pure writing. The question to ask here is, Am I explaining the idea within the “what” of each block clearly? Is it comprehensible?
4. Pure writing
This is the part that most people think of as editing. This is the very last stage for me. The question here is: Am I saying it as well as I can? Is it emotive? Is it pretty? Especially, does it sound good? Is it interesting? (As opposed to dull.)
Some really great writers spend most of their time on this part, rewriting, choosing different words, listening and reading to get other ideas for words that add the right texture or rhythm. Others may find that doing too much here will ruin the writing. So you have to be careful. Especially, don’t delete the old versions! (I always do a “save as” on the computer and give each version a new number at the end.) That way you can always go back if you find you went too far.