Writer With A Chainsaw
Firstly, I’ve contributed a signed copy of The Iron Thorn to Richelle Mead’s Japan relief auction. 100% of my auction monies will go to Doctors Without Borders.
Second verse, different from the first: (shut up, I know that’s not how it goes) My book blogger giveaway of five copies of Iron Thorn with the provision that the winners write and post a review is running through Friday.
Now, on to today’s topic, which was suggested on Twitter: self-editing.
When writers think of edits, they usually think of this:
This is a page of the second Iron Codex novel that Editor Krista has helpfully scribbled on to ensure I suck less.
But Caitlin! you lament. I have not yet acquired an editor! or My editor will poke me with sharp sticks if I don’t send in a polished draft!
Now, let’s be clear. Nowhere should sharp sticks enter the mix. (Unless you have to stab your own hand, Dark Half-style, to quell your evil alter-ego from writing graffiti all over your manuscript.)
However, there is going to be a lot of chopping. Ruthless chopping. SAW chopping.
There are two basic schools of thought on self-editing (ie, editing your own manuscript without professional input.)(And yes, we’ll get to crit partners in a second.)
Edit as You Go (Hereinafter known as the Fightin’ Marmosets)
You write a chapter. You go back to the beginning, edit for style, clarity, continuity, and prose. You repeat this for 60-90,000 words, and all the writers who don’t edit as they go froth at the mouth because your grammar is so neat and correct.
Edit a Rough Draft (Hereinafter known as the Vodka Bottle Half-Full of Kool-aid)
You write a zero draft, which is messy and uncorrected and doesn’t realize you changed your heroine’s hair color on page 122 and didn’t go back and fix anything that came before. You go back and painstakingly fix all your mistakes, tighten and rewrite and then drink a bunch and possibly cry.
Neither of these schools is better than the other. You need to decide which one is going to work for you. The basic tenets of self-editing successfully work on both, with slight tweaks and a bit of WD-40.
- You’re too close to your own work. It’s pretty essential you get another set of eyes on your novel or novella or rhyming couplet. You can find writing crit partners in a variety of ways, you can ask a friend who reads and you trust to be honest give you the skinny, or you can post excerpts to a critique group such as the Online Writer’s Workshop. Either way, new eyes will pick out problems that you literally can’t, because the book is all in your head, mashed up and uncomfortably close.
- Clarity is your friend. You know everything about your book. Everything about your world. Go through and ask yourself a simple question every time you hit a new worldbuilding point: Can my readers figure this out? You don’t have to smash people over the head with the VAMPIRES EXIST hammer, frex, but can your reader figure out how the vampires fit into the world the moment the story begins? Can they discern the rules that govern vampires (sunlight BAD, sunlight SPARKLY, garlic y/n, etc)?
- Characters do not spring fully formed. Sometimes in a zero draft your characters will be stunted and boring. Make sure, when editing, you firm up their motivation, their story arcs, and their relationships to other characters. This is the difference between “The villain in this book is SATAN HIMSELF” and “The villain in this book is a complicated, Machiavellian individual who shares a number of parallel traits with the Dark Lord of Hell.”
- Continuity. This one is really easy. Go back to page 122 and make the hair color the same all the way through.
- Sentence-level writing is hard, yo. This is the finicky part. Go back, tweak your writing, and make sure it’s as tight, shiny, sharp and multi-functional (advancing plot, theme, character development and scene story arc) as can be. This is where the vodka comes in. Also sometimes the crying.
- Cliches: not always wrong. “Kill your darlings”. You don’t have to kill them ALL, those sentences or passages you REALLY LOVE SO MUCH OMG WE WOULD GET MARRIED IF IT WAS LEGAL, but if they’re dragging down your tight, shiny, sharp sentences you spent so many hours and jugs of cheap liquor and/or Red Bull on? Kill those fuckers. Kill them with a chainsaw.
- Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. Sometimes we screw up in our first drafts. Sometimes, we realize we need to rip out chunks of the book that are HUGE, and will require WEEKS to repair. Do it. Don’t be afraid.
- Trust your gut. Your gut knows when a scene isn’t working and you’re just too scared or too tired to rip it out, fix it, and reaffix it to the manuscript. Your gut also usually knows when you have a blank spot that needs a new scene, chapter, character, whatever. Your gut is really smart about your book. Especially when you give it tacos.
- Don’t be afraid. Self-editing without a ton of guidance is scary and daunting. But it’s the one thing that will make you a better writer, more than any other. You can have talent, you can have the ability to finish a book, but the ability to know what needs fixing after the fact is what will improve your skills as a writer quicker than any boot camp.
Good luck, little editors and editrixes. And remember, nobody can tell it’s vodka if you drink it out of a coffee mug.
Originally published at Caitlin Kittredge.com