Topic of the Week - Whip It

[jer_bear711]

mikaela_l asked a question that hits home this week, as I'm in the final, niggling, examine-every-sentence-frontward-and-backward polish stage on my latest WIP.

How do you know when you are editing too harshly?

Um...when the deadline is in forty minutes, and you're agonizing over comma placement?

No, seriously. What do you all think?  Surely there is a

Comments

[green_knight]

I think you need to have a vision for the book as a whole before you can edit it. And I am not talking about the copyediting that every writer also needs to do - the looking at the flow of sentences and whether you've chosen the best words - I'm talking about structural stuff

[ruadan63]

I don't know who said it originally, but I heard it from Oliver Stone: "Perfect is the enemy of good." For me, when the only changes in a given passage of text are tiny individual word choices, I figure I'm done: it means the rhythm, the story, the characters, all work properly and I'm down to picking nits.

That said, I will jump at any chance in the process (copy-edited manuscripts, bound galleys, advance reader copies) to go through the thing one more time.

[jtucktattoo]

When you begin asking yourself if you are overediting.

That's a good sign to back off.

[jessaslade]

Having just turned in version 6 (yes, 6) of my book, I do think a story can always be better. BUT there are just too many pages with too many words to believe you can perfect each one and not go stark raving insane. So then I think the concern becomes ROI (return on investment) and your mental health :)

Compelling is more important than polished. When you tighten and polish to the point you lose energy and voice, you've gone too far.

[green_knight]

Thanks for the explanation, otherwise I would be spending the rest of the evening wondering what the Republic of Ireland has to do with anything.