Friday, December 16, 2011

Editing Begins

     I have been putting off editing my book for some time. I did want to put a little time and space between my finishing the book and when I began the editing process, but for some reason, I dreaded the start of the process. I think I may have been fooling myself, believing that it was going to be good enough, but not wanting to face the problems the book obviously has. Last night, I had a moment when trying (and failing) to fall asleep where I wanted to scrap nearly the whole thing.
     The book is better than that. I have read that it is much better and easier to fix a bad page rather than start with a blank one, and I agree with that.
     After just four pages, my manuscript was covered in red marks (I may change colors to something a bit less depressing than red...like purple of green). Most of it is just minor changes to punch up the wording; to make things more clear; to make sure the story is being shown, not simply told. I wrote my first draft so quickly (29 days) that there are a lot of problems with my writing, because I didn't edit as I went.
     This is just the beginning. I enjoyed editing more than I thought I would. I think it is much easier to do it on a printed manuscript than it would be on computer screen.

Here are some of the major things I am looking for on my first run through:
  • Clear writing
  • Making sure verbs are present tense
  • Good dialogue mechanics (this needed a lot of work)
  • Believable dialogue
  • Strong voice both from characters and in narration
  • Making sure I SHOW not tell.
After all of that, I will clean up my manuscript and send it out for more people to read. After all the writing is better, I can focus more on changes to plot that I need to make.

1 comment:

  1. This is so exciting Kyle. I love seeing people go after their dreams. You've inspired me :)

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