January 25, 2007
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I’m not sure why but I started editing the novel last night. I mean I’m not sure why last night. It’s a good story and my insecurity about writing a Black man is gone, now that I know Rudy. He’s a total fit for the character. I believe he and I had our last conversation the other day so I feel free to use him now. Plus he told me I could a long time ago.
It being my first book and having begun it as a lark, for Nanowrimo, I didn’t spend any time dolling it up. I just told the story. I thought this second time through would be all about making it beautiful but all I’m doing is cleaning up messes. My progress is evident, as I see mistakes where before I saw perfection
. My question is should I be lingering over each chapter, embellishing now, or should I whip through the pages, fixing the tenses and tightening it up? I have a better feel for the characters now than I did in the beginning chapters so I am rewriting lots of the dialogue. My sense is that I should do all that and come back a third time, after a break where I attack the memoir. Then I would be fresh to do all the scenery and flesh out the characters. Or does it make more sense to complete one chapter at a time? Help me out Jer.
Comments (21)
I am taking a creative writing class and there is a fellow in there who has a book (15,000 words) that I think is a very interesting story yet he recycles it, edits and fusses to the point that the entire class sees his folly of continual edit. I am remined of my father who would look at the hayfield and say, “Well, that’s good enough.” If you have the concept send out some letters with a sample chapter and keep your fingers crossed. But hey what do I know? The market did well yesterday. Cheers
What vexation said…to a degree. What did everyone do before work processing? Can you imagine typing in sequence. I think that you get ‘tucked into’ the story, the characters and to reread later is more than necessary. I thought you quit Rudy long ago…didn’t know that he was still a friend. Friends are great. I’m sure he’s flattered.
I love to see your decision as well Jer’s opinion. I see my mistakes again and again every time I reread my writing.
Yes! a break is good and so is having an editor (i am still looking for a good one that i click with) you know to let them do what they do best….lol
I don’t know how many time I have lost the purity and freshness of a story by overworking it…”making it right”. So now I try to express it, lay it down and move on…I will come back when the story calls me.
Ah I miss hearing your stories of you and Rudy…but I guess one day I will get to reap from your experiences with him…that is when I buy a copy of the book. Oh yes, an autographed copy.
Love and hugs and many blessings,
Ashes.
if you are editing to put in stuff, my suggestion is to go through the entire novel doing it that way, but then come in a last time for grammer and tense. it’s work, but worth it. i say you will know when it’s done, but why send out something that may need work? you get one impression; think of sending it out as the business end of writing, not the art part, and you will want to show a product that is finished and ready.
ahh the writing process…
I can’t wait to read Rudy fictionalized.
I vote to do a chapter at a time using what you have as an outline.
(that’s what i plan to do with one of my short story sketches… when I get around to it… Muse uncooperative lately.)
I tend to clean the big things first, my first editing go round is for “the story”, my second for “the grammar” and then it goes back-and-forth. I’d like to think that vexations has a point but there are not many agents or publishing company editors who will really “edit” as in the old days of Fitzgerald, et al. Now there are just “book packagers” but they will make it not yours anymore.
which ever technique works for you is right. i tend to do a first edit check to look for mistakes in the timeline, things that don’t fit, and continuity errors. this is the edit i do b4 i let anyone read it. my second major edit happens after someone reads it and marks all the places they didn’t quite understand. then it sits about 6 months. my third edit is the final and clean one (hopefully) when i look at every single word and determine if it’s the right one for me in that sentence. after that- i start the whole marketing piece. there is about 4 months of work for me to prepare a book to send out- there’s the summary, the character summaries, the chapter synoposis, the three page synoposis, and then the cover letter. from what i understand NO major book co will look at a book by an unknown author that isn’t clean and your best effort. you might get into an exclusive writer’s workshop w/an unedited book, but that’s about it- unless you know someone. i’ve decided that after a certain amount of rejections, i’ll look at each book and do a rewrite if i think i need it. i’m also starting to send stuff to an editor before i submit it- bc you get so close to it that you can’t see it’s flaws. i’m about ready to send the first 3 chapters of the one i’m editing now to an editor near to both our hearts. i also have a lead on a professional editor who has contacts as well. that’s what i’m doing right now as well— searching for contacts!
i’ve been letting more people read my stuff and i’ve been very open about needing help getting it to the right person… so that means that i have a trip to denver to meet someone next month and using the professional editor as well. it’s not enough to write your best work anymore (unless you’re self-publishing- which i plan to try as well), you have to be willing to invest in the marketing side. i’d rather have an agent to do the marketing, but i’m still collecting rejections from them as well. the important thing about the whole editing process is to take the time to make sure you’re telling the story you want to tell in the best manner. you can overwork it (which is why i save each edited version by number: raw, edit 1, edit 2, etc. that way i know which one is the latest and i can always look back at what i cut out if i think i need it! hope that helps! but like i said- any way that works for you is best for you! my way won’t be your way and that’s ok! in fact, that’s right!
i don’t know why they aren’t showing up. but while i’m writing some… i’m reading a lot less and commenting even less… my way of being selfish lately and a bit more balanced. so i may not read every time you update, but when i get time, i read backwards and catch up. i try to do a person a day.
so if you have a question, leave me a message or i may not see it until weeks later! 
it’s the only way i know how to cope here and still accomplish everything!
np… i learned the hard way with the book i’m editing now when in a fit of editing madness i just deleted a third of the book and didn’t save the original! now i’d kind of like it back- but too bad!
ryc: Code? we’ve got very few codes around here. Just, “play nice.” So, no problem. Actually I think this story began with two things, the scene I’ve tried to recapture in the image above and the sense of cold Atlantic air blowing through ancient window sash. That spun a memory out (exact truth, no, of course not, but still, a very strong memory). That memory gave me the line about “the mist and fog” and then I was writing. But mechanically the first and third paragraphs (stanzas?) came first. The second one came last. There was originally something much more specific to the memory in that place, but it made little sense, and didn’t build the story. There’s where the “deep maps” Lionne and I have been talking about come in. What is it that roots “the character” to this place? What allows him to feel “the breath of the world”? In this, because of who the character is, it is that vast ancient connection. Then I go back in, not really for grammar – other than the big violations like tense, but much more for rhythm. One of my favorite “editors” told me to break my short fiction into poetry-like lines and edit it for rhythm and excess words while seeing it that way. “Every word matters” she always says. “I wish you would take my grammar course,” she adds.
oh, the above is on my blog too, but I wanted to add this. I find myself trying to walk a very fine “adjective line.” My stories tend to take place in very specific locales, be it New York City or Dublin or Derry or sometimes Michigan, and I’m a very visual person, so I “see it” first, and I want to get the sense of that… the scene, the sound, the smell, but if I get too specific there is no way in for people not “of” that specific place (see the problem with “snogging” from last week). In a novel you can build the requisite knowledge but in short fiction I think there needs to be enough that is undescribed that readers can see themselves and what is precious to them inside the story.
I’ve no advice, but I’m anxious for you to share the process. marilyn
I’d think only you know your own process and what works best for you. Likely once fleshed, you’ll end up editing again which some would see as double work and some it would simply be the process.
All my life I’ve been notoriously bad at rewriting anything. I tend to be in a different mind-set and obscure what’s there. So I’ve learnt to edit like crazy when I’m writing it, and leave it alone after. But my work has become increasingly poetic, which is very different to writing a novel. The most I might do later is add connective pieces because the leaps I expect my readers to take with me are too large. Other than that, I have to trust that the whole manuscript holds together in its own way. I experiment with language. Much of my writing draws on fairly intellectual stuff and I need to know that people who don’t know the references can still understand it, and blogging helps with this. My present criteria for writing and editing is does it penetrate surfaces, is it true to the thought/heart patterns, does it get at what is impossible to define. While stuff still gets published online here and there, mostly through solicitation, I have yet to fully finish a manuscript and send it out.
But when I paint, first I spend a lot of time on the sketch – even if it’s destroyed later by the wet paint. Perhaps that’s more of a model, or more like the one you’re talking about… that you’ve sketched in the novel, and now you’ve begun enrichening it, clarifying, honing, expanding, polishing…
We each work differently. It’s important to know how you work best. Keep a copy of the original just in case you overwork the book and it loses its raw edge, its spark.
Finding an editor you can work with, now that’s a whole other aspect.
I’d work on it until you’re ready to show someone, and ready to send samples out to agents and publishers…
I’m writing a story from the POV (mainly) of a male. I wonder if I have any business doing this.
I would say tighten it up and then make it sing..but if you see some change you can’t resist to it when you feel it…but I have never written fiction and am no expert…..I am really excited to see you committed to this project…
I don’t think there is a right way and a wrong way to polish a book. Either plan sounds good to me.
I’d go with: only you will know what makes it right, and when that occurs. I equate that to the way I am with new clothes. I must shop alone, I make my best purchases when I trust only my own instincts. But, only until the project is to the point that you feel it complete, and then a professional editor will be able to help bring it to its ultimate form. (Even when I’m absolutely sure of a choice there’s always the possibility of change.) I truly feel that successful authors are people of great confidence and determination. You fit.
wish you the best with your novel!
I read your comment this morning and smiled.You are one of the lucky ones.I noticed a while back in your blog that you live deliberately..you don’t wait passively for wonder to move you but seek it in life…and I think perhaps that is why you are appreciative of the miracles that are everywhere.The seeing you do is part of your craft i suppose but also an essential part of who you are.
I have no advice other that to do what feels right. And I’m thrilled, somehow, that you’re doing this. It feels right to have you writing again.