Novel Writing Made Less Impossible - Let's Polish This Sucker!

OH BOY! THE FUN BEGINS!

Not really ... but we should try to put our happiest face on this necessary part of the work.

Editing is rarely fun because it points out your errors ... spelling, syntax, structure, virtually everything that you take pride in as a writer. But no writer that I'm aware of gets it right the first time. That's why they're called FIRST drafts.

As I said last week, there are four phases of the editing process (which should go on while you're starting your next book):

1. Full Self-Edits (yeah, plural)

2. Beta Readers

3. Professional Edits (yeah, plural once again)

4. Final Self-Edits (don't panic)

Let's start with the first edit. I know a lot of people who say you shouldn't show anyone your first draft, unless they specifically ask for it. I agree with this. I don't want anyone thinking I'm a gibbering idiot with minimal typing skills from the evidence laid before them. So start with page one and read carefully. Read as if you're a stranger to the work. In fact, you should have stepped away from your manuscript so you could look at this a tad more objectively (i.e., you remember whatever difficulties you had in writing the first draft).

You might want to do a sweep through the story, first, to find typos and punctuation errors. Then another one to see if the story flows well. Was something rushed? Did you spend too much time in one aspect of the tale? Did you change locations enough? Did you put in enough description to make it real, without describing something in excruciatingly microscopic detail? Does the plot hold up?

I mentioned a "secret weapon" last week ... you'll love me for this.

Once you make all the passes you can without finding errors, none of which are fatal, you should read the story aloud. It's a good way to find even more mistakes, especially in terms of syntax and sentence construction.

The problem is by this time, we are sick to tears of our work. We've read it half a dozen times and frankly, it's discouraging to STILL find little goofs, which are okay because they're not going to bring about the end of the world.

As an actor, I found myself feeling a bit self-conscious about reading something out loud without an audience. (All actors have their superstitions ... I guess that's mine) Also, I found myself SELLING the prose to myself with my inflection. So I went to the Interwebs and typed "text to speech free download MS Word" into my fave rave web browser that rhymed with "Foogle." I sifted through the first page results and found one from a source I trusted.* After reading the reviews, as well as the reasons for the ratings, I selected a program to download. Then I repeated this exercise, but replaced the word processing program with "OpenOffice."

*Be cautious when downloading. Make certain you do this ONLY through a reputable site, one that doesn't attach special "search engines," toolbars, or viruses. Scan every program you get because you can't be too cautious.

The programs I selected interfaced with the existing work processing programs, becoming part of each program's toolbar. How convenient, I say.

With these programs, I can highlight a section of text, and the program will read it back to me with minimal inflection. The Word version allows me to change between male and female speakers, which was handy when I wrote "Where is Daphne? Where is Daphne?" for The Haunted Scripts of Bachelors Grove, my latest book release.

The great thing is without inflection, your spelling and syntax errors will jump out at you. It's a fantastic tool for editing.

Once this editing phase ends, it's time to send it out. I'm not one for Art By Committe, but this one is special ... and a LOT of work ... but the results can be glorious!

NEXT WEEK: The Care and Feeding of Beta Readers

TOMORROW (No, your eyes aren't deceiving you): Something I Haven't Thought Of As I'm Typing This, But I'll Come Up With Something

SPECIAL NOTE: My newest book, The Haunting Scripts of Bachelors Grove, will be out on Friday, February 2nd, 2018. It's part memoir, part grimoire. The first half deals with my entry into writing indie comics and joining Silver Phoenix Entertainment. I print four of my comic scripts for The Haunting Tales of Bachelors Grove, three of which have not been produced yet. Then I add four horror prose tales, three of which are NEW. All this behind a great cover by my Art Sherpa, Trevor Erick Hawkins, over 300 pages of terror and history for only $19.95.

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#Google #Editing #Writing