Completion
of a novel is a great satisfaction in itself. Celebrate that achievement and
then put the book aside for a period of time, from a couple of weeks to a
couple of months if you can stand it. Start another project, keep writing, but
let your completed manuscript be for a while. When you come back to it, you do
so as a reader instead of author and you'll have a much more objective take on
what works and what doesn't.
So, putting
on your editor's hat, what should you be looking for? Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King is a
very useful book that contains detailed guidance including checklists,
exercises and techniques for editing your novel into shape. The chapter
headings of the book (e.g. Show and Tell, Characterization and Exposition,
Point of View) reveal editing for what it really is. Editing is the process of
realigning your novel with best practice. You read your work through, compare
it with The Rules and then adjust as best you can.
How you
accomplish this task depends upon what works for you. Here are some
characteristic approaches.
The Reiterator likes to edit on the hoof whilst writing the
manuscript. S/he writes a paragraph, reads back the paragraph, adjusts,
rereads, tweaks. Once the manuscript first draft is finished, The Reiterator may feel that the job is
complete. Nevertheless, a holistic view is needed in editing that first draft
to ensure the perfect pieces of the jigsaw meld well together. A
disadvantage of The Reiterator is
completion of the first draft can take a very, very long time compared to other
approaches which are more tolerant of imperfection.
The Salami Slicer takes a knife to the manuscript and severs
slices of less than perfect writing according to each of The Rules. The Salami Slicer
places the narrative voice hat upon their head and reads the manuscript through
for consistent and appropriate narrative point of view, adjusting as necessary.
Then the dialogue hat is donned, the show-not-tell hat and so on. This approach
means a new read through for every rule but is very thorough. One pitfall is The Salami Slicer can become fixated on
a particular aspect of The Rules and
overdo the editing. For example, the word that
is often overused by new authors and can be eliminated unless essential for
the meaning of a sentence, but such a narrow focus can lead to a mechanical
approach and leave readers tripping over sentences where that is actually needed but has been cut.
The Jack of All Trades applies all the rules at once as
s/he reads through the manuscript, spotting discontinuities, point of view
slips, structural and grammatical problems etc. as they arise. This is the
fastest and most holistic way to edit but requires a high degree of alertness
and flexibility. If you can do this then perhaps you have a future career sideline as an editor!
The Listener prefers to hear the manuscript read aloud. A
traditional Listener will lock
themselves away and read the book out loud to themselves, but the 21st century Listener uses a text-to-speech facility
on their e-reading device or laptop. There are numerous text-to-speech voices
and accents available free on the web, but even the robotic default MS voices
do a good job of exposing missing commas, word echo, unintentional alliteration
and stilted or unnatural dialogue. A good Listener
can sense, from the cadence of spoken word, the mood and emotions of the piece.
That's if they can concentrate and stay awake for the duration of the reading.
The Outsourcer wants to be done with the manuscript once the
first draft is completed and have a third party (sometimes more than one) take
care of slapping the novel into shape. Depending upon the level of financial
investment you are willing to make, this may be an option. Some novel writing
books advocate passing your manuscript through the hands of different types of
editor e.g. developmental, copy, proofreading. The advantage of this is you can
whisk your manuscript off to the third party as soon as it's finished, no time
wasted. The disadvantage is the author doesn't gain the learning themselves
from having self-edited. In addition, editors can't make a silk purse out of a
sow's ear. If, as an independent author, you do want to outsource your editing
then you need an element of confidence that your writing has reached a level
that makes paid-for editing worthwhile.
Self-editing
is a learning experience. Being able to spot what works and what doesn't, and
learning how to fix the deficiencies, eventually leads to an increased
sophistication in the author's writing. These skills can be further developed
by participating in writing groups where you will also have the opportunity to
edit the work of others.
