Editing (When the Real Work Begins)

Who likes editing? Well, good for whoever raised their hand. I, however, do not. It's annoying, all the rules about where a comma goes, which word goes first, and all the bloody rules that no one ever is taught in school! (Like when making pauses in dialogue, it's not ... its dot, space, dot, space, dot, space. If you knew that, kudos to you.) I will admit I am not one for grammar and the technical rules in writing. That's okay. That's where spell check, editors, and editing software come in. I will share what I have learned about editing and hope it will help you.

First, find someone who is smart, you trust, and will honestly tell you if a sentence doesn't make sense at all. DO NOT pick someone who says you did a great job. Yes, that's always nice to hear, but an editor is not there to build you up. A good editor will take your written work, break it apart, and rebuild something wonderful. It is always good to have more then one editor. One will notice things the other doesn't, and vise versa. Also, its good to have someone in your marketed age group to read it. Be sure to read what you've written at least twice before sending it to an editor.   

Next, know and except you will have several mistakes on every page. It's alright. Don't freak. Be happy there are a lot of highlighted sentences, because if the editor did not notice it, an annoyed reader will. Mistakes are how to learn anyways. 

Listen to your editors. They know more about editing then you do (that's why they're called an editor and you're the writer). A second opinion should always be accepted warmly. 

Once everything is edited, read the manuscripts over again. I always read it out loud. If that doesn't work for you, at least read the dialogue out loud. People mess up dialogue by adding to many beats (action between dialogue) or not having a clear rhythm throughout the character's words. Make sure everything's how you want it to be. Shoot for perfection and you'll land close. After everything is done, read it over one last time. Yes, its time consuming and hard and draining and you think you'd rather be writing and bla, bla, bla. 10% of making a book is writing it and 90% is editing, designing, and printing it. Even if you're not publishing your written work, the 10% and 90% applies just the same.

There are several editing software for writing and I will only touch on four; StyleWriter, WhiteSmoke, Pro Writing Aid, and Autocrit. What each of these programs does is it reads through a document and records everything. Each counts how many times a word is used, which words should be erased, if something is grammatically incorrect, and so forth. Most suggest different words if another is needed, create graphs to show the length of sentences (which should all be of random lengths by the way), and dialogue tag (he said, she said) tracker. 

If you consider writing as a career, I highly suggest getting one of these programs. Pro Writing Aid and Autocrit offer free editing services, however it is limited. They have advanced programs, but, of course, it takes money. As for WhiteSmoke, I have not heard that many good things about it. I have not personally used it, but found it did not offer as much as the others. As for StyleWriter, there are three package deals you can get. This is the most thorough program and gives a lot of information about you story. It is not necessarily made for creative writing, as the other ones are, however it still can be useful. I suggest researching through all and finding the one that best fits your project.    

Well, there you have it! If you think you're amazing at editing, still have at least two to five other people read what you're working on. I'm not saying you’re dumb and can't edit correctly. Everyone thinks his or her book is amazingly written and is blind to the details. Another set of eyes is always a wise decision.

Happy writing!