What is your process for editing a very rough draft? I feel as though I'm editing in circles. I rewrote the opening chapters so I rewrote the next four chapters. In rewriting those I changed some things and then re-rewrote the opening chapters and then had to rewrite the next four... the snake eating it's own tail is still in my house.
What is your process for editing? In detail please, because I clearly need a system and I don't know how to do this. Previous to this book I've only written short stories so editing was a very different beast. I just rewrote everything over and over until I liked it. This requires being more systematic but I don't know how to begin.
HELP!
Hi, Mencara. My friend, Melissa, is another sassy, funny awesome woman like yourself who writes romance/erotica. Her IWSG was on the exact same topic. I pointed her to you, and now I'm directing you to her at:
ReplyDeletehttp://melissasimaginarium.blogspot.com
Someday, the three of us must go for drinks. I can tell it'd be the time of my life.
On the topic of rough drafts, I don't listen to the "experts." I edit and edit as I'm writing my first draft. That way, it's in good shape for more editing. It sounds like you're making progress. Really, it IS all about editing. It's bologna (to put it nicely) to say that you shouldn't edit as you write. That ain't possible.
Cheers,
xoRobyn
Well the problem was I wrote this novel for NaNoWriMo which was amazing and I'm glad I did it, but it is ROUGH. And the middle is a little mmmm, underwritten. This isn't so much a rough draft as it is the skeleton of a story and I'm just now adding in the fleshy bits.
DeleteI'm with Robyn. I edit as I write. A "bad habit" to the mainstream writing society, but I'm an editor (at heart), so that's what I do.
ReplyDeleteDo you have more than the...however many chapters you're editing in circles? If so, edit all the way through before you make the changes. It will at least make you less dizzy. ;)
Ooh, or maybe even make note of each point that you've edited and look at those so you can keep track and edit from that frame until everything adds up, THEN fix the main thing? Did you understand that? I often don't make as much sense out loud than in my head.
The first thing I did when I went into the millionth edit of my novel was make a list of all the scenes/chapters, taking notes as I went about where it needed beefing up, explanations, etc. Of course, I'm still in Revision Hell, but this did help a lot!
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