That four-letter cuss word: EDIT

By special request, I'm going to try to write about the part of a writer's life that is a necessary evil: that word EDIT.  (With apologies to those who read this before I tried to put in a single word - and accidentally wiped out the blog entry when, for some reason, the program decided I didn't want to just edit, but to start over.  This is the most radical way to edit something....*sigh*)

When I sit down to try to edit my work, this quote always comes to mind: “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” - Dr. Seuss.  The good Dr. reminds me that I need to make sure that my work doesn't have extra words that it doesn't need to tell the story.

The first step in editing for me is to remind myself how the publisher wants the submission to appear.  For instance, Write Words Inc., the current publisher I work with, likes the manuscript as follows: "Manuscripts should be single spaced, without any extra lines between paragraphs."  (They also prefer that new paragraphs not be indented on the first line.)  Since I've been conditioned by creative writing courses to do my writing as double spaced with indented paragraphs, I start by doing a "select all" and reformatting the entire piece.  It boggles my  eyes to read the story this way, but since it is how the editor that works for the publisher will see it, I need to see it this way.

The second step, while the computer is reformatting, is to take myself away from the piece and get into the proper mindset.  I try to forget who these characters are, what happens in the story, and approach the piece like it's my first time reading a new author.  I tend to see more mistakes this way.

I also tend to read out loud anything that strikes me as odd.  If my husband is in the room, he'll either note something that needs to change or state "That sounded good."  While reading aloud, I return to what I learned in the Drama Club in high school about punctuation:  "A comma is a pause, a semi-colon is a longer pause, a colon adds a side note, and a period is a full stop."  If I'm out of breath at the end of a sentence, punctuation needs to be corrected.  (This also helps me to locate paragraphs that are one long run-on sentence.)

Once the RTF file goes off to the publisher and is returned to me in the print galley - the printing proof that shows how it's going to look in book form - I have to sit down and edit it again, just to make sure that there isn't anything that the editor missed.  For instance, from my current work, we have this line:  "Chase had intended to just end the show there, but when he turned his back to his father, Kyle flipped shirt of his uniform inside out, changing the color from white to black, then pulled out a ninja mask and pulled it on."
Anyone notice the mistake?

This line was written in 2011, was put up on my web site, and had been edited past at least twice.  It was in the galley proof that I finally  noticed and made this correction: "Chase had intended to just end the show there, but when he turned his back to his father, Kyle flipped THE shirt of his uniform inside out, changing the color from white to black, then pulled out a ninja mask and pulled it on."
Something I learned from my first book was that, even though it's been edited repeatedly and you think all is well, you really have to put yourself in the proper mindset before editing it again.  "Night of the Tiger" had been published as an ebook for several years, had been put out as a limited edition paperback, and was about to be offered as a Print On Demand paperback by my publisher.  I had been sent a galley proof to edit, and I corrected all the things that had been pointed out by other readers, but missed this sentence:  "Tanya’s face went ghostly pale, but she looked directly into Kyle’s eyes, waiting for him to blink just once, then she waited for him to turn away in hatred."

This line occurs in Chapter Eighteen, when Tanya has been severely injured in a motorcycle accident.  She has a tube down her throat because of a collapsed lung and can't speak, so the doctors and her love interest have devised a blink system for her to answer "yes" and "no" questions.  (One blink for "yes" and two for "no".)  Kyle has just asked her if her real name is Teresanna Montesallo, a name that Kyle just heard a man say in the hospital lobby when the belligerent man was insisting his step-daughter was brought to this hospital.  (Kyle has also been shown a police report about a young woman who witnessed the beating death of her mother, then disappeared seven years prior.)  She has to admit to the man she's fallen in love with that she has been lying to him, and the original line was written like this:  "Tanya's face went ghostly pale, but she looked directly into Kyle's eyes to blink just once, staring up at Kyle in utter misery while she waited for him to turn away in hatred."

Had I been paying attention and caught the change in the galley before the book went to print, I would have pointed out that KYLE wasn't the one with a tube down his throat, blinking responses to questions.  But since I missed it and only found it due to a letter from a reader who pointed it out, the publisher has refused to correct the line since the book is already in print.

Does this screwed up scene reflect back on the publisher and her editor?  Oh, heck, no!  It comes back on me because all the readers think I wrote it that way on purpose!

So, when you edit a story, poem, or what have you, make sure you're paying CLOSE attention to what you're reading.  I currently take the galleys and get them printed out, then go over each page carefully, marking all gafs to report for correction, but also making sure that the editor hasn't changed things so that they make no sense.  It's not the publisher and the editor that this reflects on, it's YOU as a writer!

Hope this helps you to edit your work in the right frame of mind.  If not, try to get a friend or colleague to read it for you and give constructive criticism.  It's better to be too picky rather than send in sloppy work that will get you rejected.