Best Practices in Self-Editing
When you write fiction, you wear two hats -- your creative hat and your analytical hat.
When you're wearing your creative hat, you should be creating. You should not be fixing your grammar, analyzing your structure, or criticizing your word choices. Just bang on the keyboard and get that first draft written. Creating is fun, but it's hard work.
After you've got it written, you need to get it right. You need to analyze it, critique it, and fix it. In a word, you need to edit it.
You have two choices here:
- Edit it yourself
- Have someone else edit it
It's actually not an either/or situation. It's a both/and deal. You need to first edit it yourself and make it as powerful as you can. Then you need to get somebody else's eyes to look at it.
Some of us are good editors and can catch most of the problems in our own work. But I've never met anyone who couldn't benefit from having someone else edit their work.
Of course, it's a lot cheaper to edit it yourself. But where do you learn to do that?
This is as close to a unanimous decision as any that I've ever seen. Virtually every published novelist I know owns the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne and Dave King.
I hereby declare reading and using the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers a Best Practice for self-editing. It just is. If you don't have it, you can buy it now on Amazon.
Here's a look at the Table of Contents:
- Show and Tell
- Characterization and Exposition
- Point of View
- Dialogue Mechanics
- See How it Sounds
- Interior Monologue
- Easy Beats
- Breaking Up is Easy to Do
- Once Is Usually Enough
- Proportion
- Sophistication
- Voice
Let me reiterate that Self-Editing for Fiction Writers will not make you more creative. It'll make you more analytical -- more able to edit your work.
I should note that Renni Browne founded one of the best known freelance editing companies in the industry, The Editorial Department. So I should say a word here about freelance editors.
Authors make three main types of mistakes in hiring freelance editors:
- Hiring one too soon
- Not hiring one when they really need one
- Hiring one for the wrong purpose
A few words about each of these are in order.
I categorize pre-published writers as Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors. You can find out more about this classification scheme and where you fit into it on my Roadmap page.
I don't believe that Freshman writers need a freelance editor at all. A Freshman should be reading, taking classes, writing, and getting critiqued in a critique group.
A Sophomore may plausibly want to ask a freelance editor for a critique at some point, but an actual line-edit is really not necessary. A Sophomore still has major weaknesses in his or her writing, and a detailed edit can be overwhelming.
Juniors and especially Seniors can benefit from a good hard edit from a professional editor.
Published authors need a good freelance editor even more, because it's likely that the editor at their publishing house won't have time to edit them as hard as they need. Few authors are so good that they couldn't benefit from a skilled editor's review of their manuscript.
I've been getting professional freelance help on my novels since my third. I wouldn't think of submitting a manuscript without first running it past my literary assistant. It's too easy to miss things.
The important thing in hiring a freelance editor is to find the one you need. Every writer is different, and so every writer has different needs. If the comma still defeats you, then you're going to need help from an editor with good copy-editing skills. If you're a character-oriented novelist, then you'll need help from an editor who's good on plot and structure. If you're a plot-oriented writer, you'll want to find someone who's good with characters. If you're a theme-oriented writer, then nobody can help you unless you're willing to repent and care first about the story.
How do you know who's right for you? Listen to your critique partners. Or get a good critique from a professional writer at a writing conference. What are you strongest in? What are you weakest in? Find an editor who can help you fix your weaknesses. Find a mentor who can help you maximize your strengths.
That mentor may not be an editor at all. It may be a writing teacher or another author. It's likely to be somebody with strong CREATIVE skills, not necessarily strong ANALYTIC skills.
In the final analysis, you need to shine in both creation and analysis. How you do that is up to you. But your mission -- and you have no choice but to accept it -- is to be strong in both areas. Do that, and you'll prosper as a novelist.
Once again, here is the link for Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.
