Editing

I thought I would write a little on my editing process. I'm working on my first book, A Song of Sorrow, and so have little experience with such. Editing is a very daunting challenge. Writing a book seems like it is the hardest part, with it's ups and downs. Creative fire and words that pour off the tongue. Nights spent chain smoking and glaring at that horrible fucking curser, flashing impatiently on a blank page. Oh that little black line of demand, how I hate you. Then, when the ink has dried and enough time has passed for a deep enough breath to be gulped down, you open that file again.

And are confronted with a book. Your book. Covered in wiggly lines and lamenting your every fault and foible.

And there's so much of it! Word after word, line after line, chapter after chapter all demanding attention. Tender touches and cuts that sting.

When I began writing I allowed my consciousness to pour out over the page, delightfully chaotic, manically jotting down notes with no heed to cohesion or linear timelines. As those notes became plot order seeped into the edges. I found a balance in writing. I still obsessively make notes, all carefree and what not, then mold those notes into chapter plans before actually writing. So, in an attempt to quell my nervousness (What if I cut something I later want to keep and it's lost forever!? Gasp.) I tried to apply a similar method, starting in January.

1. Cover to Cover.
    Quite simply I read. From start to finish, with as few breaks as possible. I needed to get a feel for the whole thing. The flow, the plot progression, the peaks and dips in tension. Essentially see if it all fit together like it does in my head and notes. If I came across a small mistke then I would correct that mistake. I also wielded red font like it was nobodies business, brutally applying for the slightest infraction.

1.2. The Ponder
    I walked away in a swelter of emotions. I made notes. All and everything that popped into my head. Questions, things that were overdone, underdone, themes, motifs, things that needed expanding, things that needed severe cutting. This may sound like a verbose red penning. It was. But I found it helped me collect my thoughts.

2. The Dread of Red
    At first I fueled myself with coffee, after dropping RoRobot at school, and attacked all that red with...well if not enthusiasm, then certainly determination. This was a mistake. The time to pick him up from school came and I was exhausted, having gone through four chapters. The next day I reread those chapters and reapplied lots of bloody red.

    Fine! Ha! You can't beat me! I'm the ginger bread man or something. A chapter at a time then. A read through to refresh, tackling simpler problems: clunky sentences that had an easy solution, silly mistakes, repetition, word choice, missing names. Then I tackled each part (my chapters move between the perspectives of Mera, Llew and Tomas) at a time, giving it a thorough going over and then having a break. Collected myself. Repeat. This was a much better way. I could set myself targets and see a reasonable progression. I would even put up my progression on facebook...in percentages. I'm not sure that my friends were particularly interested, mind. But every like and comment helped lift the isolation a little. The red began to erode.

Sometimes a problem would arise that had to be set outside of this pattern. Like a couple of overly long descriptions of Rosalind Castle. I chewed over those for awhile, looking at them in situ and fretting. Copy, paste into a fresh page. Notebook, pen, cigarette. What is the purpose, what does it achieve, how does each characters perspective change what they see-both literally and figuratively? I felt rather cunning and cut. Copy, paste back in situ. Reread.

3. Re-structuring and Holes
    I wrote the end of the book during NaNoWriMo. I came nowhere near winning, with the 50k, but didn't really expect to. I needed a final push. In my writing break after Nano, after the book was finished, I wrote a chapter by chapter plan for book 2. That's what I'll be working on this coming NaNo, and I will *try* to get the 50k this time around. I can feel my insomnia cackling gleefully already.

Whilst NaNo most definitely helped it had its draw backs. Structure fled. Well, faded into a mass of text only broken up by chara perspective and a vague notion of chapter breaks. I knew that there would be one or two alternative chapters to add. I had saved them for this part of the edit so I would have a firm grasp on what the story needed here, and how those alt.ch.s worked with/against the meat of the story to either side. But during edits it became clear that I would actually need four. And that I wasn't entirely happy with the order of events.

Much gnashing of teeth ensued.

I stole a sheet of paper from my sons art book. I ran a bath and hunted down scissors to cut that paper into palm sized cards. On them I wrote brief descriptions of each chapter, on some just the parts if I was unsure what chapter they would end up in. I got in the bath and used the steam as an adhesive, sticking them to the tiles. Then I conducted what I can only describe as a mad woman's splishy splashy orchestra of ideas. I spoke out loud, I rearranged the cards and told the story, abbreviated, to myself. Occasionally a card would fall into the increasingly tepid water. Undeterred I added more hot water, slapped the card back onto the tile and shouted at myself some more. And yes when the order started to make sense I may have laughed. Loudly with much 'Ahas!' and 'Of course!'. I dread to think what my neighbour thought...

You don't have to have the bath, but I do recommend the cards.

 I restructured the end, wrote three of the alt.ch.s. This is where I'm at now. That last ch. is swilling away in my subconscious, I can feel it. I've made notes. I know whose perspective it's going to be from...but I'm not sure how much of that story arc needs to happen here...and how much in book 2. I'm waiting for that last niggling chapter to be ready. Once that is written I will commence:

4. The Final Read Through 
    Which is kinda self explanatory. Catch any stray stupidities/auto corrects. Tweak a few little things that have occurred to me. Check to see if I keep the original structure or the bath structure. Check the new alt.ch.s work well. Fine tooth the bugger.

5. The Heart in Mouth.
    Beta readers. So far I have one definite and a couple of loose yeses. This is still a secretive stage. I want beta readers I trust...for good, honest critique with no pussyfooting. And for other nefarious reasons. I will have to think more on whom I can badger/sweet talk into beta reading for me. Though my definite is good.

My goal was to be ready for the publishing journey by the end of spring. Fair weather an' all. Amazingly I seem to be on target..we'll see if that remains the case once the beta readers have rent my lovely book with their claws.