My Self-Editing Process ( Ft. Lots of Screaming!)
Hello, everybody! I'm back at school, so there's been a lot going on (thanks to my past self who scheduled these posts in advance, haha). I'm super busy, but part of that involves writing and editing and querying and all that jazz, so I thought I'd share a little bit about my self-editing process!
We'll be using Deal of Knives as an example (because that's the current editing project). I'm super excited to get through this one and get it to a point where it's actually good to attempt publishing. So let's get going!
Step One: Pretend Everything Is Good as I Draft.
I usually start out with a very rough outline--kind of like a synopsis of a movie on a wikipedia page. It's several paragraphs that guide the basic actions of the plot. But usually, something I put into the book doesn't work initially. I'll write a few chapters and then decide that it's not going to work, so I'll pull back and have to make a change.
An example of this: in Deal of Knives, there was initially a subplot wherein the king in my story--Dantyl--was in an arranged engagement with a princess from another kingdom. This was going to spark a love triangle wherein Dantyl didn't want to be in the arranged marriage, but one of the guys in the castle ended up falling in love with said princess. But it just didn't work. The further I got, the more frustrated I got with that. So I just cut the princess entirely and kept writing like I had done that all along. And it worked.
That's the biggest thing for me when I'm first drafting. Slowing down will just stop me. I can't go back until the editing process begins. I'll rewrite those chapters, but it just has to work as I go. Otherwise...bad things happen (like not being able to finish writing the draft).
Step Two: Have a breakdown.
'Nough said.
Step Three: Read Back Through and Outline.
This is something I started doing on Deal of Knives and it's lifechanging. I read through the draft after some time away, get a separate document, and start outlining chapter by chapter. Basically, this is a brief summary of all the events of each chapter. This is NOT a synopsis. It's just an outline for my own purposes.
Step Four: Color code.
For my outline, I assign each plot thread/character arc a color and go through on paper. I used my markers, and I just go through and mark up the outline as much as I can. I write all over the paper, I jot notes down in the margins, I make sure the POVs are evenly spaced, I figure out what needs to be changed...It's actually a super fun process, and I love getting off my computer and onto paper. I can't draft on paper, but I LOVE editing on paper. Remember: at this point, we're very much still big picture.
Step Five: Write the new chapters.
Remember my missing princess? I still need to use the space she was filling to develop King Dantyl and his bestie Zayn, so I go back through at this point chapter by chapter. On this particular WIP, I had a handful of things to fix in draft 2:
- Tristan (the antihero)'s motivation--what's he up to? He didn't really want to tell me in draft 1, but this is kind of important information, as his choices drive not only the book but the whole series.
- Estelle's choices. She's my main character, so I initially made her hyper-likeable. But on the read-through and considering the sequel, I realized she needed to be way more flawed than I was initially planning.
- Dantyl's character arc. He's a very difficult character for me, and writing him is a challenge--how do you write a character who's just inherently unlikable, but has good reasons for being the way he is, but is ALSO a POV character and provides a lot of the emotional conflict in the story? This is something I'm still not happy with and will likely require a few more rewrites before I get it to where I'm okay with it.
- A particular romance arc. My characters decided to do some relatively different things in this draft than I was planning. This included two of them deciding they liked each other (-_-), so I had to work on that. This is another one that will likely need way more buildup and rewriting than I gave it on this draft.
There were obviously other things, but these were some of the big ones, and things that I'm still considering on draft 3.
Step Six: Re-outline with the new chapters.
This time, I try to get the whole chapter into one sentence to make sure it's a unified scene. That'll be my next editing step. Does every chapter contribute to the whole overarching story? Does each chapter have a purpose, even if it's just developing a facet of the character? I really want my characters' arcs to feel sensical and organic, so I'm always trying to make sure this works. It's hard but it's so worth it.
Step Seven: Keep rewriting through a tighter and tighter lens.
That's about it! I'm not yet super great at self-editing, but I'm getting there, and I'm excited to have more to share in the future about this story. It's a pretty small and compact story, but it helms a massive and sprawling epic series, so it has huge shoes to fill. I'm very excited to share more eventually about my plans for this story!
Do you have a self-editing process? Alternatively: what's your WIP right now? Tell me in the comments!
2 comments
This was really encouraging to read! I just finished a draft for the first time in a while and was feeling very intimidated by the idea of editing it, but I may try some of the things you do--the outlining-while-rereading and editing on paper especially seem like they'd be helpful!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hearing more about Deal of Knives! :)
This sounds suspiciously like my self editing process 😂
ReplyDeleteHello, friends! Do make yourselves comfortable and stay for a while--I'd love to chat with you! I simply ask that you keep it clean. :)