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Anyone editing anything? I’m toiling over a hundred-page script of mine (and just volunteered to beta someone else’s fan fiction for the first time), and it’s kind of boggling, how hard it actually is to make honest surgical assessments and repairs of things. Any advice?
I was a creative writing undergrad and one of my tutors kept pushing a certain editing system on us. A revision for each point. They included:
1. Is the overall structure sound? – hook, inciting incident, increasing complexities, crisis, climax –
2. Is the resolution satisfying?
3. Overall time scale
4. Check format and length against target market / reader
I can’t imagine that format will translate well on here, but I have plenty more of those.
i’m editing a 100+ page novel. it’s a bitch. sometimes you just have to slog through it. i find that taking it in pieces and having a group that i can go to for constructive criticism is great (check your local libraries to see if there’s a writing group/guide/association, etc). also, i told my gram about it, so she’s demanding more. #bestcritiquevah #sociallyacceptablepeerpressure
I do a loooot of editing. Somehow I became everyone’s go-to person for that, which is weird because I consider my own grasp on grammar a little shaky. I abuse sentence fragments a lot, anyway.
Editing your own work and editing someone else’s are two different beasts entirely. When editing someone else’s, the best policy is to ask them what they’re the most concerned about. Plot coherency? Characterization? Spelling/grammar? For that last one, I tend to just make edits without pointing it out, or making whatever I change bright red. For the other two, pointing out specifically what doesn’t work–“this passage sounds out of character because…” or “I’m not sure this section of the chapter should go here; from a plot standpoint, it should come later”, etc.
A really important thing is to gauge the other person’s sensitivity to criticism. Some people get really, really upset when certain elements of their stories get criticized. Mostly I’d recommend not working with these people, but if you have to, be very careful how you word your criticism.
Editing your own stuff is even harder, in my opinion. Reading out loud is a good way to catch spelling/grammar mistakes, but if it’s a long work that can be difficult. Making honest adjustments can be difficult–I usually find myself making the same mistakes over and over. Honestly, after a rough fine-tune I’d ask someone whose judgment you trust to beta for you. They’ll catch all the things that make perfect sense to you but are a little confusing or out of place to everyone else.
Good luck! :D