Hey everyone I am back with another post about editing. I’ve been getting some great comments for last weeks post where I shared how to interpret the editorial letter you receive about your work AND I shared a copy of my actual Editorial Letter, if you haven’t read, check out the post here and thank you for taking the time to comment.
Since I’ve been talking about various kinds of editing all month long, I thought I’d close out with one final post and share some things I’ve learned about my own writing and editing style.
So, this week I’m talking about how I’ve been going over some of my first releases. In 2003, I released a book entitled Come What May. It was my second book and my first full length novel, and at that time and I was 27 years old. In December 2018 and January of this year, I worked on rewriting most of that book in order to repackage it, change the story line and update it to fit our current views, social normalizations and just simply to modernize the story for a re-release happening in the Spring of this year.
Now one goal I had for this book, in addition to modernizing the story line and updating it, was also to address the length of it and make it shorter.
I had no idea how difficult that was going to be. As I really got into the story and saw the sheer volume of all I wrote about back then, to shrink a book that was 108, 893 words into something that resembled the books I’m releasing today, 16 years later at 75K to 95K , has been both awesome and exhausting. But, if I can do it, so can you.
So, with all this running through my mind, it is alway easier for me to think in segments and make some decisions. I have deadlines even as a self published author (a misnomer that people still hold when comparing self published authors to traditionally published authors) but if I want to do this in a reasonable about of time, meet my release date and so, you have to choose your battles.The story is good as it was but I had grew and changed, so the story had to grow and change, too.
Now that I’m in book two rewrites – I can’t say it’s that much easier but I did start (in rewrite one) to outline four areas that I would be sure to focus on and they are:
- Description (aka, choosing to focus on your strong points)
- Overwriting and Speed
- Reader reviews, (when doable comments are made), and finally
- Secondary character arcs – showing just enough to whet one’s appetite for that second, third and fourth offering
First, GET A HANDLE ON THOSE DESCRIPTIONS
So for me, description was the first thing that kind of stuck out as I read this older work.
Description is and has always been one of my strong points but it could borderline too much information. Here’s an example, people would compliment me on my description. People have told me in my writing that they could taste the Thanksgiving spread, how I described the honey ham with the pineapples and the glistening red cherries in the center adorning the ham… that’s great and all but reading some of that sixteen years later, these are some things -maybe not in this passage- but in other passages where you could use a little cutting in an effort to speed things along. And I would find many instances of this in my (old) work, so much so that when rereading, I was chanting to myself: “Hey, get to the point, move it, hurry, faster, cut that word, cut her thought process, does she/he really need to say that, did you actually reveal anything here? No? Cut it! Move that around, reveal that later….” and on and on cutting, cutting and cutting went.
So for anything that has been a compliment, don’t make drastic changes but see if you could revisit it, enhance and yes cut away a little of it often making it stronger. There may even be single words that exchange for punchier words that better sum up some of the long drawn out passages.
In thinking about my current work, some things I don’t take time to describe at all, leaving it to that readers own imagination or interpretation, giving just enough to form their own visual and it has worked fine. I left out mundane, trivial things and really focusing in on my lengthy areas caused me to slow down use that much more punchy words not at all altering the story but leaving more up to the reader.
WATCH OUT FOR BOUTS OF OVERWRITING
Secondly, in the same vein as the description is the overwriting. Have you ever talked to people and they say the same thing over and over only using different words? It’s something al of us have likely done when writing term papers. We desperately need that length and because we need length and verbiage to adhere to the teacher’s requirements, we are reduced to REDUNDANCY and what editors call overwriting. In terms of our school, we were writing to meet a quota. Don’t do this in fiction. The quota is the one that
I think it’s odd how we as writers interpret word counts, (myself included).. For example novels are said to be 40K – 100,000 words and yet, may writers strive to get closer to the 100K when 55K, 65K would be just fine if the story is done.
Writing more is not more all the time, sometimes it’s just redundant and that is all. I’m super guilty of this and my blog posts are not exempt. Sorry. LOL 🙂
Remember also, when you overwrite, you slow things down. I write suspense and thus I MUST find ways to heighten the action and keep readers on the edge of their seat and that means, finding ways to speed passages up.
IMPLEMENT (DOABLE) SUGGESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE RECEIVED FROM READER’S REVIEWS
You have an awesome tool available when you rerelease a book. That is simply that you may have some reviews that are up and you can go and read them for purposes of improving the work, at any time.
Keep in mind, this will be the ONLY time you are ever going to hear me say, go scrutinize your reader reviews. Truly they aren’t bad, when you are in the biz as long as I am, they will be fun, they will be exciting but when you first start out, you focus too much on the one bad review someone gives you, and NOT the bunches of awesome ones you received. So I’m advising you read your reviews ONLY for the purpose of finding things you can fix and address in them AS it pertains to prep for the rewriting process.
Reader Reviews are really for other readers (and yes they help with sales a LOT, the more you are able get) but besides that and it is important, they are first and foremost to assist other readers and to help them make informed decisions, gather input and choose, or not, to purchase and read your book. Sadly, that comes in all kinds of forms and you have no control over it and that’s okay.
What I am using the reviews for, and ONLY in this instance, is simply if they have recurring comments that you can read and decide to take action on. For example, one of the reviews for Come What May said it took a minute to get going but once it did, it was on and popping. Okay they didn’t use those exact words but their point: is that the opening (which is everything in any novel) was “slow” and that’s MAJOR. Translation = get to the action faster, stop messing around.
That is ALL you need to take from it. Read the review, use it IF you agree and keep it moving. DO NOT get stuck in a merry go round of reading all the reviews; analyzing them to death and then become increasingly depressed and do nothing. That is is NOT why I’m suggesting this exercise. Only read to see if there is something you can a) agree with b) change for the better and let it go, if you can’t.
Similar to reviews, one other place you might have to look when it comes to rereleases is if you have entered your work in any contests. I do have feedback from a couple of contests that have been helpful in writing and I KEEP ALL feedback. So if a judge gave you some feedback, great, try revisiting what they had to say and using those too.
TIP: For a contest I entered some years ago, I happened to tell my editor (and share) the comments I received. When I shared them, I let her know that I wanted her to also think about what was being said and if she could, in her editing, use this and assist me in addressing the issues the judge mentioned. Editors can’t fix what they don’t know. So telling her about the comment I received helped me in ensuring she knew that I indeed wanted to work on this, and that I agreed with the issue and the judge’s (as a reader first) overall assessment. Letting her know ensured that the both of us could pay more attention to it and she could help me be more aware in her editing process and as a kind of additional accountability partner for me.
Finally, SECOND CHARACTER ARCS? JUST ENOUGH TO WHET THE APPETITE
For me, this was a complete surprise. I knew I dropped nuggets of others in the same family even some supporting friends of the main family, I had no idea how much detail I actually put in.No wonder someone asked me about visiting a certain character, I was like he had a very short mention, how on earth did you see full length feature in that. Seeing what I wrote, I can plainly see how people become invested in the secondary characters but I more plainly see now that I’m away from the story, how I can shorten these introductions but still make you want to see, later what happens to the character.
The other thing that bears mentioning is that in my first few book releases, I wasn’t at all trained. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I truly believe much of my writing is divinely inspired only because it came out well, then, with minimal effort and formal book learning. That’s also part of the reason I can’t believe it worked so well without formal training.
But now that I have taken numerous classes, am removed from my work, have written tons and have also read tons, and have learned lots of awesome techniques, I can plainly see what I can do better to enhance the work and introduce these characters in a way that you still wonder what happens to them in great anticipation of the next books in the series (um, I hope).
Below are just a few more short tips that I thought were important:
- Realize that genre means everything and in instances where you’re writing a series, give yourself a pass on length. Though I talked a lot about cutting, what I’m talking about editing in this blog post, at the end of the day is A FOUR BOOK SERIES. If you want to stick to the traditional sense of it, you have to depict those secondary characters in some form and that often ends up meaning a longer tale
- See if you can turn some passages into dialogue rather than more narrative or expository writing, and
- *Read the work aloud or nowadays with technology, you can have your computer read it aloud. It’s not Siri or Alexa and it might seem annoying at first, but I’m told that the basic, boiled down voice (without any inflection), helps to make mistakes, missing words and difficult passages easier to point out/hear, so give it a try. I read my work aloud often and it is probably the BEST advice I’ve received for catching issues with the work’s flow
Next month starts my return to Friday Features. If you’re an author/artist/creative and have a project/book you’d like to share, use my sign up genius link to request a date; there are ones listed for the rest of the entire year. It’s super easy to do and you’ll have a platform and some added promotion/mentions from me to showcase your latest project or release.
*If you need assistance with finding/installing a program that reads your work aloud, visit this quick youtube tutorial that I found (not endorsing the program but it was one of the simplest one I found yet, I’m sure there are a vast array of other kinds available). Share what you use in the comments.
See you next time.
