I have to be honest. Capitoline Hill is the first book of my own that I've ever edited, despite being the fourth one I finished. In the past, I've always been the love-em-and-leave-em type, but I really want to make this relationship work. I'm willing to put in the extra effort because I think we can go far together.
But this editing thing? Man, it's just... a pain in the ass. I've never felt quite this level of frustration and elation mixed together. Every once in awhile, I'll hit a scene that's really just well done, and I'll think, "I knew I could write." Then I'll finish that scene, and it's back to, "I suck. Why would anybody read this crap? And how could this whole kerfuffle of stuff take place in two days?!"
Timeline seems to be the biggest problem for me, followed by continuity. The entire book spans about two weeks, which is just not enough time for everything that happens. But I seem incapable of just having periods of downtime that I could gloss over (two weeks is expanded by the way. The original draft took place in less than a week. I need it to be more like two months).
Some of the continuity problems came from doing a rewrite and copying and pasting parts of the first draft into it. I can deal with those. Just like I can deal with the awkward word choices and the adverb-mania. But I really need to start keeping a character chart or something to prevent issues like, "His voice was higher-pitched than I'd have expected"/"[He said in] a deep baritone." And at some point I should probably commit to exactly how long Quinn's been back home. In one chapter it's two weeks; in the next, it's over a month.
I sat with a reporter's notebook and filled four pages with comments while I was re-reading CH, which range from mundane word choice notes to angry insults (at myself). They're actually a bit amusing to read, though I imagine they'll be considerably less amusing to fix.
What's your editing process like?
I have a pretty good memory for the details I've included, so for the most part, I don't have too much bother with continuity. Motivation is my biggest problem. It's 2 in the afternoon and I have still done nothing. :(
ReplyDeleteAh, yeah, there's that too. But I told myself I couldn't read Devon Monk's new book Magic Without Mercy until I finished re-reading CH. The reward system works pretty well for me.
DeleteAw, timeline stuff, yeah, that's one of the hardest. I remember for EQ agonizing over whether or not different things were happening at the right time, especially since the whole Part 1 of the book was different POV at different points in a three day period. Finally I just had to give it to other people to read and tell me that, yes, actually, it made sense, haha!
ReplyDeleteBut I worked it all out with a weird system of bullet points, and the occasional index card frenzy.
Editing for me, gah, it's all about those damn tenses! I once edited a whole chapter INTO present tense because I thought I was changing it into PAST tense. How can I make that mistake?! 'Jumped' vs. 'jumps' shouldn't be so hard to differentiate!
Also, sometimes I panic about pacing, where I think I've got my events happening too slowly. This is another thing I need my awesome CP (^_~) or beta readers to convince me I'm right or wrong.
Haha! That's what I'm here for!
DeleteAnd yes, tenses can be evil, I agree.
Hm, index cards... that's something I haven't considered using yet. Those might actually come in really handy right about now.
I used 2 fix points, events that really happened in our history, and worked around that. Creating the allusion of time passing has been something I've had to learn. At first run, I was with them every waking hour. Which was dragging down the time.
ReplyDeleteI edit in layers, and I'm still working on an exact process for myself.
Jen from http://falling4fiction.blogspot.com/
Yes! That's how I am now, with them every hour. Especially as the climax got nearer. It's like I just can't pull away.
DeleteGah yes, timeline are such a pain in the ass. Cant I just change the way time flows? That's a good idea isn't it? I typically remind myself to take rewrites one step at a time.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm in a conception plot fixing stage. Where I realize there is a giant gaping whole in my plot and I've got to try to fix it.
Yes. I vote we change the way time flows. Two weeks now equals two months.
DeleteAh, I just got past the conception plot fixing stage. I essentially had to rewrite the entire first half so it now matched up with the second half. That was fun. Good luck with yours!
Ha ha. Yes, that picture accurately describes what I look like while editing, most of the time. Honestly, I enjoy the certain parts of the process. I like rethinking my story, but not so much actually making the changes and doing the picky details. And of course, the picky details are arguably more important.
ReplyDeleteThe best part of editing for me is that I've finally gotten comfortable with the characters and the story. I'm... not so good with the picky details either. I have a lot of notes reminding me to fill in certain small facts that I was too lazy to figure out in the first or second drafts.
DeleteHow did you get that picture of me? I thought I deleted all copies!
ReplyDeleteLOL. You know what they say: once something's on the internet, you can never really get rid of it. ;-)
DeleteI'm horrible about editing my own work so I enlist a good friend to help me with my editing.
ReplyDeleteAtoZChallenge Dragondreamer's Lair
Editing things over and over again, and hating it every time. LOL. I'm actually changing a 3rd person POV to a 1st (all 400 pages!) It stinks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your process!
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