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Few Facts about Editing + Interview with Volley17Ball17

Here are the 6 most important things (to me) about editing:

1. Even professional writers make typos

Professional writers tend to make fewer typos, but we still make them. Kris has made some, I’ve made some, and you’ll make some too. Yes, even if you’re careful. That’s just the way it is. Don’t be too hard on yourself—but don’t pretend you’re impervious to errors either.

2. Proofreading might be “boring”, but it’s necessary

Do you really expect someone to read a book you’ve written…when you haven’t even read it yourself? Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Read over your work! (Note: I find that printing out a hard copy makes this part of the process much easier!).

3. Read it out loud

One of the biggest challenges of writing fiction or convincing copywriting is making it sound “natural.” What’s more natural than speaking? Try reading your work aloud (or have a friend read it to you) and any “unnatural” segments will become illuminated. After that, you’ll just have to check for typing errors!

4. Have someone else read it

Feedback, or as Kris calls it in her ebook, the “F-word” is crucial. Even if it’s negative. As Kris says, “Feedback is all well and good when it’s a few helpful pointers, but it has a tendency of only showing up when something’s wrong. And being told you suck really sucks.” But—even though it sucks—it’s often true. Sometimes the things we write just don’t work outside our own minds. A good beta reader will tell you which sections these are. Which brings me to…

5. Be prepared to let go

When I was initially writing The Ballad of Allison and Bandit (my young adult novel), I wroteeverything down willy-nilly just to get it out of my brain and onto paper.  It’s one of the ways Ibeat writer’s block.  However, this later led to an ENTIRE CHAPTER being deleted because it was complete and utter crap.  It hurt to toss it into the bin — it was something I’d written! — but I knew that it was for the best.  It just didn’t fit with the rest of the book.  There will be times when you have to kiss your initial words goodbye in order to embrace a better final manuscript.

6. Find a stopping point

After I’d written my novel, there was a period of about two months of near-daily editing, tweaking, and rewriting.  If you let it, the editing process can go on forever.  At some point you just have to step back and let it go.  See if your baby can fly.

Volley17Ball17 as an Editor

Editing is one of the services I provide on Wattpad. I most commonly edit fan fiction and fantasy genres but I can.

When I begin editing I usually start by just doing a quick skim of the story to get the general plot of the section I'm editing. I next go through and check for grammar and spelling mistakes since they are easiest to spot. Finally I look at the descriptions, sentence fluency,dialogue and the setting of a story. When I edit I try to help improve the writing technique which is why I go beyond just spelling and grammar errors. I finish by usually leaving a small critique and some advice about how to improve on the flaws in the piece.