The Journey to Writing a Successful Story: a tip book

The Editing Process

I've seen a few people ask questions about what you do and how you edit and when is it best to edit.

It depends on you, the writer. You do have the choice to edit; it's not mandatory. And it depends on if you want to be thorough or just quickly skim over.

If you're not planning on publishing your book (trying traditional or doing self-publishing), it's your decision on if you want to be thorough, skim over, or not do any editing. But if you are planning on publishing or even liking your book so much, it's probably best to do a thorough sweep of the book.

What exactly does one do? It's not just finding and fixing grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. It's much more than that. You have to make sure you have all the information you need in the scene and chapter; if it's too much, cut it down; if it's lacking, write some more. Make sure there are no "oops-ies" regarding unrealistic situations or settings (for instance, in A Nightmare's Fate, Raven lives in NYC and has a beautiful house. This is an oops-ies because you can't own a house (unless you get paid a lot); not to mention that it was near Central Park where most living spaces are overpriced crappy apartments. Another oops-ies that I made was that, she went into the park and saw an ice cream stand in winter...)

Make sure your writing isn't choppy, fast paced, or too slow. Make sure it has a good plot with no plot holes (or at least, major ones). Make it more original (make sure there are no major cliches; if so, make the story unpredictable and so on). Make sure your book is showing, not telling. Make sure your characters come alive - not literally, though it would be cool, but make sure they sound realistic.

Things like that.

That's the editing process - what you do, basically.

If you're not good at editing, you can ask an editor in the Find an Editor thread (go to the Improve Your Writing club, into the Pinned Thread Index - it has a red pin on the left side of the title - and look for a comment that says Editor Exchange). However, from what I've heard, most editors only do one to a few chapters, not an entire book. So you may want to ask multiple editors. And don't worry, they don't cost real money. It's usually a follow - they may ask for credit (obviously), a dedication, and or a critique on their book. But otherwise, it's not much.

If you're looking for real editors, you have to hire them and they'll be off of Wattpad. Every editor is different with their pay, but they can be very expensive. But that's if you're publishing.

Now, when do you edit? You can edit while your book is in progress; write a chapter, edit as you write - write a chapter, then edit... Though it's great to do so, it's bad for those that are perfectionists. Mainly because they can't get past the first chapter. If they edit, they end up scrapping the book. Why? Because they always feel as though it's never good enough. But the most common way is editing after the book is written. Your book is the first draft. That is okay.

Rewriting is different than revising. When you're rewriting your book, you're scrapping it and rewriting every chapter (or at least, most chapters) because the idea may be different or you're writing it in another point of view. Veronica Roth, the author of Divergent, first wrote the book in Tobias's (Four) point of view. She didn't like it much, so she scrapped it and then rewrote it in Tris's (Betrice) view. Revising is just editing the parts that need to be fixed. It may require some rewriting, but not so much - just simple paragraphs and scenes.