Monday, December 8, 2014

The Editing Process

I don't know how familiar all y'all are with the editing process, so I'll walk you what I've done so you can see how it goes.  First, of course, you write the book.  And it starts out something like this:



Then you take a pass at it to make it better:


Then you take another pass which pretty much looks the same because you focused elsewhere, and then your beta readers get ahold of it, but they don't mess with these paragraphs (just loads of others.)

When your editor gets ahold of it for the first time, it comes back looking like this:



So it ends up like this before it goes to her a second time:


Well?  What do you think?  Personally, I think this snippet reads much better, but what do I know - I thought the first passes were pretty good, too.  ;o)

4 comments:

  1. I'm not a writer so I hesitate to comment, but I'm going to anyway. I liked all the versions and got the "three" thing straight away. It must be really difficult to keep hacking at your work like this - I think I'd end up sobbing in a corner. As I said, I'm not a writer (thank goodness) but I enjoy the end results so .... keep up the good work!

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    1. But you're the people we write for, Fran, so your opinion matters, too. This was just a small snippet. I think it would be more visible seeing the whole process overall, but that would take up way too much space. ;o)

      I'm so glad you choose to visit my blogs. Readers are the reason I keep up what I hope will be good work. =o)

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  2. And this is why we pay editors! So many times, we can't see the forest for the trees in our writing and yeah, yeah, I shouldn't be using sad old chestnuts like that analogy but it's a chestnut for a reason--it's true. First pass was good. Second pass was better, third pass makes it outstanding, and as writers, isn't that what we strive for? To be outstanding?

    You go, girl! *hands coffee* ... *shakes pompoms*

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    1. Exactly, Silver! Eh, the old chestnuts are the best chestnuts sometimes. Thanks for saying that last pass is outstanding. I can't wait for you to read the whole thing again and see how much better it is now.

      I am going! :slurps coffee: After a nap.

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