5 Tips How to Make Editing More Enjoyable
Editing can be a very dull process. At times, it can seem like traveling across an endless ocean at 5 mph.
For those that enjoy editing, what’s wrong with them? What superpower do they possess and what nuclear waste do we need to jump into to get it?
Hopefully, these tips will help you through your editing process and make it just a little more enjoyable.
Take some time off.
What? I just finished my first draft and now you want me to step away from my story?
Yes.
Why?!
Because you need to be able to see it with fresh eyes again.
It may seem counterintuitive. You just finished and you still have a long way to go so really as far as time is concerned you really need to get cracking, but the wise thing to do would be to let it sit for a moment and get it out of your head if you can.
It is extremely useful if you can come back to your writing with fresh eyes to see all the things that need to be spruced up.
So take a week to a month. That’s all you really need to get a fresh perspective and then come back to it.
Start handing your story off to beta-readers asap.
While you take a break from your first draft, this would be the perfect time to hand it over for someone else to read, check, test, and give ideas into.
Beta readers should most certainly be a part of your editing process either way but they should really come first. (After you’ve gotten rid of most of the glaring spelling and grammar errors.)
Here’s why: when you give it to a beta reader you are going to want to change big parts of the story and this will lead to more writing which in turn will lead to more need for editing and line editing for grammar and spelling issues.
Basically, if you save beta readers for after you line edit you are giving yourself double the work since you are inevitably going to need to line edit again after the beta reads.
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Work from the big picture down to the fine details.
When you first go through just focus on big picture stuff. Does everything look good and make sense?
Then you can work your way down into chapters. Does everything in your chapters make sense and land where you want it to? No glaring errors? Nothing out of place?
Then you can work your way into paragraphs and after that into each sentence until you’re really getting down to the nuts and bolts of the thing.
You don’t have to do it exactly like this, but by doing it this way you can have a concrete plan to handle all the issues in a strategic order.
Having somewhere to start and knowing where you’ll end is helpful.
And be critical. Pretend like you’re editing someone else’s work and pretend you don’t like the person. (Not in such a way that you’d sabotage the work.) The idea is to be very critical of your work and look at it from an outsider’s perspective.
You’ll enjoy it later.
You may never love the editing process, but it can be an acquired taste.
The more you do it the better you get at it, the less it’s a burden, and then you might actually start to enjoy it.
You’ll at least enjoy the feeling of success when you finally lay down your first finished project.
If you can hire an editor that’s nice and you should definitely do so. Having that person go through gives you a big breather and helps you get big ideas that they may have but for most of us, it’s going to be the long grind of edit, rinse, and repeat.
Use someone in your corner.
You might have the undeserved favor of a significant other in your life that loves editing.
These rare creatures exist and are mostly willing to help you. It could be a spouse, friend, sibling, parent, or romantic interest.
For me, it’s my wife.
Bless her heart, she loves the editing process.
Not sure why, but I’m extremely grateful, as it is mind-numbing for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I must do a lot of editing too, but it is just helpful, especially for the peace of mind and writer’s block to have someone else with good ideas look stuff over too.
That to say if you have someone you know that likes to edit stuff, think grammar addict, then they might actually enjoy going through and finding every spelling error and missing coma, run-on sentences, and… well…you get the idea!
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That’s all for now.
Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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