The Way I Do It

The other day, as I sat here wondering what to post for my SleuthSayers column, I received an emailed request from an editor for an interview about the way I write short stories. I agreed, he sent me the questions to answer, and one of them was How often do you revise and edit your work? The day after, before writing more of the piece--or do you complete the work, then go into revision mode?

I dutifully responded to that question (and to the others), and only afterward did it occur to me how good a question it was, because I know a number of writers who approach editing and rewriting in many different ways. And--full disclosure, here--I also realized that this was handy fodder for a SleuthSayers post.

Another thought that struck me was something I heard years ago: A good teacher doesn't say, "This is the way you do it." A good teacher says, "This is the way I do it."

So . . . (though I'm no longer a teacher) what do I do, with regard to writing and revising a manuscript?

The whole process, for me, happens in three steps:

Step 1: Planning. I get an idea and--since I'm an outliner--I put the whole story together in my head, start to finish, mostly visualizing separate scenes. It might change a bit later, during the actual writing, but I have to have the entire story, including an ending, in mind before the writing begins. And yes, I know that's not the only way to create a story. But it's what works for me.

Step 2: Writing. I write (type) the first draft of the story, from beginning to end, in all its rough and unedited glory. During that draft, I sometimes substitute letters or abbreviations for characters' names--H for husband, W for wife, N for neighbor, V for villain, and so on--and insert brief notes in certain places like "come up with with a reason for this" or "add detail," or "add background," etc. In other words, I write down the flow of the story, all the way through, and leave out anything that might slow me down.  

So no, I do not "edit as I go."

NOTE: I know many, many writers who do. They write, let's say, an opening to a story, and when that's done, they carefully edit that opening, making sure that section of the story is as perfect as they can make it--and only then do they go on to the next section. They write a few pages of, let's say, the middle of the story, and then edit that part, again making it as perfect as it can be. Then they write the next part, and edit and revise that. And on and on, all the way to the ending. The result is, when those writers are done writing the story, voila!--the story's finished. I mean, completely finished--there's no need to edit or rewrite further. They're ready to send that story out into the world and have it make something of itself.

Step 3: Editing. When I've finished writing my rough draft, I go back to the beginning and edit the entire story.

       3a: I often use a triage approach. By that I mean, I might address the most important things first, like plot holes, continuity problems, timeline differences, weaknesses in structure, etc. I also, during this "step," try to plug the needed information into the place-holders I had put in during the first draft: explanations, clarifications, background details, names of characters, whatever.

        3b: Then I move on to matters of style: strengthening sentences and paragraphs; correcting errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc.; making the dialogue snappier, weeding out unneeded words, and finding and fixing really minor issues like typos, backward apostrophes, and so forth. During this step I read and re-read the story, trying to do it through the eyes of a reader and not a writer. The last thing I do here is run the whole thing through SpellCheck and then read it one more time, looking for things SpellCheck won't catch, like typing "doe snot" when what I meant was "does not."

         3c: Finally, I take a hard look at the formatting of the whole manuscript. Spacing, margins, indentations, italics, scene break designations, fonts, page numbering, other header information, etc.

I should point out, here, that I actually have two reasons for doing all this the way I do, rather than "editing as I go."

Reason #1: Doing that info-dump first draft gives me the feeling that I've put a safety net in place. I like having the whole framework down on paper (well, on my hard drive) before I start editing anything. That probably goes back to being a plotter instead of a pantser. I need that reassurance. And having that ending securely in place, even though I might change it later, keeps me from wandering off the path during the middle of the story. 

Reason #2: I sometimes, during the rewriting stage, I think of new things that might change and improve the flow, or even the outcome, of the story. If I edited each section "as I went," these later changes in the plot would probably require me to go back and change things earlier in the story to make my later changes work. I might need to add all kinds of foreshadowing info. If so, I would be forced to completely re-edit sections that I'd already spent a lot of time editing. That's extra work. I don't want to have to go back and add and decorate another room on the bottom floor of the house I'm building when I have already begun building the second and third floors on top of it.

One final note: I don't do multiple drafts of a story. I write a first draft and save it with the story name as the file name, and when it's done and I start editing it, I type the edits directly into the first draft. So when I finish, I have one and only one file of the story. And these days, I usually don't print the story out at all. Everything--the writing, the editing, and the submitting to a market--is done electronically. I do, however, have an automatic backup of everything, both on- and off-site. I should also mention that I'm one of those odd people who actually enjoys the rewriting and the polishing of a manuscript. I know lots of people hate that part of writing. What can I say?

 

So, good or bad, that's my process. How do you do it? Do you edit as you go? Edit every page before starting the next? Write a certain number of pages or words a day? Stop writing with a cliffhanger so you'll be inspired to continue the next day?

Whatever it is, if it works, great. Do whatever's best for you. And vive la difference!