Editing Isn’t That Hard…Is It?

So the last couple of weeks, I have been in editor mode. First with “The IntraCity Double Dutch Challenge”, and then with “The Forbidden Ones”. This phase feels unusual for me.

Why, you may ask? Because I do not like editing. Or at least, I thought I didn’t. But once I got into the groove of what editing was, I embraced it. Editing doesn’t mean your story idea is bad. It just means that it is going to make it much better.

I have been trying to figure out what had me so keyed up about having to edit a story. I have come to some conclusions on it:

1. For the longest time, I considered editing to be too much a change.  I held the assumption that because I had to edit, the story premise wasn’t good enough.

2. Where dialog is concerned, I assumed editing meant that my characters (essentially my friends, and what drive my stories), could not be themselves.  Indeed, many of them fight me when it comes to switching anything.

3. This idea of tightening meant that I wasn’t writing “properly”. Or for the way short stories and novels are meant to be. Whenever I would read a book, the words flowed fluidly.

What I have since learned is as follows:

1. Editing does not mean the original idea is bad. It just means that you are pruning, and making it gel more effectively. The first draft is by no means the last say in the story. The first draft could be considered “brainstorming with structure”, if you will.  Just because you have to edit doesn’t mean that everything you originally had will be cut to bits.

2. Dialogue editing does not take away from the character. If you write the way I do where the characters themselves tell the story to you, then you simply ask them to reword it so that they’re happy too. My characters trust me to tell their story. Some of them, like my guys in Protected One, even leave me alone to write my own way, and offer side comments as I go. My characters tend to be wordy. I usually ask them if I can cut PART of their words, to make them more effective.  They’re okay with that now.

3. Tightening is a good thing. The reason the novels I read are so fluid is because of the tightening.  One thing I have tried to keep in mind with my own writing is that the authors I admire ALL had to tighten their stories to get them  as I see them now.

So to sum it up, I have decided that editing can be my second favorite part of the writing process. It’s like tending a garden of words. Sometimes things have to be cut or changed in order to make the whole garden beautiful.

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