The title is misleading. And so is the picture. In this post I share my experience with editing so far. On other words, I whine. Hence the of reading 'edit' backwards.
Before starting to edit my book, I searched for tutorials on the topic and surprise! surprise! I didn't find any. There are thousands of videos and texts teaching you how to write a book, but nobody says a word of relevance when it comes to editting. I know I am being harsh to the numerous advice on the topic available, so I will substanciate my findings (and eventually be even harsher). I spent three hours and I am tempted to say I wasted them after I only found advice like "Make sure you have a story", "Make sure you have a protagonist", delete the word 'that', delete all adverbs. Now that is a thoroughly and utterly inapplicable idea for my writing (Shall be edited down to 'now is an inapplicable idea for my writing', if I follow the advice blindly). Oh, sorry, did I just say 'blindly' as well. As I said - no go. As I said in another text - sick and tired of stereotypes that don't function.
After starting the consolidation process, I realised I have grown. The beginning of the book is two years old and it is outdated. It sounds clumsy, maybe even the events don't fit my purpose, but I cannot soberly evaluate at this stage. The way I go about it is 'same rules apply' like in the movie and therefore each time I feel a scene or even a line boring - I change it. If it bores me, it definitely should get better.
One super.. wait! Let me have it my way. One indisputably enjoyable part of the editing process is that along the forgotten lines there is information about he characters and events that is simply off my record. And I gasp in surprise when I read it. See, she likes travelling to far away places. That makes a whole new person out of her. And puts London in different light.
And last. The novel is incomplete. I am sick of it. And tired, of course. It is ok if a novel is incomplete with 50 000 words. But to be unable to put a whole story in 85 583 words. That's a shame and disgrace.
I miss a breaking up scene, a moving out scene, a secret activity scene, a weighing of alternatives scene and I am almost sure when I get them all in I will find out I miss one or two more. Then I have to start killing scenes to keep the volume reasonable. "It's a dirty job, but someone's gonna do it", as in Faith no More's song.
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