The Editing Technique That Will Change Your Life

While writing the first draft of my novel, the prospect of editing has always been at the back of my mind. At a planned 80,000 words, it’s going to be a beast to edit. Where do I start?

At first it seemed like I was standing on the edge of a sea of words, ones I knew needed sorting and shaping and cutting. Breaking into them, however, felt like grabbing handfuls of water and watching it flow away through my fingers.

A letter from a past issue of Writing Magazine helped me to look at editing in an entirely new way.

Shane Young (Writing Magazine, April 2017, p. 8) wrote in about how he approached editing through eight ‘missions’, going through his novel and editing different aspects of it each time. Instead of editing chapter by chapter, he went by:

Plot

What happens within your novel.

Structure

How you tell the plot, and in what order.

Character

Consistency, personality, arcs, etc.

Voice

Who tells the story and how it reflects their personality.

Tone

The novel’s vibes – humorous, mysterious, scary?

Style

The way you use punctuation, vocabulary, sentence structure, formality levels, and so on.

I’d never heard of this approach before, but it instantly intrigued me. Breaking down a novel into its core elements and focusing on each one at a time? It makes the process so much less overwhelming.

Now I’ve got Shane’s letter tacked next to my desk, ready for the finished product. However, I’ve adapted Shane’s technique a little. Since some of the ‘missions’ cover similar areas, I’m pairing them up in twos; plot and structure, character and voice, and tone and style.

The plan post-draft is to have a cool-off period while I work on another book, then focus on a different mission-pair each month. The big stuff, structure and plot, naturally goes first. Then I’ll go deeper, rounding characters and their voices. The final step will be tone and style; tightening every word until they all add to the story and atmosphere.

Now my sea of words is divided into neat little canals. All I’ve got to do now is finish my draft.

So, thank you Shane, wherever you may be, and best of luck with your own writing mission!