How many times do you edit your work

The biggest reason why you should become an excellent editor is because you know how the story is supposed to be. You know best when things get off track, and you know best how to fix them. Other people might be able to point out things that don't work and give you fresh ideas, but it's more efficient for you to do the bulk of that work yourself.

 

I used to edit a million times, but stopped that after I overedited a story and ended up ruining the whole thing because I was never satisfied. Now I usually edit as I go along, then read through once when I'm done to weed out obvious mistakes, typos and any grammatical errors I can find.

 

Q: How many times do you replay a level in a tough video game?

A: Until you succeed.

 

Same thing I tell people in the game I'm beta testing.

And as Maia told me, it's not unusual for a aspiring/new author to spend a year polishing their first novel before querying agents. It'll take however long it takes to get on in polished shape.

 

I am five chapters into a novel I started three months ago. It's my first attempt and has been a huge learning experience.

I've been editing as I go, which seems to work for me. After my first draft, I go back through from start to finish editing for grammar and punctuation, etc... In addition, I've edited the previous chapters several times as new ideas or thoughts have come to mind.

A few days ago, I came up with an interesting editing technique that really helped me a ton. With each chapter, I went to the end of the chapter, starting with the last paragraph, and read through each one individually in reverse. Edit the last paragraph, then the next to the last paragraph, and so on... This allowed me to single out each paragraph on its own without having the flow of the story (the plot) distracting me. I found many areas that needed improvement doing it this way that I didn't notice during my previous edits.

In short, I think that a piece of work needs to be edited as many times as it takes for you to be completely satisfied with it, be it one time or twenty times. Doesn't matter.

Also, some have expressed their dislike for editing. It's time consuming and tedious and so forth, which I completely understand. I felt that way at first as well, but now I actually like it. That's where I get to make the tiny brush strokes that really hi-light my abilities, and gives each paragraph, and each sentence that flare that only I can give.

 

It's also hard to edit a story while immersed in writing it because you're too emotionally invested. A nice trick is to set that story aside and write another story/novel while that one 'rests' and you get the emotional attachment out of your system. That way you're looking at it objectively.

 

I edit as my own harshest critic when a chapter or first draft is done.
Kill off my "darlings" with abandon.
And make up for the loss with more story-supportive meaning.

Hell, it seems I can't even post comments on the internet without an edit or two.

Good Luck!

 

As many times as need be. Until I am satisfied and there are no more holes in my story.

 

Three times end to end on my new novel. My first novel has been published for a couple of years and I have just completed a major re-edit of that to produce a second edition.

 

I can't reply as to this forum in particular, but for writing in general: I have to be pretty careful about editing as a whole. If I get started on nitpicking my own story, I completely dead-pan and can't get back into writing itself. That's a major part of why I usually have to end up restarting the entire project, as I'm completely stuck in an editing cycle with no exit. I've never truly reached the end of a project (and thus never had anything published, obviously), so I can't give a precise answer, but being a perfectionist at heart, I can guarantee you the number will be irritatingly high.

 

my standard advice to new writers is to do at least one on-paper edit of any writing project, 2-3 if it's book length...this will help you to find and fix all the things you keep missing when editing on the computer... and to read over whatever you write as if it was written by your worst enemy...

 

Not enough. Often none ATM. Though I'm also not selling anything ATM either, so it's not quite as bad.