I just finished my (hopefully) final draft! 86K and now I can start editing. I still have a lot of work left ahead of me, of course, but now I finally got the story the way I wanted it. Would it be better to leave it to "mature" for a while before I start editing? I feel so anxious to start the next phase, but maybe it would be better to let it "sit" for a while in order to see it with fresh eyes? How long do I have to wait? Is two weeks enough? A month? How long do you guys wait between each phase of the writing of your novels?
Hi Tesoro, First off, congratulations! You've done what so many of us are willing ourselves towards...well least I am, lol. As for the editing process, it's really up to you and what you feel comfortable doing. If you want to wait a couple of days or a week then do so. I just hope that your editing will be done on a hard copy and not on the computer. Being able to read it page by page is much better then staring at a screen, you need to be able to see your book in its complete form and read it as it’s intended to be. This editing stage is going to be a long process, so start when you're ready and good luck!
Congratulations! Must feel good to have finally finished your final draft!! What I would do is go over it yourself first and then maybe give it to a family member to read through. As Midnight_Adventurer said, you need to have a hard copy to edit. It's alot easier to edit a hard copy. What's your novel about if I may ask?
Really? I never thought of that aspect. How come it's better to edit a paper copy rather than on the computer screen? Does it make you spot errors more easily? Maybe I will go over it and change some of the tells into shows, before I print it, what do you think of that? thank you guys . I don't know if I would call the novel "romance", although it is a story about love, but when someone say "romance" I think of a story that takes place in the 1700's or 1800's... is there some kind of definition of that kind or am just making it all up? I'll have it printed, then. (Phew, it's over 300pages)
Hi again, Like I said, when it comes to editing it's better to be able to look at the whole page in it's physical form. It also gives you a better sense of how the dialogue, paragrahps etc are sitting on the page, maybe you miss a space that you didn't notice on the computer screen. It's just pretty much a rule of editing to print out your work and manually use a pen or highlighter to make changes and corrections. I'm in the same boat as you with a novel I'm working on. I wouldn't call it a romantic book, but there is that element in it. Giving a book a genre can be hard. Anyway I hope my reasons make sense and again, good luck! Also, if you need editing opinions/ help feel free to pm me, i'll be happy to read through some of your work, if you want . That or you can post some of it on the site.
No offense, but giving it to a friend or family to read through is pretty much the worst you can do. They will sometimes give decent critique, but most of the time they will tone down the critique to spare your feelings, or even say it was good and leave it at that. It's much better to give it to a complete stranger, or at least a co-worker you don't know too well. Back on topic: Congrats, Tesoro!
I usually give my writing to my brother, who's a writer himself. And I'm sure he's completely honest. Depends how the person is to be honest. Congrats btw! =D
The conventional wisdom is to put it away for a month... or three ... or four ... or more. Go on to some new project until you can view the finished work with more distance and objectivity. As far as proofreading and copyediting, a curious, but logically practical, bit of advice from Donald Maass: "print out your manuscript then take all the pages and throw them into the air. Gather them up in whatever order you grab them (trying to make sure you don't have several pages in sequence.) Read and proof them in this order. The idea being, when you read the pages in consecutive, chronological order, it is easier to lose sight of the fact that you are, in fact, editing. This makes it more likely that you will miss a lot of those errors you are trying to find. The human mind is an interesting thing. Although science and medicine have yet to figure out HOW it works, they do agree on many of the 'side effects' of how it works. Even a semi-literate person will tend to auto-correct many errors as they read. This means you will skim over many of your mistakes. If your reading flow is broken from page to page, you lack the fluency which encourages that kind of auto-correct mode. So, yeh. Put it away. Try not to think about it. Work on a new project. Go back to it once you can no longer remember your favorite passages by heart.
thank you guys I am going to do these changes and then I'll print it. Midnight Adventurer: thanks for the offer but I'm not writing in english. I thought about giving it to a family member to read honestly, my mom, because she's a very frequent reader (she reads several books a week, being retired from work she has a lot of time) maybe i won't get much constructive critique (although she has given some valid points before) but this is more because she is so curious to see it and I'll have an idea of what she thinks about it before giving it to the next reader: I thought of asking my aunt to have a look at it, I don't have very much contact with her, we meet very rarely, but she is a journalist and might have a different eye for the details. besides, it is a good "excuse" for taking up contact, if I would need one. I don't feel confident enough to give it to a collegue or someone I don't know enough, and I don't know anyone that I could ask to take on the task as a reader...
You can do all those same changes on a printed copy if you have double line spacing. As for the period of waiting, you should really wait until you've forgotten it. Literally. Put it in a drawer or something. Put it somewhere you won't notice it for a couple of weeks. Ignore it entirely. That's really the only way to get "fresh eyes". Forget about it.
that was a cool advice! I like it! CruciFICTION: You are right, I guess I can... it's just an excuse from my side, because I have quite a BIG handwriting, so it will get messy when I can't fit in the changes between the lines, so to say, and start writing vertically at the end of the lines to squeeze it in anyway I'm going to print it tomorrow I think. Just need to go buy another USb flash drive before, because I don't want to take the risk of my regular one (with all the novels on) to get a virus or something from the printing places' computer.
Congrats on finishing your story. It's a great feeling... I'd put it away for however long you like, and then look over it with fresh eyes. What I often do is print a copy as well. But I found working straight on the computer & making changes right there & then is the way to go, for me at least.
