Yes, we're back to talking about editing. If you're a writer, then you're going to have to make time in your life for editing. I know I've touched on this before but I felt like it should be talked about again. So here we are.
Last week, I talked about putting the novel in a drawer and I fully believe in that. You should clear your head and give yourself a small bit of space before sitting down again. There's burn out and just not seeing your mistakes and so on. However, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here about where to start. Yes, the where is just as important as the when. While it is going to be at the beginning, that's not what I mean.
The where is what you want to focus on while you're editing. Do you want to make sure that you don't have any plot holes? Then you should read the entire thing through and keep a notebook where you feel the plot jumps. Do you want to focus on typos and other tiny mistakes? Then you should print out your novel in five chapter bits and go through with a red pen to mark where you need to change things. Maybe you want to do both, which you can do, but it is also helpful to sometimes just focus on one thing at a time. Also, there's nothing saying that you can't fix the smaller things while looking for plot holes or vice versa. Or whatever you want to focus on.
The idea here is to not make the editing process feel like a climb up Everest. You can break it down into smaller pieces and then put everything together to make a whole. Otherwise you'll have a ton of novels done but go nowhere with them.
I hope this helps. If you have any questions or want to continue the conversation, feel free to leave a comment below or poke me on Facebook or Twitter. Until next time, keep on writing or editing!
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