A chapter, a page, a paragraph, a sentence, a word?

I know some people who say they do very little editing.

I do alot. I have spent an hour on a sentence on many occations: changing words and order to make it just right.

They a reader tells me it is all bad and I have to spend more time on it or replace it. It is very hard to delete sentences that I spent a lot of time on.

But the reader is usually right.

So I wondered if it was me or if others had much trouble also.

Of course, I don't spend that much time on every sentence, but I figure that, with all the editing, revising, and rewriting, it takes over 2 hours per page.
 

But editing comes in two phases for me, and I can't merge them together or I get confused:

1. Edit for wording. Make sure everything "sounds right." This is when I check that the dialogue is real, my suntences don't run on, I don't use "to be" three million times, and I don't overuse adverbs.

2. Edit for correctness: Spelling, grammar, punctuation. This stage takes more time because you have to examine each word and sentence carefully.

All in all, between the two passes, I'd say it takes me about an hour per 1,000 words, assuming they aren't particularly badly written words.

BTW, I have only included editing, not revising or rewriting because you didn't ask. Rewriting varies based on whether the story even needs it or not (my critiquers can usually tell me this if I'm too stubborn to see it) and revising happens when I make minor changes here and there to the story itself (adding description, subtracting description, etc.)
 

I'm only partly kidding. The novel I working on has been my baby for the last ten years. I wrote the thing while I was in high school (took about 12 months), and I've been editing, revising and re-writing for the last ten years. Well, sort of. It has spent anywhere from a few days to a few years without seeing the light of day, but I'm working on it

Not that I recommend spending that much time. When I write, I seldom edit, and I manage to get away with it (which is really, really bad [me cringing as someone throws an eraser ].

Basically it's what Christine said, whatever it takes. Sure you have to consider your readers, but you can get 20 people to read the same story and you'll get 20 different opinions on how to write "The cow jumped over the moon". Unless an opinion resonnates with me, I try to get more than one before changing too much.

But, as evidenced above, I live at the two extremes and am probably the wrong person to be offering up advice on this topic

[edited for punctuation; O.K. so I do edit things from time to time...]

[This message has been edited by Robyn_Hood (edited August 11, 2004).]
 

I think it's perfectly okay to spend extra time wherever you feel like you need an edit/revision/flat-out-rewrite. Even if it is just one sentence. As the writer, you'll probably never see something as 'absolutley perfect', but hopefully you can recognize what works.

*Note I said USUALLY. SOmetimes it matters very much.

My point is, I've spent hours trying to figure out the perfect way to write a sentence, and then realized, "Nobody will notice the difference."

Let me just go with a personal example of a story I wrote last Spring.

I sent it out. I got positive feedback. I revised.

I sent it to a new group. I got negative feedback. I rewrote.

I sent it to yet another group. I got negative feedback that almost essentially told me to put it back the way it was in the first place. I tried for a compromise solution.

I sent it to yet a fourth group. I got mixed feedback. I went back to my original version of the story, printed it out, and have had it sitting at Weird Tales ever since.

What does this have to do with revising/rewriting/editing? Quite a bit, actually. What wetwilly said is not, IMO, a deadly sin. Overediting and trying too hard to get the words right is, however.

I find it interesting that some people just naturally write beautifully. They don't necessarily get the story right (or wrong) but they can just put words down on a piece of paper in a way you want to read them. Other people's best claim to fame in the wording department is that their wording doesn't get in the way of the story. These people do need to be able to tell a good story to get along. I, personally, fall into that latter category. My wording is acceptable and usually just needs to get out of the way of the story.

Inserted Later: I just thought of a couple of examples of each of these types of writers, at least IMO. I rfound Tad William to have a great command of the language, but I couldn't stand his stories, they bored me to tears. Alternately, if you study Harry Potter too much you may notice that JK Rowling is only a mediocre writer, but she tells a great story.

What does this mean for editing, at least personally? That I'm not going to write poetry. I'm never going to write poetry. As long as I've not broken any rules of grammar or punctuation, I may as well step aside and let the story tell itself.

I think most people fall into this category, but they keep using it as a block, a reason why not to send a story out for publication. You don't have to get every single word perfect and if your material is so raw that most of your words aren't working at all then you're not ready to get published at all yet anyway and should just keep practicing. (The last type of writer that I didn't really want to mention but who do exist.)

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling right now.

[This message has been edited by Christine (edited August 12, 2004).]
 

Sometimes I overedit after a bad review only to have the next reviewer tell me to put it back.
 

quote:

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I figured; one, I'll ignore; two, makes me go Hmm...; three is a trend.

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This is something MaryRobinette wrote in her thread on characters over in F&F but I think it's something to bear in mind for editing in general. Look for trends in comments before over doing it.
 

I think the most important thing is to just read over something and see if it makes sense, both as the writer and as the reader. Perhaps you want the reader to say, "hey, wait" and as a writer it makes sense. Sometimes you don't want that. Just reading over the story is probably the best way of doing it.

That probably didn't make any sense, but I think I have a concussion right now so I apologize.

Jon
 

Well, I have no idea what being concussed is like, but I'm sorry to hear that it may have happened.

On the bright side, what you said makes sense. Perhaps that means that you aren't badly concussed? In that case, it is probably just a painful bruise, much like...getting crushed by a motor vehicle In that case, I offer my sympathies (though possibly the modes in which I experience physical damage do not exactly correspond to your feelings).

In any case, I hope that you feel better soon.
 

The last thing I do with a story is edit it. I read the whole thing outloud and mark the passages that don't sound right to me. Then I sit down and try to make them sound right. They have to sound right. They have to sound good to the inner ear. I agree with Wet Willy that there are various ways to write a sentence. There are categorically bad ways to do it, but there is not one correct way. Clarity is essential--the most essential point of writing.

I don't find myself working too hard on a particular sentence. For me, paragraphs are the key. The paragraph has to sound good as a unit. It's too easy to start nit-picking over words, phrases, and sentences. Yes, those are the things that make up paragraphs. But if the paragraph doesn't sound right, then I try to locate that element that doesn't sound right, and fix it. I don't focus on these things in isolation.