Editing – Five Top Tips

August 4, 2010

Editing your first draft manuscript is never easy – after all, how do you gain the necessary distance from your precious ‘baby’, after spending months (or even years) on it?

Multi-published historical author, Elizabeth Bailey, is giving her Five Top Tips on editing your manuscript on the RNA blog today.

These are all very useful tips and I particularly like numbers 4 and 5. When I’ve had revisions, I always start with the smaller changes in the editorial letter (or agent’s email) as it helps me feel I’m making progress. Along the way, I find I begin to see ways of making bigger changes that work for my book, in my own way.

Killing your darlings…

At the end of the process, I’ve found the courage to ‘kill’ cherished scenes that just have no part in the book – like a helicoper rescue scene in one of my books. I’d researched it to death, interviewed RAF personnel and an ex MSF-doctor and I wanted to use it. Unfortunately, it did not move my plot along. It took me ages to find the nerve to delete it and replace it with a much smaller incident later in the book, that led to the deeper character development I needed.

Sometimes I think you need to go quite a way along the wrong path, to realise what the right path is. I’m always wandering off anyway!

Conversely, post-editing, there will also be points that I just ‘know’ are right and should stay. After a thorough round of revisions, I’ve usually got the confidence to keep them. Most editors or agents don’t want to be dictatorial (!), they would rather you worked out how to strengthen your book in a way that’s true to your own voice.

But everyone edits differently – any tips uou find helpful?

Liz is also launching a critique service for authors – all details on the RNA blog.

Comments

1. On August 4th, 2010 at 11:23 am
   Rosy Thornton Says:
   

   Fascinating post – yours and Elizabeth Bailey’s.

   I totally agree about tackling the small/easy things first, to feel you are making progress.

   My tip: I’m hopeless with the delete button, so I rarely change things as I go, or delete before I rewrite. I tend to write a new bit, and hone and hone it until I’m happy with it, and work out how to patch it in – and only THEN do I delete the old bit. It’s a defensive psychological thing. A bit like the way my daughter changes in shop changing rooms – puts on one lot of clothes before she wriggles out of the old ones, inside the new.

   Rosy x

2. On August 6th, 2010 at 11:35 am
   Phillipa Says:
   

   Rosy – I always leave my book plan/synopsis in place, only deleting it as I complete each scene. I keep the Spare (deleted) Bits in a file, originally titled Spare Bits!