The Editing Process

[malenkayacherepakha]

Editing my own works isn't something I do very well - I read things over of course and make the odd minor change, but I've never done a proper critical edit of my fic. I want to improve my writing though, and I've got a couple of fics in the pipeline that I hope have the potential to be really good, and good editing is going to help a lot with that.

So, I thought I'd see what wisdom all the brilliant writers on here have to share!
What do you look for when you edit (or beta!)?
How does your editing process (or beta process) work?

Any thoughts are massively appreciated!

Comments

[gracerene]

Agreed on a lot of what others have said here. I actually don't edit as I go at all, the one exception being if I've taken a long break from writing a longer fic, then I'll usually reread/edit what I've started with to find my voice again, otherwise, I write everything, or most everything out, and then go back and edit. For me, it's a lot of trusting my gut/instincts. If there is a section/sentence that is reading weirdly, if I feel like a characterization isn't quite coming through, etc. I'm probably right. Very often the things I've felt wibbly on but didn't feel like dealing with so hoped they were good enough were things my betas ended up pointing out.

For me, the biggest thing is finding people to look over my work. If it's longer than a one-shot, I'd like at least two, preferably three eyes on it. These should be people who you click with, who give the kind of feedback you're looking for. For me, that means squee included in the feedback, but also more than just squee and basic SpaG. Like magpie said, I find people who are good writers themselves and/or voracious readers (of more than just fanfic) make better betas, but not everybody is cut out for giving helpful feedback.

I'd also say, don't be so tied to anything that you're unwilling to part with it/cut it/change it if it's better for the story. There have been a number of times I've had to cut down or completely eliminate/change scenes/conversations etc that I loved and had put a lot of time into writing because they weren't working for the story. One thing I see a lot of with longer fics is a lot of unnecessary scenes that don't actually push the story forward, and it ends up really dragging down the pacing. You might love a particular conversation, but if it's not serving the central narrative, it might be better off being cut. And you can always rework them into little bonus scenes/codas if you really can't part with them. :D

[malenkayacherepakha]

That's a really interesting point about trusting your gut - and I can totally relate to feeling wibbly on things but not wanting to try and fix them!

I'm definitely thinking that a big part of the puzzle is working with the right people, and that's something I need to prioritise sorting out, especially as I move to work on a longer fic that I really want to get right. I'm slowly feeling out how I like to work with beta readers and part of that is definitely that I want more than just spag corrections (which seems to be mostly what you get with a beta requested from discord, I think because of the experience level and the lack of prior beta relationship). I've found the betas you've done for me really helpful! And I'm hoping that part of working out what kind of feedback I want will help me be a better beta for others too.

That's such good advice - it's so hard to put into practice sometimes, but I've definitely experienced those scenes that do nothing from the reader side, so I need to make sure I act on it from the writer side.

[magpie_fngrl]

I agree with everything Grace has said 247%. I've had it happen so many times too; betas always end up pointing out what I wasn't sure of, something that made me pause too. Never in my life has anyone pointed out to something I thought I'd done brilliantly and disagreed. Analysing your work (and others) and self-editing is also about honing that instinct.

Also, HARD same on fics being full of scenes that drag the pacing. Few 100k fics I've read deserved to be that length. Which is also why when you analyse fave works to see how they work, you should also (if not mainly) do it for pubbed books: they've been professionally edited.

[malenkayacherepakha]

Do you flag those bits to your betas or just wait and see if they pick them up without any prompting?

Looks like I'll have to set aside plenty of time for reading in the next few months - what a shame!

[magpie_fngrl]

No, I don't flag them.