Eve Ventually

#WritersCoffeeClub October 29: What is your editing process? How do you know it is done?

Editing is never done! But once the story is published, no one gets to see the edits until/unless there's a new edition.

In Working with tension, I mention a kind of trick I do to get myself to send an email or whatever when I'm not comfortable that it's ready or ever will be. I need to find something similar for publishing because there are too many steps to actually publish for it to be one of those "walk backwards into it and hover my mouse over the button and surprise myself by clicking on it" deals.

At some point, you do have to publish (if publishing is your goal).

Working with tension

I'm sitting here on a Tuesday as I write this. It's October 1st. The start of a new semester for me. It's a thing. I can't work on school...

EnbySpacePerson
Oct 29, 2024 at 11:13amWeb
Show threadEve VentuallyOct 29, 2024

In hind sight, I realized I didn't actually answer the bulk of the question.  

Any time I look at the draft, edits happen. I have to look at where I left off to get myself into the scene and write the next words so some editing happens there. I'll do a light pass at the end of a chapter.

Then when I finish the first draft, I'll convert to ePub and do an evening read on my eReader. At that point, I'm looking for how I feel as a reader and I always catch some typos or repetitious word repetitions ( 😜 ). I tend to catch flow, pace, and plotholes in this pass.

After making the edits from the previous step, I'll convert it TTS style to audio and listen to the draft while doing housework or whatever else I have going on.

After that, I do a close edit.