I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on facebook, twitter, goodreads and more about editing and the editing process. I’m not one to miss the bandwagon. Editing is extremely important when it comes to finalizing ANYTHING, even emails to the boss. There can be some pretty blaring typos (I’ve made them and will continue to make them).
Just for show…I want everyone who reads this post to comment with their editing process and what they do for it. I will say, always have someone else go through your work.
Here’s my process.
1. I edit the piece
2. I edit the piece
3. I sent my piece to not one but two beta’s.
4. I edit from my beta’s comments
5. I do a final edit after beta’s comments
6. I print out and run through each sentence backward, looking ONLY for typos.
7. I send to my editor
8. I go through editors comments
9. Sometimes #7 and #8 are repeated.
Those are a lot of freakin’ steps, and even after ALL of that, I still find typos and mistakes that should have been caught.
So WHAT’S YOUR PROCESS?
Adrian J. Smith 
Editing is a pretty tough but necessary process, and I go through these steps too! Thanks, Adriana!
Well if anything, it seems to work, as I don’t recall seeing any typos!
Haha really? I know where they are! I can point them out!!
So far, for blog posts it’s “write, edit, edit, let sit for a few hours, edit, probably let sit overnight, edit again, still miss a typo, fix it after publishing.”
For fiction, I haven’t reached the end of the road on anything yet, so it’s been “write, let sit, read over, re-write, let sit, read, edit, re-write parts, edit, read out loud, edit, beta readers…”
Not always fun, but so necessary.
Fiction I have to have it finished before I start editing. Otherwise I will never finish the piece. That also includes no rewriting. I’ll keep a notebook with lists of sections I want to rewrite and how but all of that gets done during the first edit.
Oh, yes. I write to the end, THEN let sit, etcetera. I don’t go back in the middle or fix along the way. I’d never finish anything if I did that! Those steps are all done on a full draft. :)
I know so many writers (mostly beginners) that start to edit in the middle and never finish. It’s such a sad thing to see.
That happened to me when I started trying to write novels. It was NaNoWriMo that taught me to just get the first draft out so that I at least have something to edit. I’m such a perfectionist that I wanted those first chapters to be just right before I moved on… and then I never moved on. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but it was so important for me!
Hmmm are you doing camp NaNo?
I haven’t decided. I want to, but we’re going away for two weeks in July, which would put a serious damper on my word count. Maybe I’ll set a lower goal that I can reach before we go away. I hate to sit a session out when it’s such a great motivator.
Yeah…now they have the pick your own word count on there. That was interesting. I’ll be doing it. I was going to try and write the novel this month but that is obviously NOT happening. Lol. You should join! It’ll be fun!!
I think I will. I did the first session and had a fun cabin. :)