#editing process

[daisywords]

I personally know there are multiple types of editing but I've never seen anyone explain it in a way that actually made me understand what the types of editing actually were (yeah cool that you say {}editing is different from []editing but *how*). So if you wanna explain, feel free to.

Your handy-dandy guide to different types of editing

disclaimer: writers, you can literally edit however works for you. these distinction can be useful to your process, or just if you're looking to hire an editor. Not all editors make distinctions in this way; there are various ways of dividing. But no matter what vocabulary you use, it's best practice to start with broad, big-picture stuff and move towards narrower issues. Some editors do all levels of editing, while some specialize.

Developmental Editing (Is it a good story?)

Developmental editing has to do with the content. For a novel, that means working on the bones of the story. The plot. The pacing. The characters. Do their motivations make sense? Can the reader understand why things are happening? Does the story drag in places, or seem to brush past important elements? Do all of the subplots get resolved? etc. etc. (At this stage an editor is mostly going to be offering suggestions, pointing out issues, and throwing out potential solutions. Beta readers can also be very helpful at this stage to get a reader's perspective on the story beats and characters.)

Line Editing (is it well written?)

Sometimes called substantive editing, line editing is zooming in a little bit more to focus on scenes, paragraphs and sentences. Once we've decided that a scene is going to stay, lets look at the mechanics of how it plays out. Does the scene start to early or too late? Does the writing style communicate the emotions we want the reader to feel? Does the dialogue match the characters' voices? do any of the sentences sound awkward or ugly? Is the movement being bogged down by too much purple prose anywhere, or is there not enough detail? (This can get pretty subjective, so it's important that the writer and the editor are on the same page with taste, style goals, etc.)

Copy Editing (is is correct?)

Copy editing is all about the details. Think grammar and punctuation. Do the sentences make sense? are they grammatically correct? Is the dialogue punctuated correctly? Any misspellings? Should this be hyphenated? Should this be capitalized? Should we use a numeral, or write out the number? etc etc. A significant part of copy editing is matching everything to a style manual (like Chicago or AP) a house style guide (individualized preferences from a publisher, for example), and a project's own internal style sheet (are the character's names spelled the same every time? if we used "leaped" in chapter 4, we shouldn't use "leapt" in chapter 7) Copy editing is still subjective, but less so than the earlier levels, so a copyeditor will be more likely to just go in and make a bunch of (tracked!) changes without consulting the author for everything.

Bonus: Proofreading (did the copyeditor catch everything? are there typos? formatting issues? have any errors been introduced?)

Lots of people say editing when they really mean proofreading. Proofreading is the absolute last thing to get done. It's the one last pass just before something is published. It's important, but as you can see, there's a whole lot more to editing than just checking for typos.

#editing #writeblr #editing process #writing process #editors or writers who have worked with editors feel free to chime in! we are not a monolith lol this is just they way I've learned

[wolfjackle-creates]

Working on getting Bring Me Home Arc 2 AO3 ready and I forgot how much I enjoyed writing some of the banter!

I've definitely switched some things around, shifted some lines from one character to another, adjusted/addes/deleted some descriptions and prose. But I really, really like the banter.

#editing process

[sometimesraven]

I'm on a bit of a plot block

Any tips?

Oh boy, plotting. Lemme just--

--right, let's do this.

SO, YOU'VE LOST THE PLOT

The solution to this all too common problem varies from writer to writer and usually depends on the exact issue you're having, but here's a few things I usually do.

Re-read all the plot you've got so far

It sounds obvious and you've probably already done it, but sometimes it's as simple as re-reading everything to get your flow back!

Figure out what you want from the plot

What's missing so far? Are there any characters being left behind? Have you opened a plot thread that hasn't been mentioned in a while? Is there a piece of character development you really really want to happen? Taking some time to think about what you have and what you're missing is important!

Skip that bit

You heard me. Figure out the next bit of plot you want to happen, skip to that bit. Come back to bridge the gap later!

Start over

I know I know, you put all this time into plotting and I'm telling you to scrap it. Don't scrap it! But just start writing the plot again from scratch and figure it out from there. Sometimes just the process of rewriting the same thing will give you a better perspective on where you're going! And sometimes you'll find the reason you can't get past the block is because something earlier in the plot isn't working, and this'll give you a chance to reshuffle and fix it!

Try a new medium

This is a lil bonus option I found recently works for me: just,,,, write somewhere else. New location, new medium, new program. I write all my plotting by hand! It helps me to have to write slower and to be able to plot somewhere that isn't the same place I write and spend my days (at my PC)

Hope this helps! It's hard to give any solid advice with something so wide, but these are some good starting points if you're not sure what's going wrong <3

#writing advice #author advice #writeblr #authorblr #novel planning #writing process #authors of tumblr #answered #mine #writing #editing advice #editing process #plotting advice #plotting process #anonymous

[floranochta]

Editing mode: ON! 🖋️📖

This song perfectly aligns with the mood of my next chapter. I can't wait to share it with you! (I will upload it soon!) ☺️

#Fractured Virtue #dramione #draco malfoy #fanfiction #dramione fandom #draco x hermione #death eaters #writing #editing process #Spotify

[authoraemoseley]

I am very curious to know your response too so I am going to ask you the same question back!

What do you enjoy most about the revision process? Are there some things you enjoy more than others? How does the revision process compare to the initial drafting process for you, do you prefer writing a first draft or would you rather skip to editing?

Thank you! A lovely set of questions!

So I'm going to answer all of these questions in a slightly disordered way but I trust that it'll make sense. If not, feel free to send me more asks for clarification!

When I write, I typically bang it all out in one or two goes (for shorter works), or over a week, or a month or so. My current WIP is an exception as I hand wrote it as a young teen, typed it up and completed it during NaNoWriMo in my late teens and as an adult I've been world building, rewriting, adding and now finally going back and writing the book as a whole.

There's a lot of different parts and elements from a lot of different places that are all making it into this cohesive "final" draft, but I really do enjoy it! I enjoy those rapids like flow of inspiration and getting in the zone, but I also really enjoy this process.

Typically the whole editing thing for me goes

Draft hand written or typed up

Type up draft (if hand written) or print the typed draft and then type it up again into a new document. This let's me re-read the story, flesh it out, and get a new perspective. This has been so tremendously helpful for me!

Take a break from it (no, seriously, step away from the computer, self!!). This break also typically involves rambling about it to someone or another (my close friends, my family, my cat, my dog), getting new ideas and jotting them down.

Go back and re-read, print out what's typed again (I use cheap paper and always front and back especially for the longer stories), take so many notes on it, then just kind of marinate in the story. This also involves a lot of talking to my cat, dog, parents (Bless them half the time they have no idea what I'm going on about but they give helpful advice and encouragement either way!), friends, and then I go back aaaand....

Type it all up again! By this point the story is looking pretty swell, and it's close to it's final draft, if it's not already at its final draft.

I really love all of it, especially the parts where I can just take notes on my story, write all sorts of odd things and just let inspiration come at me in a new way. I think that's my favorite part, seeing how I can build upon the ideas I already had, making them stronger and more detailed. While the grammar stuff always feels like a drag during the editing process, editing beyond that is a delight for me. I get a lot of inspiration for sequels or spin-offs or new ideas altogether.

I do sometimes skip to editing like with what I'm doing with HoM. Because the book is coming from so many sources that I've written over so many years (and I've been using this as my project for school), I'm going back and re-reading a lot. This is in part to remind me what I wrote, and to help me keep the flow of the story as I go into the next part. So I'll do tweaks here and there, add in more details, fix a run on sentence, but it's more light edits.

I do jump around a lot though when drafting. If there's a scene I wanna write, I'm gonna write it and trust that I can get myself to connect it later on. When I edit I tend to go straight through the whole thing.

Thanks again for the return ask!

#editing process #answered #hom book 1 #hom:tpm #the writer talks #squarebracket-trick

[clueless-writer]

it's that time of week! i'm back (hopefully) to my regularly scheduled program of sneak peaks. I'm into the editing phase/ epilogue of put the pieces back together... 😿

but we have a new story. when all is lost. the first chapter is up on ao3 and wattpad so go check them out and leave them some love and a comment ^.^

have a great day!!!!

#wattpad #minsung #amwriting #books #lee know #han jisung #han x lee know #writer #editing process #finishing #please give it love #give them attention #new chapter coming

[th3p0rtalmaker]

While reviewing Adira's half of the AMV, I decided to replace a couple clips, and sat back to watch a few seconds just to see if I liked it. The clip ran longer than I'd expected, and I got this gem of a mistake that highlights Adira's ability to be passive aggressive in the face of Eugene's stubborness 🤣

#tts #amv #editing process #fun editing mistakes #tts adira #tts eugene #eugene fitzherbert #tangled the series

[faylesswriter]

Count to THREE is at 975 hits on AO3…and honestly, Imma freak out once it reaches the 1,000 hit mark!! I'm so thankful for everyone who's stopped by to check it out; it's my first fanfiction on the site and the only story I've written in about ten years! Super excited!!

I figure with the hits approaching 1,000, I'd show a super small sneak peek of where the next chapter (…seven…) is currently and some of my creative processes! (no one asked for this)

❤️ Firstly, I start with a notes/timeline page where I hit the beginning/middle/and end of the chapter. Most flashbacks and hard plot points are already on a separate notes page, so they are copied and pasted into their designated chapter. Then everything in between those main three points of the chapter is fleshed out and winged with little planning….idk at this stage if the chapter will be 4,000 words or 15,000…

❤️ THEN, I create artwork for the beginning and the end of the chapter based on one of the three main talking points dished out in the timeline! If the chapter ends up being way too long, like this past week's update, then each of the spilt-up chapters will only get either a beginning OR the end artwork…..because I'm too lazy to make new art after writing it all out.

❤️ NEXT, I just go crazy with the writing! I let my mind wander without thinking about spelling, grammar, or anything that can get in the way!

❤️ After I have a good feel for the chapter, I copy and paste 1,000 - 2,000 words at a time into a separate document to do the editing. This way, I don't feel overwhelmed, and I can focus on small parts of the writing, flesh it out with small details, and find as many mistakes as possible in smaller chunks.

❤️ Once I've copied everything from the original document and edited everything, I copy the BETA'd work into AO3 and do a once-over-read/editing/reformatting on the site. Idk if there is a better way to do this, but for the chapter artwork, I upload them into DeviantArt (which you can find if you look up my username, but it's only the chapter artwork, and that's it) and use the links generated from DA to upload into AO3.

❤️And that's it!!❤️

Read Count to THREE, a BTS, ABO, Jikook, crime-fiction, here on AO3 👉 https://archiveofourown.org/works/48890215/chapters/123336580

If you want to look at my Deviantart you can but it’s pretty boring here 👉 https://www.deviantart.com/faylesswriter

#omegaverse #fanfic #bts fanfic #jikook #crime fiction #fiction #flashbacks #slow burn #abo #count to three #chapter update #thank you post #creative process #editing process #no one asked for this but here you go anyway

[ceph-the-ghost-writer]

Editing Devil on my shoulder: Yes, yes, these minor added details in the Apophenia redraft are good.

Editing Angel on my other shoulder: Nay! Renato believes Isaac's a sorcerer at this point, remember? He says so in Phagophobia! Wouldn't he chain him up then, blindfold him, make sure he couldn't do magic?

Me:

Editing Angel:

Editing Devil: ...They're right. Make him suffer more.

#editing process #dysthanasia #yes the Apophenia redraft has begun #I might have considered veering off course #from the first draft so soon a setback #but putting Isaac through The Horrors #could never be a chore to me

[littleperilstories]

Writing. Rewriting. Editing.

Someone recently asked me if I am a 'downsizer' during the editing process. I have been reflecting upon this question since then.

Here's what I have been up to:

writing (drafting) new TPOT chapters (drafting chapters from scratch to expand and improve the story that I made up for Whumptober - adding lore, plot points, and different character POVs)

rewriting some TPOT chapters (changing existing chapters to fit the new content I've added for the revival. I work within the existing doc and salvage as much as I can from the chapters, but in many cases the result looks like a total rewrite even if it isn't.)

editing TPOT (tweaking chapters to a point where I feel comfortable posting them online)

[These are NOT standard publishing terms, lol, and if you want to learn about correct terminology like developmental edits, stylistic edits, line edits, copy edits, proofreading, etc., this post will NOT be helpful to you. It's just some rambling thoughts about my process and where words get added vs cut.]

Here's how this process goes for me, at least for TPOT since I'm doing all three stages in a relatively short period of time..

Writing/Drafting: Words...happen. The result is a series of sentences that tell a story, but not prettily. And while the plot is perhaps light, the wordiness is VERY heavy. Conciseness? I don't know her.

Rewriting: This is the adding words stage. As ideas on how to fix the initial piece flow in, I am able to increase the WC so my chapter tells the story more cohesively and just...better. Details get added. Maybe even a few nice sentences here and there. Still wordy af.

Editing: Stylistic devices have arrived. The writing starts to actually look and sound nice. Once the imagery and whatnot is in, subsequent editing rounds cut words. All that pesky wordiness from writing and rewriting now needs to be dealt with, and slowly but surely the word count goes back down.

I'm curious, what does your process look like?

#lps the prince of thieves #writing process #writing #editing #editing process #writing craft

[wouldvebeensweet]

i’ve been asked a few times to share before and afters of my edits so i’ve been saving them to share :’) screen recording killed the quality but you get the idea!

#mine #video #before and after #editing process

[elizaellwrites]

My process of editing is basically retyping everything I already wrote and rewriting something that doesn't sound right or finding my typos.

It mainly works, but it takes forever.

It also makes me question whether I'm actually good at writing sometimes

#writing #editing process #editing problems #writer problems #about my writing

[ahb-writes]

Reviewing something I wrote the other day...

(from Black Widow, 2021)

#writing #writeblr #black widow #writing tips #novel writing #editing #fiction writing #editing process #scarlett johansson #florence pugh #cate shortland #eric pearson #rewriting #outlining #marvel #this film is a great example of how to write siblings #notable omission

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

I'd like to start this off by saying happy birthday to Maxime! I hope you're happy and at peace with your family and friends wherever you are now. Now, on to business.

I'm finally ready to start giving access to my novel to anyone who's interested in beta reading and editing for me. I totally understand that you guys all have much more important things to do with your lives and everything. I'm not expecting anyone to put all of their time into this for me or anything. And if I don't get anyone that's fine too.

If anyone is still interested please send me a message and let me know your email so I can grant you access to the manuscript and the optional beta reader questions I have for when you're done reading. Or if you have any questions about anything please shoot me an ask or a message and I'll try my best to answer.

~Dara

#robespierrre #frev #french revolution #maximilien robespierre #robespierre novel #frev wip #beta reader #editing process

[ahiddenpath]

Writing Process Sample

Hey babes!  I decided that, when writing the Puits d’Amour chapter that just went up, I would save all of the steps and share them, in case anyone wants to check out my process/how I plan/how I edit.  The docs are PDFs.

-My plan/outline/idea dump

-Draft 1

-Draft 2

-Final Product

If you take a peek at my editing, a lot of it is reducing wordiness- for example, “Takeru sent a brief response back to the palace” becomes “Takeru sent a response to the palace.”  Brief and back add nothing, so I excised them.  I added brief explanations on why I made some changes, but when it’s just removing words that aren’t doing any work, I didn’t bother.

Seeing someone edit like this (in Stephen King’s On Writing) changed how I write forever.  I’m a huge believer in the power of editing and successive drafts!  Please take a look if you’d like <3

Also, if you’ve ever asked me to take a look at your work and I marked it up like this, please know that it doesn’t mean I think your draft was bad.  I rip my stuff apart even more, here’s proof, lol!  

If you’re wondering how I did all of this hand marking on my drafts, I use a Remarkable 2.  I was able to get mine cheaper and with no subscription as an early customer, but I must warn you...  While I adore this device and use it pretty much daily, it has an expensive subscription, and I have mixed feelings about the company itself.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this one about successive drafting and this video editing session!

#writing talk #faves #writing process #editing #drafting #editing process #drafting process #puits d'amour

[thehumancircle]

It Just Happens Like That

That moment when, you're cleaning your fridge and, you realize the theme of your fucking book. You know, the thing you were complaining about. I fucking got it. It's the reason why I titled it "The Human Circle"... it was right there in front of me all this time. I already knew the theme, I had installed it into the plot but I just didn't know that it was a theme.

So now that I have a theme (after searching far and wide and deep and high), I need to make sure my characters deal with it internally or externally. This is so fucked. Right there.. this whole time... wow.

#writing #writing a book #writing community #writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #writers of instagram #new author #aspiring author #book tumblr #writing tumblr #editing #book editing #editing process