Editing; An Underrated Pleasure.

Editing an underrated pleasure.

Hands up if you like editing? It s not a very popular aspect of the writing process but it s a necessary one and something you become better at it with practice.

There tends to be two main camps when it comes to the approach writers take. The first is to edit step by step as you go and then finally pore over your creation until you end up completely rewriting it. I know a few people in this category and they do produce some well polished pieces of art that require very little proofreading.

I ve tried this approach but I m too impatient I simply want to get on with the story, get it written then to go back and indulge myself in the editing process.

Yes, I did say indulge, because I love editing. Not the first time I do it, when I go back and correct my most obvious mistakes, that bit is a chore. No, the part I love is when I go back to a story after leaving it for a few months before it goes off to my wonderfully patient copyeditor. I really enjoy immersing myself in the story again, picking up the slight flaws and correcting them. I like having that understanding of the story and complete overview that helps me to pick up on mistakes and inconsistencies.

At the moment my editing process is quite simple, though it s liable to change depending on the availability of my husband as my first reader. Once I finish the story I go back and edit each chapter one by one for the most obvious mistakes. Sometimes, if the book has taken a long time to write with lots of breaks, I ll have done this already. Once I m happy with my efforts, my long-suffering spouse will read it and then the story disappears for several months.

At a later date, I ll carefully edit the whole book again chapter by chapter before sending it for copy editing. When it returns, I always carry out the recommendations suggested and then it s ready for proof reading.

But I don t believe you can ever really proof a book enough. You can over edit in my opinion, but even in traditionally published books you still find the typos and they have whole teams scrutinizing them.

So, my advice would be to leave the article or story for as long as you can and then go back and read it. Better still print it out so you can write on it, or if you can bear to, read it out loud that s always interesting.

Honestly, editing and proofreading can be very satisfying. You wrote this, this is your work. That s quite an achievement.

Now I d better follow my own advice before letting anyone else see this.