Okay, so are there any certain things I need to look for when I start editing my story? I didn't think there was really a certain way to do it, since stories are all different, but I thought there might be things I need to check, other than grammar and sentence structure.

Here are some tips.
(This was the "guidlines" for editing on the OYAN forum.)



That should keep you busy of the first chapter for a while. I'll post more later.

Storygirl gave some good tips there, but I do have to drop my two cents worth of qualifiers on a couple of them.

First: The adjectives thing: It's a matter of taste. I know I tend to be a little liberal with my adjectives, but to put a cap on them is tricky. Yes, if you're writing a brisk tale in a modern setting, you can sweep the reader along with next to no adjectives. But if you're immersing them in a totally alien world to what we know here on earth, descriptors will be necessary...especially to accomplish the earlier goals of establishing setting and genre.

Second: While I am quick to jump all over being verbs as main verbs in a sentence, advising a writer to reword to find a more active verb, there is a time when you simply must use had or has, and that's in the past perfect tense. Sometimes you need to refer to an action your character has done in a previous timeframe of the story, and if you don't use past perfect: i.e. "He had purchased the armor from a reputable smith in Myslapten and therefore could not understand why it deteriorated so quickly." If you say "He purchased," that noun-verb combination implies that the action takes place in the time frame that is "now occurring" in a story written in past tense. (Which most are.) So, I would say, avoid "He had a cold" as a use of had, but IMHO, it should get a pass if you need to go past-perfect.

Last: (This is actually more of an agreement) Adverbs. Yes, at times an adverb can be a crutch to prop up lazy writing. Better to find a way to make the statement in a way that eliminates as many adverbs as possible. My personal pet peeve: adverbs in dialogue tags. It's so much better to put the bite in your speaker's word choices than it is to say " she said bitingly." (Okay, so that was an especially atrocious example, but I think it therefore amplifies my point. My only qualifier here is that there are times that an adverb is needed. No part of speech is bad in and of itself. It's lazy usage that makes adverbs the villain of the contemporary literary world.

As for other issues I'd say to watch out for: POV is one of the biggies. If you don't have a handle on that concept, read up! (I recommend Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint for starters.) POV errors will kill your manuscript in the eyes of many editors.

Also...passive voice, in the classic sense where the subject is not the thing doing the acting, but rather is acted upon. "The battle was fought by the orcs and the men of the southern plains." SOme examples won't be so obvious, but most of the time, you can reword to make the subject active. An occasional interjection of passive voice can add punch, but too much of it makes me close a book, to be honest.

And last: search for the word "that." You'd be surprised how many times it sneaks into a sentence where it's not needed.

Okay, enough from me. "Blah, blah, blah..."

Okay, thanks Looks like it'll probably be best to go one page at a time, get them fixed, then read the chapter as a whole, etc.

Checking for passive voice... *shudders*... lol, I never was good at that at all...

And is there any reason at all why I shouldn't post this story on my blog eventually? I know of a couple people who've said they want to read it.

Sapphira: Only post it if you do not want to publish it via a publisher. If you are going to self-publish, it might be okay. Basically post it on your blog to get feedback and an audience.

About the rules:

I disagree with a lot of them. No surprise there. Adverbs are a perfectly fine part of speech. Bad writing makes adverbs bad, adverbs do not make writing bad. Adjectives are crucial to good description (read Zane Grey or any of the older great writers if you are unsure). Actually, they kind of are description. Linking verbs are fine. If you do not agree with me on any of these points, go read C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Victor Hugo, etc. and see what they do.

I think grammar-wise, I'll only change things that are obviously written incorrectly. I never was good at picking through adverbs and such anyway (yeah, I know, I need to practice :P), and most of the time they seem to fit. I noticed a couple spelling errors and typos when I read the first chapter over last night, so I corrected those.



Okay, thanks. I heard something about that (copyright issues or something?), but I wasn't sure.
How likely is it to get something published? I think it would be cool, but I've also heard it's hard to find a publisher (and I really don't know how many people would actually read my story anyway). I thought about looking at self-publishing someday, but didn't know much about that either.

Jay is right...if you want to submit your work to a publisher someday, having put a significant portion on your blog for public consumption might get sticky. Traditional publishers don't want to risk folks not buying your book because they've already read a lot of it on your blog...and there maybe other, underlying copyright issues, depending on which blog service you use. The legalese about who owns what you post on your "free blog" is very convoluted, so when in doubt, don't post it. Alternately, you can offer the excerpts as a download to select people, and that will let folks read your work without getting into copyright snares.

If you want to self publish, then it doesn't much matter what you do. But beware...the vast majority of publishing gurus right now say there is no market for self published fiction. And self publishing can get very pricey, if you don't watch out for the million scam operations that are out there. If you want to do it right, make sure your book is professionally edited, hire artists and layout people for the cover and text...well, you can see how expensive that would get. You could quite possibly sink a lot of money into the process that will be very hard, if not impossible to make back.

On the other hand, it is very hard to get traditionally published, but I am of the belief that the challenge refines the writer's craft. If you are going to get your book up to snuff so it stands out amidst thousands of manuscripts that cross editors' desks in the course of a year, then you have really accomplished something to be proud of.

But don't let my dose of realism snuff your creative flame, for sure. It is good (and important) to know what your goals are. If you are writing for your own pleasure and the pleasure of those you know or draw into reading your work in an informal way, then that's great and valid. But if you want to have a book on bookstore shelves...that is a much longer haul, fraught with challenges as well as great rewards, IMHO. (All this coming from someone who is just beginning to send her first manuscript out to editors. But I hang around a lot of published writers, so I'm just regurgitating what they tell me, for what it's worth.)

Okay, it's been about two years since anyone has posted on this thread, but I'm going to anyway, because I love the topic!

This is the way I go about editing.

1. Don't over edit.

2. Regarding hases and wases... there's a time and a place, but keep a lead on them!

3. Adjectives and adverbs... make sure you can't do without 'em before you use them... and then use the exact one you need, not almost exactly the one you need.

4. Go by intuition. It's a wonderful thing. If you're unsure about something, and you keep it in, someone's sure to pick up on it!

*2 years late: well, why not?*

Audience:
Consider your audience when thinking about how to edit adverbs/adjectives/passive voice/etc.

For example, Tolkien & co. wrote in a time when their audience was used to "flowery" language, and when publishers were willing to publish it . Now, however, modern readers tend to read {and thus prefer} clipped prose in keeping with modern publishing guidelines {as outlined by StoryGirl}. Still, if you can find both an audience who likes "old-fashioned" writing, and a publisher willing to publish it, then go ahead and fly with your preferences!

*If any lingering confusion remains within the abyss of this topic, perhaps this post has provided a filament of light*

I agree with what you said, although I generally consider that first part of the funnel to be revising. The revisions may be as rough (edit-wise) as the first draft, but they make the story and characters flow better.

eru

I'm agreed with eru on that. I can't relax enough to focus on the big picture with nasty goblinlike fanged commas and exclamation points jumping out from invisible hiding places all over the text. But generally I think, Eve, you've definitely got the revision plan right!