For Love of Editing.

I think we've all heard of those authors who think they don't need to edit, or think they don't need anyone else editing their work.  I'm saying this right now: if I ever claim either of those things, I want you to link me back to this entry, so I can tell myself I'm an utter and complete idiot for ever thinking I don't need to edit.

Because I totally do, for one simple reason: editing makes everything better.

As I mentioned earlier, I finished the line edits on The Book of Lost Runes yesterday.  (Yes, saying it on Twitter counts as mentioning it earlier.  This is the internet.)  I did two chapters a day, so while it might have only taken me nine days, it felt like one enormous slog.  Mostly because going over everything by hand forces me to see how the story actually works on paper, to see the story how a reader would.  And making a whole bunch of changes with a pen takes a long time.

It also really drove home the fact that I'm a writer, because I was overly happy to find a pen that worked well for this task.  It's the simple things, really.  And I'm now stealing the pens from every hotel room I stay in, because damn.

It's amazing how many things I notice when I'm not staring at a screen.  Little things like how I fall back on using some of my favorite words, or when I describe something the exact same way in two sentences in a row, or when a character's eye color rapidly changes between chapters.  Yes, all of these things happened.  Some of them repeatedly.

For example, the story is done in third person limited perspective, so when writing it, I often used "Shiloh thought" in lines where the main character was considering something that happened and/or drawing conclusions.  It was supposed to be a simple way to designate that I was dealing with her internal monologue, not stating things as objective fact.  Over the course of editing, I realized that the whole book is effectively her internal monologue, third person or not.  So there's rarely reason to designate something as one of Shiloh's thoughts - it quite literally could not be anyone else's.  I crossed out a lot of "Shiloh thought" over the past few days, believe me.

But better to do that now than have a pre-reader hand the book back to me with every single instance of "Shiloh thought" marked in the text.  There would have been many.  Many.

I also nailed down some things I'd been questioning myself on while I wrote the book.  Do people speak runes or write them?  Runes are written, only spoken for constant magical effects like maintaining a shield or runeweaving or ███ ███████ ████.  Is Cordobrae all desert, or desert and wasteland?  The latter, though the wasteland can be much like the desert, just with more magical poisoning.  How many chains drape over the Lady of Chains's shoulders?  As many as she needs.

Some things don't need a concrete answer.  That's my decision and I'm sticking to it.  :P

So, yes.  The point of this overly wordy little ramble?  No matter what you've done, editing can only make it better.  I know this is something most if not all of my readers will know and understand.  But given the vast and often overwhelming uncertainty of this profession, and the equally vast and overwhelming anxiety that too often comes with it, sometimes a reminder can help.

It's all right if you think you've written something that no one - including you - should ever read.  Because there's always something you can do to make it better.

Not that this has me considering picking up the books I tossed aside last year and editing them.  Let's not get crazy, I have enough to do already....