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Editing Process

one year ago
So I've picked up writing again and with that comes the feeling that every word I write is shit and that there's no point in writing anything at all. Now I'm aware the solution to that is to just write and come edit it later if it really is as bad as it feels, but that brings another question. How do you guys go about editing? Personally I don't intend to edit until I have a sizeable amount of drafting done, since then it'll be easier to pick up on patterns that I might be doing, but I'm still curious to know. It seems to me that most people wait to edit in batches, if not waiting until after you've written the whole thing at least editing after each major branch, but it'd be interesting to know if anyone edits more often or even after every page. Additionally, I'd be interested in how exactly you do edit. I'm under the impression that on this site most authors write and then do a grammar edit, or at most a prose edit, before publishing, without doing a lot of the more high level editing that would go into an actual book. Obviously as this is a hobby site, and the authors that do this produce really good work, that's not meant to be some judging comment. I'm just curious if anyone does regularly more intensive edits. This thread is mainly just me curious as to you guy's editing process, or if you don't have one that's also really interesting to know. I've never done more than grammar edits, maybe rewriting a page or two, so I don't have any experience here.

Editing Process

one year ago

I'm obviously not the greatest at writing, but I'll tell you what I do anyway. I don't recommend it by the way. It's probably just best if you write a whole section and then go back and edit it all. That seems like the smarter choice. 

What I end up doing is I write three or four new paragraphs, and then I can't help but read over the whole section that I'm working on. This makes my actual writing process very slow, as I seem to suffer from the same thing you do. However, once I finish a section I usually just stuff it in a google doc somewhere and forget about until I've finished writing the whole thing. 

The way I actually edit things depends on what it's for. If it's just a thing that wrote for no particular reason, I don't tend to edit those at all. That's probably not great, but I'm lazy, and unless it's something really cool, then it's not worth my time. If it's something I really like or if it's for a contest on here then I usually try to do a quick check for grammar mistakes, though that doesn't always happen. Now that I think about it, the only time that I really edit things is for school. Then again, those are usually shorter because of page limits and double spacing, so that makes it a bit easier. Plus, my grade kind of depends on those and my parents are really strict about my grade. 

First I go through it a couple times and make sure there aren't any grammar mistakes. Then I tend to try to read through it slowly and pick apart the sentences to make sure that the sentence structure is correct and that everything makes sense. Then I usually kidnap my brother and force him to read it kindly ask my brother, who is an avid reader, to go through it and tell me what he would think if it was a book. He's really picky about things being perfect, so he's become my editor. 

I now realize that this probably wasn't much help anyway because I don't actually tend to edit a lot of stuff, but I hope you at least gained something from reading this. If not, well, sorry. :) 

Editing Process

one year ago

If I'm being really business-like about finishing a storygame, I'll usually write the whole thing in order and then spellcheck the document for grammar before publishing it. I usually don't do a more intensive story-level or sentence-level edit since by the time I finish the draft I'm sick of the concept. My usual strategy for linear stories is much more chaotic, I write whatever scene I want to regardless of where it fits into the timeline, and I edit whatever scenes I want to regardless of where they are in the plot. Then when that's done, I'll do a more intensive grammar and sentence structure edit. I don't usually end up doing major story-level edit, since A) I haven't finished any very long linear projects, and B) By the time I have a completed work, I've been doing enough unofficial story-level edits on my own time that I'm usually satisfied with the general structure.

Editing Process

one year ago

Write page. Read the page again, and edit anything I spot.

Write enough pages to finish a chapter -> Read the entire chapter again, and edit anything I spot.

Write everything -> Take a break for a day or two -> read it all again, and edit anything I spot.

Editing Process

one year ago
Editing?

Oh! This is some writing thing. Yeah, I don't do that.