My Editing Process Part I

The topic came up on the Absolute Write message board about the process of editing.   Everyone pretty much had a top down approach–big stuff first.  Mine follows the same path, but it does vary, depending on the project.  I’ve also made some adjustments on it based on what I’ve learned.

From my last project, a historical thriller (this was written with a cowriter):

Phase One was the major editing of the story.  Almost 15K got lopped off as we realized that one whole section of seven chapters wasn’t necessary.  That meant we were 15K too short and had to go through each chapter, looking for places to add material.  Sometimes I’d find a chapter that ended near the bottom of a page and would spend several days trying to find additions to get it to pop over.  The problem, of course, was that the additions needed to be legitimate, not just padding.  Sometimes it was easy to get it to pop over, and sometimes I couldn’t make it happen.

I even found a chapter that I realized didn’t quite have a point to it.  I gave it one, and ended up adding several chapters to do that.

Phase Two ended up involving two separate parts.  The first part was a search and destroy for repetitions.  I literally went through the manuscript on the screen and hunted for them everywhere.  Just them.  I didn’t look for anything else. I think I learned a lot by doing it like this because I don’t do as many of them any more. 

The second part was an idiom search.  I went through the manuscript just looking for idioms.  Once I’d spot a potential idiom, I’d look it up in my idiom dictionary.  The dictionary gave me the date the idiom originated, and if it was outside the timeline of the story, it was either gone or replaced with something else.

Phase Three was proofreading and general clean up.  I hate proofreading, so I try to catch all the typos I can through any phase.

Next is what I’m doing on the current project.

Dorothy’s Red Slippers

Today, the Museum of American History reopens with a ceremony.  On their blog, they talk about Dorothy’s red slippers from the film The Wizard of Oz.  The You-Tube clip also shows how they set up an exhibit.  

Trivia:  They were silver in Frank L. Baum’s book and changed to ruby to make use of Technicolor.

I rewatched The Wizard of Oz earlier this year.  The last time I’d seen it was when I was a child.  It was quite different this time as a adult.  First up, it is a good film.  Some of the ones I thought were great when I was child don’t make the transition to adulthood.  Experience does that, both fortunately and unfortnately.  Mr. Roberts was a funny film to me as a teenager, but after I served in the military … well, yes, I knew a few military people like the crazy captain.  I can’t even bring myself to rewatch the film.

What amazed me the most is how many idioms came from this movie, and how much we still use them even today.  When I was working on a thriller set during the Civil War, the reverse was true: There were many idioms dating back to the Civil War that I remember in use when I was growing, and they virtually disappeared within a relatively short period of time.  If you haven’t watched the film in a long time, revisit it and see what your own impressions are.

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Another link from the same blog: This shows how quilts are wrapped up in a museum.  I like running across information like this because sometimes having this knowledge, however unimportant at the time, becomes important during writing.  Several months ago, I went to an art show and saw some interesting pottery.  The artist explained how she did the effect, and a week ago, an opportunity presented itself in my chapter.