#WeWriteBooks, Post 26: The Micro Edit

Here is how I tackle a micro edit:

I always have a timeline or calendar that chronicles the time that passes in my books. I try to maintain the calendar as I write the first draft, but it always gets messed up. This is one of the things I need to go through and check in my editing stage. I will read the story for the passage of time and make sure that everything lines up okay. This is especially important in books with more than one point of view character.

I will read the book with an eye tuned on all types of description: physical settings, people, creatures, objects, magic, etc. My goal is always to describe only what is necessary and delete the rest. I want to set the stage for each scene, but I don’t necessarily want to stop the story to do so. I’ll tweak static descriptions to make them active, which simply means I might describe a castle as my character moves through it rather than giving a paragraph of description as if my character stepped out of the story briefly to narrate that to me. I will shorten any descriptions that are too long and lengthen those that didn’t do their job well enough. I like to give the location and time of day at the start of each scene (in the first paragraph, if I can) and also state who is present and mention if there is an object that might come up later. This is to avoid having people or objects magically appear in the scene. I also make sure that any description is given in the voice of the point of view character. What would he notice? What words would he use?

In any description, I try to state where the character is in one simple and strong noun. Like: forest, bedroom, office, coast, classroom, sea. I pair the noun with descriptive verbs like: curved, stretched, crouched, stood, towered. And occasionally I add a visual adjective like: rocky, thick, bare, crowded, grassy, colossal, and specific colors. I avoid “ly” adverbs.

I also take time here to really look at my word choice. I want to choose specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives that set the proper mood for the scene. I want to make sure and incorporate the five senses here and there, as well.

I read the book for point of view errors. This isn’t one of my major weaknesses, but I do sometimes slip into omniscient when my POV character somehow knows the emotion of another character in the scene. I try to fix all of that and show any emotions through actions, dialogue, and description. If point of view is a tough one for you, take extra care to watch for places where you drift from one head into another. Don’t tell the reader anything the character doesn’t know. Don’t jump into someone else’s thoughts. And if you must jump back and forth between points of view, stay in one person’s head at a time. It’s best two switch at scene or chapter breaks.

The difference between telling and showing looks like this. Imagine you are with friends out camping. You’re sitting around the campfire and someone starts telling a story. “It was a dark night in the forest…” You listen, and you experience the story that way. That’s telling.

Now imagine a movie or a stage play. Your watch characters act out a story for an audience. They’re real, flesh and blood. You see their actions and expressions. You hear their voices. When an author puts words on a page in a way that readers can see this type of realistic detail in their minds, that’s showing.

That’s what you want. Stephanie wrote a fabulous post on this subject.

I use the “search” function in Word to seek out telling words one at a time and rewrite those sentences.

The word “seemed” tends to enable a point of view character to interpret the minds of those around him. This is telling. Instead, I try and show other characters’s emotions through their words and actions. Using the words “with a” is another type of telling. Ex: “He said with a smile.” Instead, I would have the character smile, then speak.

Keep in mind, just because a word is on the list below doesn’t mean I can’t use it. It also doesn’t mean it’s for certain a telling word the way I’ve used it. In general, the following words facilitate telling, so I like to search for them, then consider the way I’ve used them in the sentence and if there might be a better way. I try to show action whenever I can rather than telling the facts. Showing gives me the opportunity to describe setting, characters, senses, and action. It helps me be specific. Every word matters. Choose wisely.

Here is my list: it, was, felt, saw, tasted, heard, smelled, sensed, gave, started to, began to, notice, found, with a, spotted, experienced, looked, feeling, felt, watched, wondered, spotted, listened, tried, seemed, thought.

  

I watch for places where I explain something I’ve already revealed to my readers. This is often in another point of view, so it feels like that character needs to hear the story for himself. But he doesn’t. So I just recap it and move on. For example, “He told Mike about what had happened with Susan and the dog.”

Information dumps are similar to over-explaining, but here I am simply dumping a load of facts into the story where they don’t belong. I try to never do this and instead look for places to weave such facts into the action of the story.

If I’ve been building up to reveal that “major moment” that changed everything for my character, then I might use a single flashback or a section of backstory to finally reveal it. Any other flashbacks or bits of backstory I wouldn’t likely deem unnecessary and would cut them. If I found some in my edits, I would see if I could find another way to work the information into the story.

Author intrusion is when I, the author, project myself, my views, my knowledge, or my opinions into my story. This is distracting to readers and interrupts the flow of the story. This often appears as a forced theme or preachy statement the author is forcing upon the reader, but it also can show up as having the wrong technology in a storyworld, real people like Einstein in a fantasy world, or misinformation when an author hasn’t done her research.

Also, just because we live in the 21^st century doesn’t mean that our characters should think like people today. If you’re writing historical fiction or fantasy in an ancient world where there was slavery, chauvinism, different gender roles, or religious beliefs that are different that what you believe, stay true to your storyworld. Don’t force all your characters to be free thinkers who are ahead of their time. It’s bad writing to force modern-day beliefs into a story where they don’t fit. Fight the urge to force your story to be politically correct. The mark of a great writer is someone who can write any type of character honestly.

As to theme, I do try to foreshadow and plant my theme in this stage of edits. I just try to make sure that I’m being subtle and showing my theme rather than telling and forcing it.

I take extra time on dialogue when I can. I will go through the story for each of the main characters. Using the “search” function, I look for each use of their name so that I can study them closely. I’m looking for several things. I want each character in my story to come to life, and dialogue is one of the best ways to bring life to a character. I will study the dialogue for character voice, word choice, syntax, accent, slang, and trueness to that character. (Is this something he would actually say and do?) I will also study internal thoughts, action tags, and description tags to add in those details specific to each character and also to make sure that I haven’t overdone those details.

I also study the dialogue as a whole for rhythm and flow. I read it out loud to hear how it sounds. I want it to sound natural. If I’ve used too many said tags, I try to take some out or exchange them for action, thought, or description tags. I also look hard for generic action tags and try to rewrite these into something meaningful.

I do as many read-throughs as I possibly can before it’s time to turn in the manuscript. The more the better. My goal is to tighten my prose and cut any and all clutter.

First I go through and look for cliches that need to be tweaked for originality, for adverbs that can be cut (I do a search for “ly”), vague words (I search for: it, them, they, their…), then I’ll search out all the words on my weasel word list.

As I edit, I change any vague word I see. They weaken my writing. “She had pretty hair” doesn’t do as much as “Her hair fell in black waves over her shoulders.” The goal is to choose concrete words that offer a clear, intentional picture to the reader. Good writing is in the details.

I search my story for passive linking verbs and trade them in for active ones. Click here for a post on this topic.

Fiction should be shown in order: action, reaction. I search for the words that create continuing or simultaneous action like: as, when, while, after, and continued to. I always try to make sure those sentences are in a logical order—action, then reaction.

I check any sentences that begin with —ing words.These infinite verb phrases tend to create physical impossibilities. For example: Grabbing a textbook, he crammed it into his backpack, slammed his locker, and ran to class. 

Today, most readers like lots of white space in their stories. That means shorter paragraphs and lots of dialogue. If you pick up a book and flip through it, notice the amount of text on each page compared to the amount of white space (where there’s no text). You want a good balance in your manuscript. We’ve talked about pacing before, so I watch for that as I edit. I continue to delete needless words, tighten sentences, survey the length of sentences, vary them, and break up really long paragraphs.

–Cut What’s Boring. You might think, “Duh, Jill.” But you’d be surprised how much you can miss in your own manuscript. So keep an eye peeled for sentences or even paragraphs that really don’t matter, even if you like what you wrote. If the story is the same without it, it’s probably something that can be cut.

In my last pass through the manuscript, I read to tweak. I try to read the book out loud to someone. Reading aloud to an audience enables me to catch so much more than I would reading silently or even aloud to myself. There is no better method for me to catch things than doing this.

You’ll need to run a search for any placeholders you may use. A placeholder is a word that some writers use as a flag to themselves to come back and fix something. Stephanie uses the word “GIRAFFE.” I don’t use placeholders. I either highlight the text that needs more work or I’ll add a comment to remind myself what I need to come back and fix.

Ideally by this stage I should have fixed all these types of problems, so I would then run a search for them to make sure I didn’t miss any.

Double-check for correct punctuation, grammar, and common typos. Run a search for words you tend to misspell or create typos of like “chance” when I mean “change.” Also: its/it’s, know/now, loose/lose, past/passed, they’re/their/there, thing/think, and though/through/thought.

Proper punctuation is really important for writers. We must learn the rules if we are going to be professional authors. I highly recommend picking up a punctuation book for your own reference. The Chicago Manual of Style is the reference for the book publishing industry. Add a used copy to your wish list. It’s a great tool to have on your shelf. Here are a list of my Punctuation 101 blog posts. They are still relevant, so follow them!

Don’t rely on Word’s wavy red lines to catch all your misspellings. I ALWAYS run a spell check as the very last thing I do before turning in my manuscript. And even then I sometimes manage to miss things.