Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

editing

Is Fiction Editing Like Spray Painting?

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This park bench has been in my family for years and ended up at my house this summer. Little worse for wear. A first draft.

Yes. Yes it is. When you think you’ve finished a chapter or a book, the editing process really begins. A first draft is just that, a draft. In spray painting prep terms, it might look like a good specimen, but the closer you look, the more cracks and peeling paint you see. This is a good thing.

First you need to assess the situation. If this is the first draft of book chapter one, keep writing! Otherwise you might polish the first draft of the first chapter into nothingness. Any piece of wood or metal can only take so much sanding or polishing before it becomes dust.

After using my new mouse sander. Looks like how I feel before makeup in the morning.

If you have a finished first draft of a book, it’s time to take a much closer look and find its flaws. They may be minor or major, but taking off the layers will show you the bones and if major or minor revisions are needed.

Some coarse sanding might be in order, then medium, then fine. Once you have a manuscript stripped down to the bones and not a word wasted, you can paint on the layers of polish, aka paint.

Polishing of a first written draft is the same as a first coat of paint; you’re going to need more paint to fill in the gaps.

Take your time to round out the fiction world you have created. Bring in multiple coats of paint and words to create a smooth story and paint surface. Allow time in between layers of words and paint to let it dry and show itself.

You will make editing mistakes. Be patient with yourself. Whether you are spraying your toes or making the book worse, scrub the book and your toes to make them both sparkle.

Then on to final finishing with fine sanding and words to get all the pieces in place, sanded and glowing. One more coat to seal it and then you are good to go.

Whether you are finishing a painting or a writing project, attention to detail and time are key. With each project you undertake, you improve your skills. You find out how you write a book or chapter, not how someone else does it.

The biggest surprise? You never stop learning. With writing or spray paint!

Perfect priceless pink!

 

Have You Pruned Your Writing Lately?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Last Friday we had a sunny day. Since the monsoons were rolling in Saturday, I jumped out into the yard first thing and pruned my roses. Since I’m not really sure what I’m doing, I’d looked at how the landscapers pruned my Mom’s roses. Pretty severe.

Rose bushes before the great prune-off .....
Rose bushes before the great prune-off …..

Hacking away at the poor bushes reminded me of editing. Like the time I threw out two-thirds of a fiction manuscript and started over. Painful but necessary. It got me to thinking of the top three edits writers need to make, but many times do not. I know these three because I have done them all and still do; then I have to self-prune my writing.

1. Back story overload: Because you know everything about your character from her favorite nail polish to her indigestion issues does not mean the reader needs to know it. We create our characters so we can react how our characters would react and know their motivations. DO NOT put every single item about your character in the book or the first chapter. Sprinkle observations and quirks throughout the manuscript to unfold layers of your heroine and let the reader get to bond with her. Do not overshare or for the younger set do not TMI. (Too much information!)

2. Research hurling: This is a close cousin to back story overload. Research hurling means the writer throws every single tidbit they discovered about the time period, horse carriages, leather harness, brass wax and currier combs into the story. Stop the madness! Pick important details which move the story forward or provide some scene setting but don’t slow down the story. If you get bored editing it, a reader will be comatose.

3. Starting before the action: Everybody does this, really. Then the good writers edit it out. The reader does not need to know exactly what year, political structure or cult history brought the hero to this point in his life – we need to know what is happening right now. Instead of explaining the entire history of the Reno Rodeo, how about starting with the hero trying to escape from the pounding hooves of the bull he’s been thrown from onto the dirt. Drop the history stuff in later as the story requires or if it is important to the character arc. If it doesn’t advance the story, don’t use it.

Self-editing is one of the hardest things to do for beginning writers and all writers. But the more times you edit, the better you become at letting your story free from the overgrowth of deadwood which doesn’t let it grow. Hopefully like my pruned rose bushes. Prune away!

Rose sticks afterwards. Stay tuned for June!
Rose sticks afterwards. Stay tuned for June!

Do You Edit On Screen Or Paper?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                    (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Love the smell of school supplies in the morning. This time of year I buy school supplies to re-stock my writer gear, not that I need more but it makes me happy. Got me to wondering about how other folks edit their work. Since I am of the “every manuscript in a three-ring binder” persuasion, in case all the tech goes belly up, hard copy-edit is my preference.

It's school supply time. Stock up your writer supplies. Bet I need more pens, I'm getting low on my stash.
It’s school supply time. Stock up your writer supplies. Bet I need more pens, I’m getting low on my stash.

No matter how many times I look at something on the computer screen, my tricky brain can fill in words that are not even there until I see them in a finished manuscript. Argh! The weight and heft of a binder also lets me feel like I have accomplished something important instead of fonts in space.

When I first started writing fiction I worried about manuscript format, margin width, how many words the book should be, how many lines on a page, how many pages it took to make that many words, double spacing the manuscript, etc. Now I worry about the story. Seems to be the main reason people actually read what we write.

Binders require no batteries, USB ports or charging plug-in to cart it to a quiet spot and focus on editing. In the best of times editing is grunt work, tedious and requires a clear mind. What better way to let your inner critic loose than on paper with a purple ink edit pen – no red ink allowed; too many bad memories from corrected school papers.

So if you haven’t tried the three-ring binder method of manuscript editing, now is the perfect time to get out and purchase some fabulous new school supplies at bargain prices. Patterned binders. With zippers! You might need some paper too. And pens. And erasers. Cute pencil boxes. Not that I have an office supply addiction. Really. Glue sticks. Composition books.

Got school supplies?