What a long, boring, mind-numbing process.

At least, for me.

See, I can't edit my own stuff. It's true. Freaky, but true. I mean, I can proofread, make sure that the spelling and grammar is spot-on, and that all the names and dates and things like that are (edit: consistant), but when it comes to things like themes and character development and other such macrocosmic details, I might as well be illiterate. It's just beyond me, and this frustrates me to no end. I can't keep the entire story, the entire cause/effect scenario in my mind.

I've read critiqueing articles and hints (I've even taken KDW's guidelines and saved them in Word. I refer to them while I edit, at times, but they are as a stone on a hill: they just won't stay in place.), but it doesn't help. Don't know why. Maybe I'm just numb-skulled. Or dumb. *shrug*

The latter wouldn't surprised me...much.

So. Any hints? Words of wisdom? Magic pagan rituals that can make me ruler of all I purvey? (This has nothing to do with writing, I understand, but it couldn't hurt )

Cristian V. Gurau

Take the blood to a golden pot and boil it, chanting the words, "I shall be the writing master!"

Once you have done this, you shall be one step closer to finding true wisdom.

Well, the chicken helps too, but only if you know how to read the entrails.

Unfortunately, I can't help you cvgurau; I have the exact same problem. Can't judge character-development because the character is already developed in my head and it's hard to tell how much is on the paper and how much is only in my head. Can't judge theme (and rarely try to) because I already know what the theme was, and everybody will interpret it differently no matter what, anywho. I also lose myself in trying to judge how well I've gotten the macrosmic crap. Putting the story down for a week or two doesn't help me, either, because my brain won't stop working on a story until I've finished it, so it's always still fresh when I pick it up again.

Of course you should go back and fix your spelling and grammar, which you said you already have down. Fine, that's all you really need to do.

If you're having big enough problems with the characters and plot that you feel like you need to edit to fix the story, then you didn't develop the story fully enough before writing it. You need to go back, finish developing the story, and rewrite the entire story from the beginning.

quote:

---

Something we learned at boot camp this year was that "your first draft is your only draft". Don't edit. If there are big enough problems with your story, and you're dead set on writing it, then start over from scratch and rewrite from the beginning. After, of course, thinking on and deciding what to do about the structural problems that were messing up the story before.

---

Now, let me be very clear that I am not saying OSC is wrong. He is absolutely right -- if you are the same kind of writer he is.

Steven King says a second draft should be 10% shorter than the first draft. Steven King is right -- if you are the same kind of writer he is.

Other successful writers will give you different advice for Card or King, and they can still be right.

For me, writing is often such a slow process (I'm a slow typist) that, if I had to rewrite a whole story from scratch in order to fix major problems, it would drastically decrease my productivity. So I throw out only what I have to, and edit what I can.

And, unlike King, my edited versions tend to be longer than the original, because I go back to add necessary details I've left out.

Try this book:The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction
by Michael Seidman

It has a lot of good ideas and helps.

If there are fundamental structural flaws, then I need to simply rewrite, using the first draft only as another resource (like outlines and notes). I can incorporate minor changes like extra lines of dialogue and whatnot on an edit, but I prefer to avoid it. I'm a rewriter. I'm also an outliner (of sorts). I find that the two activities complement each other...going back to the drawing board works much better if you used a drawing board in the first place.

Others (like SR, who--as I recall--is a rewriter and not an outliner) are different. I don't know whether EJS outlines, but I do know that he can radically restructure and improve a story while keeping most of the existing text (partly this is because he does tend towards a sparse first version that needs fleshing out).

But if you're finding editing your own work "mind-numbing", then you should definitely try doing a complete rewrite. Put the current version away, write something unrelated for a while (or simply do something unrelated for a while), then come back and re-write the whole thing without looking at what you've written before.

On a lighter note:

quote:

---

Damn! I tried the chicken thing, and it didn't do jackcrap for me! Oh well, one more religion crossed off my list of "Religions That Might Be The True One."

---

Every good religion should have its loopholes .

Anyway, the way that works best for me is a quick rough draft followed by heavy editing. At least for short stories.

quote:

---

I can't keep the entire story, the entire cause/effect scenario in my mind.

---

is really the problem, maybe you need to be more hands-on with your revision process. Use somesort of cribsheet to track each major action, then try to be sure they all link up to create the needed cause and effect chain and all questions that were rasied got answered by the end. Things that were left dangling at the stories closure would be the ones you'd need to go back and tighten up. I guess that would sort of be outlining in reverse.

And if its numbing, maybe you've just worked with it too much. Leave it alone for a while, a good long while (maybe even several weeks or a month or so), so you really can look at it with fresh eyes. Give it long enough and you'll forget what you wrote, and it can *almost* be like reading somebody else's work.

And I have to agree with EJS. OSC's, King's, Whoever's advice can only really work for you if you are the same kind of writer as they are. If I tried to follow the "one draft only" rule OSC taught at the Workshop, I'd never get anything done! I work much too slowly, particulary on first drafts, for it to make sense for me to chuck everything and start over to reshape a story, particularly when I know I can work much, much faster when I have something in front of me to work with. The best I can do is try to get that first draft as close to right as I can, but if I take that too far I have to watch out for the self-editing that completely stops that initial creative flow, and then again, nothing gets done. Yet from my sense of OSC's working style -- writing drafts very quickly in a creative burst once the story idea is ripe enough -- such a first draft principle obviously could make a lot of sense.

[This message has been edited by GZ (edited June 25, 2004).]

quote:

---

As someone has already mentioned, you might not be letting the story sit long enough. My own rule is that I have to write an whole new story before I can go back and rewrite one.

---