Editing: Are We Having Fun Yet?

Ink is currently editing her first novel, and she is, indeed, having fun. However, not everyone seems to be enjoying the process of ripping apart their literary babies so thoroughly as her, so here are a collection of links to ease the process:

Holly Lisle's One-Pass Revision: the Holy Grail of editing writers-first draft to last in one revision? Is that possible? Maybe for Holly Lisle. Ink didn't do so well, but Ink also wasn't anywhere near as ruthless as she should have been on the first pass, necessitating a second, more productive one. It's definitely worth a look, and an excellent method.

Paperback Writer's notes on editing: It looks good to Ink, although this article more of a description of how she does it versus how to do it yourself. PBW has a step-by-step here, which Ink found helpful and entertaining.

Sara McGrath's Editing and Polishing Suite: a nice article on how to edit a novel. Ink is also intrigued by the other articles in the suites, with titles like "Advance Techniques," "Theme," and "Marketing and Selling." A nice jumping-off point, and also worth a look if you want to write and sell a book with friendly guidelines from start to finish.

Self-Editing by Lori Handeland: This is a great prose checklist-follow it and Ink thinks your writing will not suck. However, if you're a NaNo novelist like her, you'll want to make sure your plot is coherent before you get down to the paragraph level.

NaNoWriMo.org's 'I Wrote A Novel, Now What?' Page: a good resource for those of us who stomach the notion of looking back over the fruits of our caffeine-induced labors. It will also help you if you're not so certain about your plot, as will One-Pass Revision.

Here's Ink's suggestion for NaNo'ers, ripped off Chris Baty's advice in No Plot? No Problem!: write out the events in the story scene-by-scene. Do this with the novel in front of you. See if they lead to the next one, well, like dominoes in a row, each event leading inexorably to the next. If not, delete the bad ones and put in new ones. Switch 'em around and see if that does anything for you. Once you've got that down, then, and only then, do you begin to work on your prose.

Good luck, guys! Anchors away!