Cookin' with Miss Havana

5/5/2023: There’s More To Editing Than Meets The Eye

I don’t claim to be an expert writer or editor, but I do claim about 22 years of writing experience. During that time I have published nine novels and a few short stories. Under different circumstances I might have written more; however, I took a five-year sabbatical to care for my wife as she battled dementia. She lost that battle recently, and I started writing again. I have been surprised the quality of my writing seems to have improved during my absence. I’ll share some thoughts with you about the editing approach I used for two novels I recently submitted to Solstice Publishing: Beyond The Horizon and Infinity Quest. I wrote the majority of those novels before I became a caretaker; therefore, I had a unique historical perspective on my writing “then” vs. “now.”

1.  The new novels were intended to logically follow Aftermath Horizon, which was published in 2018. Therefore, the first task was to reread that novel to ensure all the stories fit together. This step required more time than I guessed. I wrote fast in 2018; now I don’t, and that’s my first lesson. The details in novels that follow an original must be consistent. That includes character names, event timelines, dates, equipment available to your characters, and concepts. If it all doesn’t fit together, then you will lose your reader and maybe your editor. Take your time to ensure flaws are removed.

2. Assuming the novel is consistent and complete, start reading and rereading. In an ideal world one would reread enough times so that the final read would have no errors. I read each of the two recent novels six times from cover-to-cover, and then spot checked many chapters before I submitted the novels to a Solstice editor. There are specific items you should check as you are rereading, among them:

     a. Ensure correct use of words like lie/lay, its/it’s, might/may, rise/raise, who/whom, etc. I have two screens open for that task—one for Googling grammar and word usage, and one for novel text. Always question word usage. When there is the slightest doubt, look it up. For example, read the last sentence in paragraph 1 above. “If” and “then” are used together as they should be.

     b. Be careful of the word “and.” The word means “at the same time.” Therefore, it is impossible to “walk to the bar, pick up a beer, and sit down.” You cannot walk and sit at the same time. If a series involves mutually exclusive items, end it with “and then.” Don’t confuse “and” with “but.” The word “but” implies an exception to what was presented earlier in the sentence.

     c. Don’t confuse “may” (which implies permission) with “might” (something could happen).

     d. Search your document for the following items (without the quotes): “, and”, “, but”, “, so”, “, yet”. These prepositions, with the comma and following space, join independent clauses. Without the comma they join a dependent clause. Don’t mess it up.

     e. Run spelling check even if your word processor does that while you are writing.

     f. Change the margins between the 3^rd and 4^th reading. Changing the margins forces the words in the text to wrap differently. Many errors occur where a sentence wraps to the next line. You might be surprised how many “new errors” crop up just by wrapping the text differently.

     g. Embed actions with dialog in a way that implies the speaker. Except in rare cases, don’t explicitly identify the character (like “John said”). This will take some practice. Try to picture the action going on with the dialog and intersperse the action you see in your mind with the dialog from the characters. For example: “She shook her head as she began pacing. Time seemed to stop while we all wondered how she would react. When she passed the table the third time she stopped abruptly, downed a shot of whisky, slammed the jigger down hard, and then glared at Tom. ‘What the hell do you mean my check bounced?’” The characters need to come alive. Sometimes the dialog itself is enough to identify the speaker. For example: “What do you mean by that, Mother?”

h. Use quotes correctly. The ending punctuation should be inside the quote, even when there is a quote within a quote, as above.

i. Minimize the use of adverbs. They can be the kiss of death.

j. You can often eliminate the word “that” without changing the meaning of anything.  

k. Perhaps the most confusing for new authors is the meaning of “show vs. tell.” When you are telling a story, you are the narrator. When you are showing a story, the characters are the narrators. The story should be told from the character’s point of view as much as possible.

l. The thoughts of a character should be italicized.

m. Be careful with hyphens. The only way to know for sure is to look the word up in a dictionary. Note that most words that begin with “re,” like rewrite, do not need a hyphen. The usual exception is words that begin with “e,” like re-edit.

n. Don’t use exclamation points except when the character is literally screaming. Don’t use capital letters to make a point.

o. Eliminate excess punctuation. If you can say something without punctuation, then do it. I do not set off four-word preposition phrases at the beginning of a sentence nor do I put commas before one if a prepositional phrase ends a sentence. If you cannot decide whether there are two independent clauses or one is dependent, then rewrite the sentence to clear it up.