Anybody else intimidated by the editing process?

Tell me about it! I have a "To Do" document open in Pages next to my novel and I write little scribbles in it of things to do as I think of them. Things like:

"Decide on a heritage for Christo. Spain? Portugal? Make references to it in Novel"

or worse: "Make Ms. Janine the same character in the book. shes now had some sort of psychological revolution wtf? her role is too small for an arc. make her the same!!!"

It's taking on enormous proportions.

The most intimidating thing on my list of Todo is the fact that I'm not entirely confident the time continuity is okay. About 25% of my novel takes place in December "with Christmas only a week away". But I honestly don't remember how many times I've sent these kids to bed in the meantime, and if it's still plausible that people can pop up when they do. So I have to scribble at each scene when this takes place. That, alone, is appallling... but what if it's wrong? What if it doesn't match!?

I also don't know what the right way to go at it is. Some part of me says 'Leave the novel alone for about a month and check back in the new year.'. But a part of me is just so afraid that I'll end up hating everything in January and that I'll just delete it. Even though I'm so seriously proud of it now. So then I'm more inclined to edit in December. But what if I'm still too caught up in the writing process that I won't spot the obvious mistakes?

Certainly. My book looks as if whoever was writing it was both high on acid (and a few other things) and reading way too much James Joyce and Edgar Allen Poe. Right now it is such an incredible monstrosity that it wouldn't be something I'd show to a priest...regardless, I believe in it enough to make the effort next month that truly will make it as amazing as my first novel ended up (which was a sappy, juvenile attempt at a fairy-tale in the first draft). Yeah, but right now it seems like I should bury it at midnight with garlic and a stake through its nasty heart.

Yeah that's another thing. I have a little mind map thingy (you can make one on

) showing the characters and the events and at the top I have a monthly calendar to show when these things happen. The whole novel happens over the course of a year roughly, so I am trying to match these up but it is a bit vague now. Like I have to have 2 people run away from an apartment and are never seen again, yet they're supposed to meet and talk to the MC's love interest a few months later!
I'm really hoping things will fall into place once November is over.
As for the manuscript I'm going to try and leave it for a month just so there is distance. In December I may add more to it or just song/poem quotes. But it will be hard cos I really want to print it out and fix things now.

I think you should just finish your book, and then worry about the editing process. You can really only focus on one thing at a time. When you're finished, you'll have a better perspective on how you should shape the material you have.

I personally enjoy the rewriting process, and think of the first draft as the really difficult part.

Wow. Best advice I can offer is everybody take a deep breath and a chill pill. It's all going to be okay!

1. DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING! EVER! If you are the kind of writer who fall prey to emotional crashing and does things like hit that delete button or you have insatiable urges to drag your doc to the trash, here's what you MUST do. Have an agreement with a friend that you will email a copy of your novel to him or her before you start the editing process. Then email a copy every time you have the urge to get rid of something, once and for all. You have to make a commitment to yourself to do this. When you are in that kind of emotional state, you are the WORST person to be able to assess the novel's worth.

2. Continuity issues - there are two main types. Well, there may be more, but I can only think of two right now. The first one is the major plot continuity problem, where you really and truly have backed yourself into a corner. Intricately plotted mysteries might be of this type. The second type is the easiest to fix, although it might be tedious. The issue about "Christmas only a week away", for example, ask yourself if there is some fundamental reason why it has to be a week, can you stretch it? The other thing you can do is collapse chapters or scenes.

In my novel (for which I'm currently pursuing getting an agent) I realized that I had several chapters taking place in different settings over the course of an afternoon with the same characters. It seemed that they'd have to be rushing hither and yo in order to be able to do all that. To no real purpose. The choice was to set the chapters over a longer time period (because the content in the chapters WAS important) or to collapse them into one scene. I did the latter and it worked great.

You can move things around, you can tweak them to suit your purposes. I had to make the conflict between all the main characters happen a lot sooner in my novel because agents ask for a standard 3 chapters or 50 pages if they are interested enough, and you can't write a note saying "oh but the conflict becomes clearer on page 62!". I had a student evaluation between my main character and his favorite teacher which occurred close to the end of the first third of the book, right before the Christmas break. The information there showed the conflict, but it happened way too late to satisfy other needs. So, I moved it. It became the first eval of the term, rather than the last. Remember, you're the writer, you can do anything.

3. One thing to keep in mind is that you will be reading and rereading your novel literally hundreds of times as you work on it. Some things will be so obvious you'll change them on the first go round. Some things you won't see until you've read parts of it many many times and suddenly you'll think - wait, she's supposed to be in Paris! How can she be in New Jersey having this conversation? It's not a horrible thing to happen. It happens to ALL of us. I promise. And then it's just a problem to solve.

4. Regarding the "To Do" list - once Nano is over, and you want to start editing, make a second doc on the computer (so you have the first draft, and now you'll work on the second - I'm on my fourth full draft on my very long novel right now). Then, as you are reading and things occur to you that you want to check on, or have questions about, or you think of several possibilities, write those comments into the novel itself and either bold it or italicize it. That way you know what part you are working on and what you want to change. It's less overwhelming I find, than having a very long extensive to do doc.

5. When you are comfortable with the idea, have someone else read a part of your novel. Be really clear about what you want from this person. Give directions such as "I'm not sure someone would find Betsy sympathetic enough as a character to want to hang in there. You learn something important about her later on, but you have to care enough to read that far. What do you think?"

If what you want to hear from this reader is "this is the best thing I've read in years! It needs to be on book shelves now!" then you aren't ready to get genuine feedback. If your goal is to write the best book you can, then you'll learn to handle constructive criticism. You'll also learn to discard feedback that just seems off or mean spirited or gushing with praise.

6. It's a learning process. Repeat: IT'S A LEARNING PROCESS. If you keep at it you will absolutely be a better writer than you are today. Have fun and enjoy it.

7. Remember: DO NOT DELETE

8. Have you backed up your novel today? Do it NOW!

With Anticipation

2005 "Two Truths and a Lie" literary fiction
2006 "Slipping the Tracks" literary fiction (Winner)
2006 "Exit, Pursued by Bear" literary fiction (Non Nano novel)
2007 "The Dream of Safety" literary fiction (Winner)
2008 "Insufficiency" literary fiction

HI. I think it's supposed to be a complete mess at this point...
I'm planning on doing National Novel Editing Month.

National Novel Editing Month is an online community of writers who, having written a novel, get together during March of each year in order to edit it, whether for their own personal satisfaction or perhaps even for publishing.

March is chosen primarily because the National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, is in November. NaNoWriMo requires you to write a novel during November. NoNoEdMo gives you 3 months to think about it and then edit in it March. Some feel a longish break away from the novel will help when you come to edit it.
http://www.nanoedmo.net

I am. I have so much research to do, it makes me wanna cry :P And I'm not sure it'll be all that easy to find either...at least not in English anyway.

*Sigh* I suppose that's what I get for writing historical fiction set in a culture completely different from my own :P Oh well; it should be worth it in the end!

I am sooooo looking forward to the editing! I, like you have lots written and it's mostly coherent, but also lots of "all over the place". I adore going back, fleshing out, fixing, adding adjectives galore and in general tinkering about. have fun with it and don't worry...
Kitty

i feel like i'm going to poop myself when i think about editing this. I think there is a solid idea in there, but there are a lot of problems with pacing and lowish-quality writing because I didn't plan much & have been writing so quickly. It's also turning out to be a lot longer than I expected--I think that if I did another nano in december I could finish the rough draft, but am facing a good year of editing and rewriting if I am really serious about this.

Thanks for everybody's advice, especially withanticipation

Yes, agree. I really want to make this manuscript the very best I can make it and I dont think it's a process that can be rushed. I need to take a trip back to the country it is set in for one thing just to make sure it is a true refection.

I would so love if the editing process would take a month or two but it probably wont

I'm so glad you say that--a big part of my novel is about traveling, this idea of crossing huge expanses of space in search of someone. I'm pulling a bit from the american road novel sort of thing here, and have been thinking--what a great excuse to take the road trip I've been wanting to do for so long. Calling it research for my novel seems a little too ambitious, though, the kind of thing I wouldn't want to mention to any of my family or friends. I do not want to seem too big for my britches.

I've got several sections that I know will be edited out on Dec.1 but I needed my word count to be higher.
Also of her ramblings might only have to be tweeked, I was planning on getting rid of them but I've grown fond of them.

Mostly I'm scared of going from 50000 words to 20000 after taking out the crap.

Nope. I'm really psyched.

I enjoy editing and look forward to making this 'fairly good piece' into one worthy of publication. I realize that I'll spend at least a couple of months in edit mode, but it will be a nice change of pace.

The way I see it, you're killing two birds with the one stone - travelling AND researching your novel.
And don't feel too big for your 'britches' (lol :)) , life in general is research for me, although I'm not
a published author, so experience as much as you can, even just for the experience.

I think I'm the reverse of the average NaNo author. The actual initial writing process is far more stressful for me, and I'm typically intimidated all the way through it. I actually like the editing phase. At that point, I feel like the hard part is over and that I finally get to relax, polish the thing up, and make it pretty. That's the fun part for me.

I don't worry too much about my novel getting too short either. Typically, I write first drafts in a very "bare bones", simple style where I mostly concentrate on plot and character development. During editing, descriptions and conversations actually get fleshed out and become longer, if anything. It's rare for me to cut material completely out without at least swapping it for something I think sounds better or reads more smoothly.

I'm actually looking forward to it. I feel strangely empty now that Nano is over. In order to comfort myself, I might just have to start editing my novel.