An Idiot's Guide to Line Editing

Chapter Nineteen -- And, we're done

That's it!

We've gone through a whole load of tips and tricks, and your head's probably spinning. You doubt me, you doubt yourself, you doubt whether the huge platinum lobster floating over your home is real. It's fine. I have one last technique to teach you.

Unless you are actually at the line edit stage, forget everything you've read here.

It's very easy to get hung up on stage directions and adverbs and filtering and whatever else when you're writing. It can freeze you, make you think that everything you're putting down will be garbage. I've felt it myself, and it's horrible.

But that's not what you should be thinking about when you write your first draft. Instead, you should getting out all the amazing ideas you have for your characters and plot. And when you see a bit of a duff line, and wince, here's the thing you'll whisper to yourself: I'll fix it in the edit. I'll fix it in the edit. And then you move on. If you're really worried about it, bookmark it somehow. (For stuff I want to remember to fix, I leave a little bit of searchable text, normally a kaomoji like ^_^ or *~* or o_o. I imagine there are higher-tech ways of doing it, like comments.)

The point is, though, that when you write you should get into the flow. Bang out whatever you like and then clean it up another day. Writing is fireworks and passion and soaring music. Editing is a different kind of enjoyment to writing: its like solving a crossword or Wordle or doing one of those Sudoko things. You're neatly arranging brightly coloured blocks so that they slot together perfectly, making little clicks as the slide in place. It's a nice thing to do when you can't face the unrelenting creativity of raw writing. I tend to write when I'm full of energy and edit when I'm tired: I'll edit earlier passages, chasing myself through the story.

Part of the problem is finding the errors, though. I find that I miss stuff when I reread my work again in the same word processor that I typed it. I'm experimenting with exporting to epub and using my kindle, but commenting there is painful, so the workflow is hard. Switching to a different word processor seems to help; so if you use Word, try editing in LibreOffice or Scrivener or Google Docs or one of the other billion word processors out there. The downside here is you've introduced a document management nightmare, so you have to be very disciplined with file names. Some people swear by text-to-speech or even reading out loud, but those options terrify me because I write a lot on public transport.

You should try all this. I don't know, maybe you'll find some new and amazing technique.

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Once you're happy with your edit you need to get someone else to read it. A good place to start is a critique partner. That's someone who you will swap with, and they will read your stuff and tell you what they think in return for you doing the same for them.

Getting feedback on your writing can be utterly daunting, and giving it is pretty terrifying too. Let's talk about giving feedback first.

Fundamentally, you want the other person to succeed. In order to do that, you need tell them what problems you see with their manuscript. Be truthful, because that's incredibly precious; but do it kindly and constructively. You're not attacking the person, or their work. You're letting them know about the rough edges that stuck out to you. This is subjective, and just your opinion, and you may not be the most successful writer in the world (and if you are, why on earth are you reading this?); but you're a reader, and you just have to point out the bits that didn't work for you, and did work for you. Kindly and cheerfully.

Great, now receiving criticism. Your critique partner is doing everything I just said. So that's easy! They want you to succeed! We're a pretty empathetic bunch, us writers, but we seem to have a blind spot about this: we see our writing as an extension of us and when we're told it could be better, we die a little inside. I can't stop you feeling that sad lurch in your stomach when you see a dozen comments about your overuse of passive voice or whatever, but remember that your critique partner is in your corner and if you fix the things they found, you can make your writing better. Also, remember, that these are opinions, because this is all subjective, and you can ignore whatever you want.

So, you've done an edit pass, had it critiqued. What's next?

If you can afford it, get a professional. Editors are amazing and will be able to help you with things that you get stuck on. Obviously we're not going to get everything professionally edited, just the big stuff we want to sell; but they are well worth the money because you can learn stuff from them that you can then use in your everyday writing. In an ideal world you'd do this after you've had beta readers and critique partners and a good edit yourself, simply because you want to minimize their time on the things that you really do need help with.

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But most importantly, believe in your writing. You are amazing. I believe in your writing, and I haven't met you. I really do! The fact that you could be bothered to read through all of this silly and technical book shows you care about your craft. And that dedication is what will make your work fantastic.

The reality is: all creative endeavours are to do with effort. There's very little new in this world, so grinding something out and then polishing it to a shimmer is what makes art. I'm sure you can do it, that you have a heartbreaking story and captivating characters in a vibrant world. Write it down, and then make it shine, and then set it loose and make the world shine.

I'm rooting for you.

Thanks for reading this. Good luck!