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Revising vs Editing

Revising vs Editing

    We're going to go to some writing shit today. Many people don't know the difference between revising and editing.

    Editing deals with spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.

    Revising deals with adding new thoughts, clarifying existing thoughts, word choice, character development, adding more details, etc.

    Editing is the last step you do when you write. You don't want to edit and fix your grammar and then add a whole new scene and/or change some sentences. Then, you'll just have to go back and edit again.

    You should have multiple drafts of your story. You should have at least 2 drafts. In my opinion, you should have at least 3 drafts though.

    The first draft is the shitty no revising or editing draft. You write what comes into your head.

    The second draft is the revised draft. You still haven't edited it, but you revised it.

    The third draft is the one you edit.

    You really can't skip one or the other, you need both. Chances are there are some plot hole or even something you could go into more detail about. Or maybe there's some shit you need to cut. Also, it's pretty much guaranteed you made some spelling or grammar mistake somewhere. Even if by some magical chance you don't have spelling or grammar errors, you probably have an issue with the sentence structure somewhere. Even authors who outline the fuck out of their story before writing it (like me) still have to revise. You can't get around it. Revise your fucking story.

    I would recommend reading through your story first and making notes on where things need to be added, cut, reworded, etc. If you use Google Docs or Microsoft Word, you can highlight and add comments right onto the document. Then, once you've done your read through, you can go back and start revising based off your comments.

    Now how I set my stories up is in Google Drive. I make a folder for the series (if it's part of a series), then I make another folder inside that folder for the story. I keep the outline in a separate document. Then each chapter/section is another document. As I write I highlight the parts of my outline I already wrote. Personally, when I do the outline I seperate everything into chapters so I know when the chapter begins and ends. My outline for CoB:JPOV was about 12 pages long. The more detailed your outline, the less you're likely to have writer's block because you already know what you're going to write next. As I'm revising and editing, I revise one chapter at a time. I make a separate document for the finished copy. First, I revise it and then I edit it. After that I put it into the new document. This new document holds the entire finished project so that everything is one document. After I put the newly revised and edited chapter in the new document, I delete the copy that's just the chapter itself. It helps me keep track of what's done and what still needs to be done.

    The bottom line is that you need to do both revising and editing. You can't just do one. Do both for the love of all that's holy. The only thing that's more frustrating than reading a story that's full of plot holes and grammar mistakes is something that's on hiatus for months to years or the author just stopped uploading with no reason why. My favorite are when the author's note says the next chapter will be up in a week or so, and then when you check the last updated date it's a year ago.