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Stacy Anderson
Awareness Member
Post Number:
15
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 02:05 am: |   |
Hello All,
Sick of those long nights sweating over that pizza-stained manuscript? Do you suffer from pencil burn-finger? Do you find yourself editing your work in your sleep? Are your spouses beginning to look like your characters? Have you began to think of your characters as real, so real that you've asked them out on dates? Find yourself talking to yourself beside the guy on the bus who's always taking to himself? Have your many rewrites forced your pets to the brink of insanity? Do you wind up reciting dialogue from your manuscript in your underwear? Do you have Dr. Phil on speed dial? If so...you need " Edit-Easy " my new invention of tips below!
Now the writer's dream! I'll share my million dollar tips with you for only one payment of $ 19.95! That's right folks! $19.95 and I throw in a free upgraded version of Microsoft Word! Just kidding, folks. Anyway, I want to share some tips that help me get through the job we all hate most, editing a story. Doesn't it kill you to have to delete things you wanted to be in your story so much? Well it kills me too but I think these little tips will help you guys well.
Tip 1: ( I came up with this theory all on my own, folks ! )
Think of your story as a film on DVD. How this works? Let me explain. I always imagine my stories as movies. That way when I am editing I think of the Deleted Scenes section in the Special Features part of many DVDs. Notice how the filmmakers took pains to cut out some good scenes but you realize it didn't do a thing for the film so it was good for them to be cut out right? So I incorporate that knowledge into my editing and I cut out every scene I don't need ( no matter how much I wanted the scene in the story ). Believe me, once you think of your story as a film it is easier to cut out things because you see it visually instead of " reading " it. Believe me, this helps you figure out what you absolutely don't need and what helps the story along.
Tip 2:
A famous author, and I can't remember which one said that the scenes you enjoyed writing the most are the ones you should always get rid of. Nine times out of ten we notice our favorite scenes ( though we love them more than life itself ) really don't move the story along. We may hate cutting them but we MUST. This theory has helped me a lot. I've found some of my favorite scenes were the ones slowing my stories down. Now I will let you in on a little secret on how to deal with deleting favorite scenes...after Tip 3 of course.
Tip 3:
This is an old saying in the writing world but it proves helpful in editing. The saying is to always cut out the first five pages of your novel. Sounds stupid? Maybe but I did this in a novel I am editing and guess what happened after I deleted the first five pages? The story began right with my hook! This theory proves golden because a lot of authors miss a great hook thinking they have to actually introduce the story. Work the hook. Search through your story and I bet you the hook is not on the first page. If it is...you're a step a head of all of us. But if you are like me, you write the story then go back to fit in a hook at the beginning. I did the " five page rule " and it worked like magic. As I went on I realized I didn't need those five pages at all. They only slowed things down and who wants a reader bored after the first five pages? Ever read a book that was so slow you put it down after three pages or skipped the first few pages? Now imagine a potential reader doing that to your work. I do, and well I want readers to read and enjoy every part of mine. Try this rule out. It helps!
Now I promised I would let you in on a secret about deleted scenes. This is what I do:
When you see yourself crying over those scenes you wanted to go into your story so much...keep hope. You can STILL use those scenes. Just in other stories. I do this all the time. You won't believe how many deleted scenes from one story fit perfectly into the plot of another. We're writers! Be creative! You don't have to cut your scenes out completely. You may not be able to use them in one story but you can use them in others, guaranteed. Never throw anything you delete away. Deleted scenes can help in future problems with writer's block. Once you stumble you can go back to that pile of " deleted scenes ". You'll be thanking your lucky stars you did.
I just wanted to share my insight and hope it helps. Editing doesn't have to be boring and daunting. In fact you can make it fun. Assign yourself a certain amount of pages you'll edit each day. If you're extremely busy start off with a few pages. You will be surprised how fast editing goes once you get into the story. Then you know what the real pay off is? When you're editing and your story is so interesting you forget your editing. If this happens you know you are doing a great job. Be fair to yourself and your work. And remember if it hurts, it's probably worth it when writing is involved. I feel your pain, believe me I do. I hope these tips help you the way they help me. Enjoy and try the one about the DVD, believe me it will show you how easy it is to choose between scenes you don't need and scenes you absolutely do.
Happy Editing folks!
www.stacy-deanne.net
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Teena Haywood
Awareness Member
Post Number:
9
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 07:45 am: | |
Great advice, Stacy.
I encountered tons of editing/proofreading problems since my latest book was written in approximately 50% broken English with a southern dialect. Sometimes I couldn't remember whether a particular character was suppose to say "yers" or "yours"/"ya or you". So I finally had to write the description of each character on a seperate sheet of paper. Yawn...sad but true. Believe me, it wasn't easy editing my 617 pages novel. Couldn't have accomplished it without the help of my wonderful husband.
Teena
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Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1103
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 08:44 am: | |
All right Stacy,
Good tips and information. The check is in the mail in the amount of $19.95, so when will you send my latest version of Microsft Word to me. Thanks!!
Seriously, good items to ponder in there. Thanks for taking the time to sort of show us how to do it. I appreciate the thoughts and the effort on your part and will remember for the future.
Claudia
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Trina Green
Awareness Member
Post Number:
23
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 02:59 pm: | |
I love the way you started this post. Very entertaining. Humor is so important when communicating ideas. Excellent tips. |
Joy Lee Rutter
Hunger Member
Post Number:
62
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 05:32 pm: | |
Stacy, I love your advice on saving deleted scenes and I'll tell you why. I take all those deleted scenes and put it in a separate document. My first book, I called it "save for later". When/if the time comes that I can use parts of it, I still have it. They usually need some tweaking and paring down, but you'll be grateful you cut/pasted your (deleted) work.
Thank you for the great advice. I also like the 5 page rule. Amazingly enough, it works.
Joy Lee Rutter |
Todd Hunter
Unity Member
Post Number:
1403
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 06:40 pm: | |
My spouses don't look like my characters at all...what fun would that be?
:-P |
Stacy Anderson
Awareness Member
Post Number:
16
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 08:47 pm: | |
I'm glad everyone enjoyed the tips. They have made editing easier for me and like I said, once you get into the plot of your story ( while re-reading ) you won't find editing such a huge task because you become entertained by what you wrote. Since we all have to know some degree of self-editing ( no matter who your publisher is ) why not make it fun or at least more interesting?
Trina, yes I am a very humorous person.  |
Stacy Anderson
Awareness Member
Post Number:
17
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 08:50 pm: | |
You're welcome, Joy Lee. Yep, those deleted scenes can save you when you're at your wit's end trying to figure out where you need to go. They've bailed me out plenty of times. I'm glad the tips helped you.
Stacy |
Harry Simenon
Wandering Member
Post Number:
125
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 03:49 pm: | |
One thing I never understood about deleting scenes: How do you prevent your manuscript from looking like this: “The end.”?
I mean, shouldn’t a book be entertaining? Do you have all these scenes to take the reader to the last page as fast as possible, or should the scenes be as entertaining as possible? I would think the last.
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Todd Hunter
Unity Member
Post Number:
1433
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 05:47 pm: | |
Both, Harry...
The scenes themselves should be as entertaining as possible, but they should also take the reader through as quickly as possible...if the reader feels that things are moving too slow, the only one who's going to suffer is the author (on the next book they try to sell)...the reader is just going to put the book down and say to themselves, "I'll read it later, when I have some time."
Interestingly enough, I did delete some scenes while editing Hero...but on the other hand, I also added a few scenes...I think the end product was the better for it (though one wouldn't figure, based on sales history)... |
Joyce Scarbrough
Awareness Member
Post Number:
15
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 07:55 pm: | |
Great tips, Stacy. I look at every scene and if there's not at least one thing in it that is essential to the plot, it gets cut. Some I really hated to cut, too, because I crack myself up sometimes.
I've found in my own reading that if a scene isn't pertinent to the plot, I feel kind of cheated after I read it, kinda like those red herrings in the old Hugo's House of Horror games. Heh, heh . . .
Toyce
True Blue Forever
Read the first chapter at http://www.authorsden.com/joycelscarbrough1
See the hunk at http://www.southernbelleauthor.com/joycepersonalpage
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