Self-Editing

 As much as I admire professional editors, I am still not making enough money from my writing to justify using a professional editor. Yes, I hear you, maybe if I did have a professional editor, I would make more money from my writing. Chicken and egg!

I am an advocate of write, write, write, for the first draft. Just get it all down on the paper. I don’t worry about editing as I go along because I don’t want to go down the rabbit holes. Even research is left out of my writing in this first stage. I keep each piece of work in a separate folder with a label of the project on it. If I do have a genius idea I can put it on another piece of paper and just put it together with my draft for later reflection.

1.    1.  The Big Sweep

 On the second draft I look at the whole piece, whether large or small and make sure the consistency and if fiction, plot development is as I want it. At this stage, I am pulling out the bits that aren’t relevant. Yes, deleting. I find that very difficult to do. I hate deleting but know it is necessary. I look at my original purpose. Do I do, what I said I would in those early chapters? Have I gone off track? If I’m not sure, I put a note to myself to rethink it when I next edit.

I don’t know whether you edit on screen or on paper. Personally, I do both. When I have done the big sweep, I print off my work but with no section breaks, just as line after line and page after page. It saves paper and bulk and can be sorted in the formatting which comes later.

 

Put

2.

2. Put in the drawer for a month

Yes, the work goes away for a whole month. I start on something else or take something out of that full-up drawer. I do think about it and make a note of new ideas and approaches on a bit of paper and shove it in the file. This is where it helps that there is a rough print-out. It guards against technology blips. If your laptop goes down, you still have your rough copy which is better than everything going into cyberspace!

3.    3.  Chapter by Chapter

On this third or fourth draft, I am considering the order of the chapters. I work in Scrivener as it is easy to change the order of chapters with a drag and drop. Then I look at consistency of the chapters. As I am working mostly on devotionals, have I got a prayer or a quote in each chapter if that is what I am aiming at? Are my chapter headings consistent in their case, alignment? Is the word count consistent or roughly so for each chapter?

Each chapter now comes under scrutiny. Is it lively? Engaging? Appropriate for my audience? What about my use of vocabulary? At this stage I might run it through Pro Writing Aid (or some use Grammarly), for a spelling, grammar and repetitions check.

   Am I up to the fourth or fifth draft? If you aren’t totally happy with it, go through it again.

That is a brief version of how I deal with my writing but looking at it, it is also how I deal with myself. After all, this piece is called ‘self’ editing. The big sweep usually happens at the beginning of a new year. Am I on track in my life? What do I need to change? It usually means dropping less important activities as I tend to take on things then can’t cope.

Then, I too need to be put in a drawer for a month. Pause, reflect, be with the Lord. Each of my chapters needs to be held up to the light of Jesus. Words too need to be examined. Only wholesome words to build up others need to be kept.

So what about you? How do you go about your self-editing in your writing and yourself?

Rosalie Weller

Rosalie tries not to take herself too seriously. Life is too short! She enjoys writing in different genres - historical fiction, bible study guides, devotionals and poetry.

She is the Groups' Coordinator for ACW and welcomes any enquiries about groups at groups@christianwriters.co.uk