#editing problems

[tavoriewrites]

I would like to report that apparently ignoring the book for two months before coming back to edit is a good thing actually. Can't even begin to explain how much clunk, redundancy, and just plain poor writing I've managed to find and fix up. I've always said I'm proud of my work after finishing a draft, but this time? I think I'm finally ready to release it into the wild.

I mean after one more pass to make sure I didn't screw it all up with these changes.

[superbeans89]

[mxndofilms]

i am currently roman roy coded right now btw 😅

[pastafossa]

hello gunnar has been mentioned 9 times in the rough draft and i have had to change every single mention

[sunandsstars]

ok so my tumblrs still being annoying and won’t let me edit any work so i can’t add people to my taglist or edit chapter 5 of yawnetu

so your girl gotta do some technical stuff 😤😤

[thecheesywritingcabin]

Keeping Pace

Today is a bit of a funny day, so I decided to do some editing. At the time, I was kind of surprised how far into the book I had gotten editing wise.

I am also horrified at how much extra work/chapters I keep adding.

When I edit, I have a few duties I try to do. These are as follows:

Check continuity

Catch weird spelling/grammar

Adjust pacing where need be

The third one is the problem child. You see, prior to this I would predominantly write drabbles that would be anywhere between 20-5000 words in length. As a result, the pacing of a novel-sized text is not something I've had to think about at any point in my writing.

Granted, I read a lot of books and have gone "oh boy this is SLOW" or "oh shit I guess this a race now", so I can identify pacing issues. Applying it to the novel though has been, at times, a nightmare.

During draft 1, I and the others would write disjointedly because it made getting the words down easier. We all wrote at different times and for different lengths, so it made sense.

Sometimes I would write drabbles like I normally did to explore the characters, and they would just end up in the book. When that happened, I would try to "stitch up" the bits I wrote to make sense in the story we had written so far. It's only in drafts 2 and 3 I've started to do things in order. As a result, there are some chapters with some wild pacing.

At least four times during editing Draft 3, I have split one massive, long chapter into 2 more easy to consume chapters. Conversely, I've found thin, sad chapters I've had to plump up with character moments and hints of back story. I'm not even the only member of the team doing this - @fioriisketches wound up doing the same "split the big chapter" approach when fixing up a late game chapter where Makoto has a run in with the culprit.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, every time I go to look at the chapter list to see how far along I am in the editing process, I notice that I am adding more chapters to edit, and thus can't just count how many chapters are left.

I am firmly in the end of Act 2/start of Act 3 turf, but oh my god, it is both funny and horrifying how much more writing we've ended up with in my attempts to make the pace quicker at times.

[krindor]

Today in ‘questions I never thought I’d need to ask for work’

[jordie-your-local-halfling]

I need a hug :(

[lilithsaga]

When you step away from your computer for one minute while you have a project open 😭

[12timetraveler]

Re-reading your own works is such a trip because you may be like

"ugh this kinda sucks"

Or

"goddamn this is a masterpiece"

And those may be two scenes back-to-back in your story.

[elizaellwrites]

My process of editing is basically retyping everything I already wrote and rewriting something that doesn't sound right or finding my typos.

It mainly works, but it takes forever.

It also makes me question whether I'm actually good at writing sometimes

[raz-b-rose]

Nothing is more of a first world frustration then when you're writing on your phone and need to rearrange whole paragraphs but it's annoyingly difficult to do on a phone.

I need my desktop.

[herbgerblin]

i jumped out of bed in a cold sweat to make this

id: first image is the tumblr halloween icon, which depicts a skeleton-like ghoul in a spooky red robe. the second image is the same ghoul, now photoshopped to look like they're dabbing. end id

[itsthemattc]

I swear, every time this green bar shows up in my editing software, an anger vein spawns on my head like a goddamn Dragon Ball character.

[pastafossa]

new TRT chapter is now fixed

I got paranoid and went back through the new chapter and found a couple things that were either errors or literally missing important sentences did i copy paste the wrong draft jesus so you can NOW consider the chapter done and fixed and nice and tidy and all the dancy dancy fight things are there now, thank you.

what is my brain tonight idk i’m going to sleep

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking