Editing: A Love Hate Relationship

Recently I decided to try my hand at a writing contest. The contest is being put on by a website I frequent: Fantasy Faction*. Initially I was hesitant. I've never let anyone outside my circle of friends or family read my writing. These will be people who I've never met judging my story. That's sorta scary. The other thing that made me step lightly is that I've never written a short story before. The word count for FF's contest is 8,000 words. After writing a 150,000 word novel 8k words seems like a tear drop in a pond. No, a lake. After I moved past the feelings of hesitation and fear I got inspiration for the story I would write.

The story wrote itself. It was a firestorm of words and action. It was a beautiful time of creation. That was back around the 3rd of February. The story was finished in about two weeks. Since then all I've been doing is editing: cutting, chopping, rearranging, and throwing whole sections away.

When I began the editing process it was fun. That's strange to say. Especially if you listen to some writers complain about the process. They put the fear of God in you. When I put hands to plow though it seemed natural. I cut words that were unnecessary, changed dialogue that didn't work, made action flow more smoothly, and did whatever I could to make the story better.

I contacted three friends to beta read the story. Two of the guys have been especially busy, and haven't gotten back to me on their thoughts. I'm now working on my fourth draft, and my friend Marc, has let me know his thoughts each step along the way.

A Word About Marc:

Marc is not a fantasy reader. He's read your classics but he's more of a literary guy. This is good because he can read the story with unbias. Our friendship doesn't get in the way of his critiques.

Back To Our Regularly Schedule Program:

Not gonna lie, some of his suggestions have been discouraging. Not in a bad way. But in a I-don't-know-what-the-hell-I'm-going-to-do-with-this-blankety-blank-story-kind-of-way. My biggest problem with the story so far is the ending. I've changed it with every draft. My first ending came on a high note. My main character gave a rousing speech that riled up the crowd, and it set up future stories for bad assery. The problem was that the ending was not consistent with my main character's character. It is not a speech he would have made. He's a guy who's indifferent to the things that happen around him. He's more of a force of nature than a man. He does not contemplate his decisions. He just does. Saying that, that's a hard character to write. You have to consider every little thing he does.

I rewrote the ending a second time. It was terrible and not worth spilling words over.

My third ending was an improvement, and more consistent with the character, but still didn't work for the character.

This morning I finished a first round through my fourth draft. (With each draft I do two or three rounds through the story before moving on to the next draft.) I came to the ending and crossed out everything I wrote. I began writing a new ending. I believe this moves my story in a better direction for an end, but I wasn't satisfied with what I wrote. Not gonna lie, I'm getting aggravated. It began to turn into one of those moments where I take my ink pin and stab the manuscript to death. Luckily, I refrained and let the story live. Tomorrow I'll go back to work on it.

A minor problem I'm also working on is two sections of the story where Marc's not happy with my main character's characterization, and I can see his points, but I'm not as bothered by them. I may be looking at this with tinted lenses, but I just don't see it as big as deal as Marc does. While I want to take all of his suggestions into consideration I have to remember that he's not the only person that's going to read this story, and that's no slight to him. He's been a great help. But I have to take into consideration every person that may read this. What Marc likes they may hate. What they hate Marc will like. The best thing I can do is get the story to the point where I'm satisfied with it. These sections he's point out I enjoy. Could they use improving? Yes. But I'm not going to rework the scenes entirely. I like the way they unfold. I like the way Thoros - my main character - acts in these situations.

Editing is fun. It's all in your attitude. You can't let yourself get unleashed and lose all sense while doing it. You'll destroy your story, lapse into a depression, and won't resurface. You've got to let yourself have fun. Otherwise being so strict with the story will stress you out. You want the words to shine like a newly minted quarter, but there are going to be flaws no matter how many times you brush through the pages.

Neil Gaiman, one of  the most brilliant living writers, says that a novel can be best defined as a long piece of prose with something wrong with it. That statement can be taken a number of different ways, but it should be kept in mind, no matter what you write. You can polish and define and mold until your manuscript has no kinks, but even then there'll always be another problem. Eventually you're going to have to put your story out there to be read despite whatever's wrong with it. I'm trying to keep this in mind as I work on Thoros's short story.

Keep writing, friends

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*Clink the words Fantasy Faction. You will be taken to the contest page if you would like to enter the competition. Hurry. Deadline is looming.