The Different Types of Editing

                As I am currently involved in edits on two projects at the moment, editing is pretty prevalent on the ole brain. Which got me to thinking that we don’t necessarily talk about how many different forms of editing are out there. I’m not just talking about Copy Edit vs Line Edit vs Structural, which are some of the official forms you can select when dealing with actual editors. This is more how even as authors doing our self-edit rounds (that you definitely still need to do, even with editors) there are different styles at work in different sessions.

                The easiest way to talk about this is to go through the various types of edits I do on a book-in-the-works. Reminder disclaimer for folks newer to the blog: this next bit is built on my experience and what works best for my particular writing methods, that in no way makes it the correct way to do anything. Most of this process is about finding your own way that clicks, consider this a jumping off point, at most.

Rough Edit

                Starting things off, as the name might imply, is the Rough Edit, done after I have finished writing a rough draft and given it a little time to rest. Doing this one is as much editing as it is assessment. I read through the entire manuscript, checking for various errors. Small ones, like typos or easy corrections, I take care of in the moment. Anything that’s more complex to tackle, perhaps a section demanding significant rewrites, I mark in red and write some notes about on a legal pad next to my keyboard. There’s technically no reason I couldn’t add the notes right in the Word document, save only that I’m a creature of habit who is stuck in his ways. Also, there is something viscerally satisfying about physically checking off an item when it’s completed.

                The goal of a Rough Edit is to create a roadmap to work off of, a guide to all the troublesome areas that need to be addressed. It can be tricky at first, there’s an itch to correct issues as soon as you see them, but I’ve learned to curb that over the years. It’s more productive to do a full assessment first on structural stuff, partly because you might find other problems that need to be shored up in the same area, and also because what seems like an error might end up having an explanation one page later. I may or may not have lost a few chunks of time on fixing issues that didn’t turn out to exist before that lesson sank in well.

Continuity Edit

                Remember all those notes and sections of red we marked? Time to start putting that assessment to work. They’ll be used in the next two phases, of which Continuity Edit comes first. A book will usually drift somewhat from its outline during the writing process, by how much varies from writer to writer, but at least some is generally inevitable. Perhaps a name got altered, or a plot point tweaked later down the line; a character might have even been scrapped altogether.

                Now is the time to go through and re-align everything so it is consistent. Add or update foreshadowing so the ending fits what’s been promised, rip out scrapped plot threads or roll them into ones that stayed around, make sure nothing bumps you from the story. For anyone with some data management-background, this phase of the work has a very similar feel. It’s less about the art than the function, adjusting components to create a stable, consistent foundation for the story to grow out of.

Re-Writing

                Here is where we tackle the meatiest section of the initial edits: rewriting. Going back through, I check the highlighted red sections and my notes post-continuity edit to see what still needs tackling. Some pieces might need to be brought in line with the new direction of the plot, other bits could simply need more work until they feel up to snuff. There’s really no predicting how much time this one will take, it depends entirely on you, your process, and how many alignments are needed.

                There’s not a lot else to say about this one, it’s just about putting your head down and doing the work. Block off some time for this part, it always runs longer than you expect, and remember to take frequent breaks. They help ward off frustration when working with the more unwieldy scenes. The goods news, once this is done, you can finally send your manuscript off to the official editors.

                So we’re done, right? Well…

Post-Edit Review

                An editor doesn’t work in a vacuum, that’s true for indies and traditional publishers alike. Post-Edit reviews are where you look over an editors suggestions and choose to keep, tweak, or toss them. For traditional folks, these would be more points you might push back on, rather than be able to toss entirely, depending on your particular level of control. The edits made need to be vetted by you, because no one has a greater grasp on the story as a whole. What a reasonable editor might see as some superfluous detail and try to pluck out could be vital plot-laying for later in the series, that’s the sort of thing only you would be able to catch.

                Even outside of keeping continuity set, there will be edits you simply disagree with. Rules of grammar are excellent to know about, but there is something to be said for a personal style of your own, especially for anything between quotation marks. Every time you hand off your manuscript to an editor, you’ll need to go through this process, checking over each alteration to be certain it better serves the story as a whole. After that, you must be done, right?

Final Edit

                Like the name would suggest, this is where you do a final sweep of the manuscript after all the editors and beta-readers, looking for any stray typos to pluck or issues to smooth over. If you used multiple editors, this is also your chance to be certain that none of the separate changes combined to form problems in the plot. Consider this the polishing round, where you sand down the edge and try to make as presentable a product as possible. After this one, there really is no turning back.

                Now I realize to some of you this might sound like a lot, so in closing it’s important to add one caveat here: I am bad at editing. That’s part of why there are such an abundance of sessions built into my process, hoping to catch more in repetition. If you’re a talented self-editor, there might be points here where steps could be combined, but generally I would start off doing more work than you think you need, not less. Editing is what shapes a story into a novel, helps create a seamless reading experience for your audience. They’ll be glad you did, and once the typo-hunting migraines have passed, you will be too.