Is the editing done yet?

It's disorienting when you are editing a book for any great length of time. After the third or fourth round of deep dig in editing, you imagine that you have found every type-o and grammar problem that could possibly exist... but no upon opening the book again you find yet another hundred or so waiting to be fixed. (Sigh)

I heard once that Charlotte's Web was revised over twenty times. According to my Children's Lit professor it was one of the reasons that it is hailed as such a wonderful book. I am currently revising for the fifteenth time. What I thought was a clean copy turned out to have over a hundred errors.

It is this fact that makes me shake my head when I hear that a would be author has edited once and has proclaimed it done. Such a situation boggles my mind. Since I have an English degree, I feel more secure than most in my abilities to pick up errors, yet from the point when I decided to put my novel into print and publish, I have found not hundreds but thousands of errors that needed to be fixed.

Perhaps this is why the publishing industry as a whole has such a foul opinion of PODs. There are thousands upon thousands of books on Lulu.com. If the editing process of the average writer consists of only one revision, then it is a pretty sad state of affairs. If I had stopped with my first revision thousands of spelling errors, type-o's, severe grammar errors would have gone unchecked.

My English teacher colleague and I have debated often if there can be an end to editing. I have decided that it can end at a point. There is a moment where everything becomes a matter of opinion. Whether a comma really is needed in a particular place despite the fact that the rules are in favor or against it. Whether the repetition of a word on a page is style or annoying. There does come a time when everything that is found in a novel can be debated. This is the point where I feel I can stop my struggle with the errors. Trouble is, at revision fifteen, I have not found that point.

I suppose since this is supposed to be a blog on writing, that I should actually give some hints.

#1. My editing process begins with a thorough read through aloud if possible. As I read through the manuscript I circle sentences and sections that are troublesome to read. (Anything that does not roll off the tongue easily) Spelling errors are marked with a quick "sp" and I fix commas and periods as I go. In general the first revision I look for timing and pace. Once I have finished reading I return to the circled parts, spelling errors, etc and fix them or change them.


#2. The second time through the novel, I read it aloud again. Checking on the changed areas to make sure that I haven't inadvertently created a bigger problem by the change. I focus this time through again on content and pace.

#3. Now I use spell-check on my writing software. Up until this point I have been focusing on flow. I try very hard to ignore the green lines on the screen until I want to turn over the editing to the left side of my brain. Of course, misspellings I try to pick up during the actual writing process; however, I leave the grammar and punctuation alone until I'm sure the flow is there.

#4. The fourth time through the novel, my focus turns to the grammar, punctuation, and use of words. In order to avoid getting to engrossed in the story or allowing my memory to fill in the errors without my noticing, I revise the book starting at the end of each chapter and taking one sentence at a time. This starting from the last sentence and going to the first sentence is a great way to pick up run-on sentences and sentence fragments.

#5. Again I read the story aloud to check for flow. This time I underline any sentences where I stumble or hesitate when I read it. For me, this is usually a sign that I have a problem that needs attention. Once through the entire novel, I take a close look at those sentences and try to decipher the problem. If I can't figure it out, i revise the sentence completely- better safe than sorry.

#6. Passing it off to a knowledgeable friend or better yet an editor. A good friend of my mother picked up this task for me. She is a professional editor and agreed to help me. This is where you have to get thick skin.... When my manuscript came back after five edits, I thought it would be an error here or there that she found. Oh no- It made the St. Valentines Day Massacre look like a Easter Egg hunt. My jaw literally dropped to the floor. After getting over my initial shock and mother hen instinct (you know the one that reacts when it feels like someone is trying to change your story?) I changed the errors and felt pretty comfortable.

At this point I thought I would publish, send it in to contests... When I did, I found out that it wasn't ready yet... I still had a long ways to go.

#7-10. This was a four part effort. I read the story as well as three people in my family. Everyone had a pencil and was instructed to circle problems or fix errors. It was surprising that when all three copies came back the majority of each book had unique errors. The number of type-os that were missed by my editor and myself were surprising. Still I pressed on.

#11. By this time I was worried about flow again. So I did another aloud reading, to my dog. Again I found errors and problems. There were typo-s again hiding in the book. I was astounded.

#12. This was my mother's third time through the book. My father decided that he wanted to hear it aloud, so she read it to him as they traveled across country. Every night she would sit down and mark the errors she found. I in turn changed them, again marveling that there were so many. This was the twelfth time through the book after all. You'd think they would have started dwindling.

#13. This was again a reverse edit. I was starting to get impatient at this point. After all I was an English teacher and I have an English degree. In general I knew what I was doing. I must admit that I was getting a bit angry at myself. Revision 6 on Lulu was a hard one to do. At the end of the reverse edit I found yet another hundred errors that needed to be corrected.

#14. The Aunts picked up the mantle of editing this time. My mother's sisters decided to read my book. I'll admit more out of pity than a desire to read it. (They also have a poor view of self-published authors.) To my joy they truly enjoyed the book, one staying up all night to finish it. Unfortunately, they also found errors in my manuscript. Things that should have been picked up by, if not me, the army of people reading my book- Things like "Solid" being spelled "sold" or "Silver" being spelled "Sliver."

#15. Thinking I was almost to that point in the book, I felt a desire to have someone other than family read and edit my book. Perhaps it was the pity gesture of my aunts that sparked it, but I took a copy of my book to my English teacher co-worker and gave her explicit instructions to make the book bleed. I told her to be vicious and really make the book suffer. Between my Aunts' editing and my teaching friend there were at least another hundred errors to be fixed.

So here I am at revision fifteen. I am currently waiting for a copy of the book I ordered as a proof to arrive and I must admit, I'm a little nervous about opening the cover. Sixteen seems like such a long walk. I'm hoping I'm finally finished with this arduous task.

This is why I shake my head at my co-authors at Lulu who after one edit happily send it off to the world, thinking that it is a perfect book. I suppose that E. B. White, Author of Charlotte's Web might have felt the same when he faced revision after revision with errors still cluttering his book. It is this and only this thought that keeps me plodding through the wasteland. I keep waiting for that glorious moment when the sun brakes through the clouds and I can scream, I'm done.

Perhaps it's time to read the book aloud again...

Cheers,

Katie