How to edit A Fiction Book
How to Edit Your Novel | Advice from an Editor
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hey guys it's Ellen Rock novel editor
today I'm going to talk about editing
your novel the two tools that I like to
use when I work with clients that just
make the editing process easier now
there's not just one correct way to edit
a novel anyway that works for you is
perfectly fine I just want to talk about
what works for me what I see working
with clients and what I see is the most
efficient way to go about the editing
process I know a lot of writers struggle
with efficiency with editing or they
don't know where to start and editing
can be really daunting so I'm gonna go
through how I go about the editing
process so hopefully that helps you so
the type of editing I'm talking about in
this video is developmental editing or
big picture editing I always recommend
that you start with the big picture
fiddling around with word choices or the
particulars of how you organize scenes
or paragraphs is not the best way to
start because what you want to do is
start with the best possible structure
and framework and then move into smaller
and smaller details so I recommend two
different tools for the editing process
the first is an outline and the second
is a plan for revision the outline does
not need to be created in advance if you
like to fly by the seat of your pants
and you don't like plotting your novel
that's no problem you don't have to
create the outline in advance so at this
point in the editing process the outline
is just a way to see the plot in an easy
and clear way and it's a tool that you
can use to help move around scenes or
determine which scenes to cut or change
without needing to read the entire book
because I can get distracting you can
get tied up in word changes or
reorganizing paragraphs or changing
descriptions and we don't want to get
into any of that at this stage we want
to just look at the plot and the
structure of the story and so I
recommend that you keep your outline
very basic and very simple so that you
list scene one and then one or two
sentences scene two one or two sentences
it doesn't need to be complicated we
just need to know what the character was
trying to achieve the conflict and then
what came out of that scene now this is
a pretty tedious process it's not
particularly entertaining to make one of
these outlines but it can really help to
streamline your editing process and it
can save you a ton of time later
so the second tool that I recommend is a
plan for revision now this is super
simple it's just a document that you
list out all the problems that you're
trying to solve I recommend using
stronger organizations such as like
subheadings and categories just to keep
yourself more organized so maybe you
have characters and then you list out
every individual character and then
maybe under those characters you might
list out minor problems like issues with
dialogue or the character arc and this
can help to keep all the ideas organized
so when you first create your plan for
revision I recommend that you
immediately before you even start
looking at the outline or considering
rearranging scenes that you just list
out all the problems that you're aware
of all the things that just come
immediately to your mind these might be
things that other people pointed out to
you if you had any beta readers or any
critique partners or they might just be
things that you're not happy with so for
example maybe you feel like the emotions
aren't hitting or maybe the dialogue
isn't very engaging maybe you changed
your mind about the character arcs so
you know you need to clean that up just
everything that comes to mind that you
know is a problem with the big picture
so don't get caught up in weird choices
or nitty gritty sort of organization of
paragraphs or I don't like my writing
voice or anything like that we're
talking about just focusing on the big
pictures the character the plot the
pacing plotholes world building things
that are not about the writing style or
technique so once you have all the
problems listed out I recommend that you
then list all the possible solutions
under each category so for example maybe
you have character arc as a category and
beneath that you have a brief
explanation maybe you started out with
the character arc focused on the
character overcoming guilt but partway
through the character started overcoming
their insecurities instead so maybe you
just have a brief sentence like need to
choose guilt or insecurity based
character arc and then beneath that you
can do the possible solution so maybe
guilt based character arc and insecurity
based character arc as your two possible
solutions when you do this with every
different issue that you're aware of
you'll start to get a sense of where
these solutions overlap and where the
solutions will take you in a different
direction so for example if you decide
that you want to change the care of your
arc so that it's not about guilt
more maybe the backstory of that
character is now irrelevant or doesn't
suit the novel and you want to take that
out so then you need to add to your
revision plan backstory change the
backstory possible solutions alternate
backstories then you might realize that
that's going to impact some
conversations that the character had or
some ways that they related to other
characters so then you'll need to add
that to your plan and this is what makes
editing so complicated because
everything that you change in your novel
basically creates a disaster somewhere
else so part of why I recommend a
revision plan is just so that you can
wrap your mind around all of this and
you can get a sense of how you want to
solve the problems and how those
solutions are going to impact all the
other solutions or all the other
problems or create new problems once you
have your revision plan basically
figured out that's when I would turn
towards the outline and then start to
look for problems in the outline I'm
going to make a separate video to go
over potential issues that you might
find in the outline how you can
determine which scenes to cut or change
or alter this video is part of my novel
bootcamp series I only have two videos
left in this series I will try not to
disappear on you guys after that I know
I have a tendency to do that I get
really busy I have so many edits that I
do in a year and it gets really really
chaotic but I'll do my best to make more
videos for you guys always let me know
what videos you're interested in in the
comments I'd like to make sure that when
I do come back I'm giving you guys the
information that you want happy writing
guys
