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necessarian) wrote2018-01-01 07:32 pm
necessarian) wrote2018-01-01 07:32 pm
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[Archiving] On Editing & Repetition
Originally posted: 1.12.'16
i’m such a firm believer in the shit first draft. i used to be one of those people who would madly edit as i went and labour for hours over one sentence, just to get it right. spoilers: that is a waste of everyone’s time. the trick to writing is becoming good at editing, but like, in that order, editing after you’ve written it. it can be hard to know where to start with editing, so i’ve written up this post on what i consider to be the first step in a successful self-edit.*
here’s what i do: ctrl+f. this might seem like a weird, slightly obvious thing, but one of the biggest problems with underdeveloped writing is excessive repetition. there are some words you can only use once in an entire novel, and some words that carry less weight but which you wind up using too much anyway. the real trick to a first draft is to stop giving a stuff about repetition. then, ctrl+f.
my biggest plague word is just. i’ve already used it once in this post. the first thing i do when i finish something is to search for instances of the word just and delete/rephrase every second one or so. i allow myself to keep it when it’s absolutely necessary to the meaning of the clause, but that’s about as far as i’m willing to push it.
here are a few words to look for in this first stage of repetition-fixing:
once that’s done, reread the work. the moment you find a word that carries a lot of weight, or a phrase that sounds incredible to you, ctrl+f it. because if you’re having that thought now, chances are you’ve had it before, and you’ve used that word or phrase more than once within the work. when something stands out to you that much, it’s worth saving it up for a special occasion.
there are a few other subtle things worth looking out for in terms of repetition, which i’ll list quickly:
there! now you’ve got a cursorily-edited first draft, just (oh, yikes, there i go) by focusing on one issue at a time. at this stage, you can go back and read it again (yes, again!) and see where you might be able to use repetition as a powerful device to draw attention to a particular concept, or to create emotion or humour.
one more thing: i started this off by cautioning against editing as you go. but when you start becoming aware of repetition, and your own personal plague words/phrases, you’ll start doing all of this like second nature. but that doesn’t mean you should stop using ctrl+f!
~
* obviously once you’ve done a self-edit, a good idea is to send your work off to a beta reader/critique partner. they’ll pick up on anything you might’ve missed, as well as talk you through bigger issues than are covered in this post.
** my general stance on adverbs is that they should be used sparingly (which is an adverb :P), except for comedic emphasis, in which case adverbs will do a lot of the heavy lifting. (see above: physically forced, unbelievably tired.) as with everything that frames itself as a writing “rule,” don’t trust anyone who tells you never to use adverbs.
here’s what i do: ctrl+f. this might seem like a weird, slightly obvious thing, but one of the biggest problems with underdeveloped writing is excessive repetition. there are some words you can only use once in an entire novel, and some words that carry less weight but which you wind up using too much anyway. the real trick to a first draft is to stop giving a stuff about repetition. then, ctrl+f.
my biggest plague word is just. i’ve already used it once in this post. the first thing i do when i finish something is to search for instances of the word just and delete/rephrase every second one or so. i allow myself to keep it when it’s absolutely necessary to the meaning of the clause, but that’s about as far as i’m willing to push it.
here are a few words to look for in this first stage of repetition-fixing:
- adverbs: the most common ones will be things like basically, actually, suddenly, really, very… but if you want to do a quick check for any words ending in -ly, that helps too.**
- unusual conjunctions: it’s perfectly fine to use a lot of and, but but needs to be kept in check. too many negative clauses can break immersion! similarly for so, also, although, still, etc.
- swearing. (and this is coming from someone who swears like a sailor IRL.) as with any strong and emotive language, it has more power when you hold it back and only use it for similarly emotive occasions.
- any phrases you know you use a lot.
once that’s done, reread the work. the moment you find a word that carries a lot of weight, or a phrase that sounds incredible to you, ctrl+f it. because if you’re having that thought now, chances are you’ve had it before, and you’ve used that word or phrase more than once within the work. when something stands out to you that much, it’s worth saving it up for a special occasion.
there are a few other subtle things worth looking out for in terms of repetition, which i’ll list quickly:
- overusing character names when pronouns will suffice, i.e. “It was still dark when Bob’s alarm went off. Bob was so tired that he had to physically force his eyes open.” that second Bob can easily be a he and no-one will get confused!
- italics for emphasis. while you’re in the midst of writing, it may seem like you need to remind your reader that certain words will be stressed in a sentence, but it’s more likely that your reader will understand that intuitively. save italics for moments of heightened emotion and humour.
- similar sentence structure. if you have two sentences in a row that look the same, like this: “Bob’s alarm went off, but it was still dark outside. He was unbelievably tired, since he’d stayed up too late the night before.” … then change the structure of one of them! experiment with moving clauses around until you get enough variation. this helps hold your readers’ interest, and maintains flow so that your writing doesn’t get too clunky.
there! now you’ve got a cursorily-edited first draft, just (oh, yikes, there i go) by focusing on one issue at a time. at this stage, you can go back and read it again (yes, again!) and see where you might be able to use repetition as a powerful device to draw attention to a particular concept, or to create emotion or humour.
one more thing: i started this off by cautioning against editing as you go. but when you start becoming aware of repetition, and your own personal plague words/phrases, you’ll start doing all of this like second nature. but that doesn’t mean you should stop using ctrl+f!
~
* obviously once you’ve done a self-edit, a good idea is to send your work off to a beta reader/critique partner. they’ll pick up on anything you might’ve missed, as well as talk you through bigger issues than are covered in this post.
** my general stance on adverbs is that they should be used sparingly (which is an adverb :P), except for comedic emphasis, in which case adverbs will do a lot of the heavy lifting. (see above: physically forced, unbelievably tired.) as with everything that frames itself as a writing “rule,” don’t trust anyone who tells you never to use adverbs.