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BY R. M. RIDLEY
Used to be I dreaded edits.
Didn’t matter if I was working under my own supervision or another’s; the term itself was enough to set my teeth to clenching, my gut to churning, and my mind to building defensive walls.
Somewhere along the way, I discovered that edits were not unspeakable things of creative killing horror, that they were, in fact, quite the opposite. I found that editing is a wonderful, creative process that trains the mind to think in new ways, and view your own words with a fresh perspective.
So how did I come to this revelation?
I edited.
I edited my own writing. I got others to look at my writing and then did those edits, and I grabbed at the chance to edit the writing of other authors. After long enough, you see the trick to them, find the joy hidden in the piles of red ink, and thrill at the way they push the creative process.
In this modern day, most word processor programs have a feature that must have been the brainchild of a writer after too many long nights facing endless edits—the ability to ‘track changes’.
This great tool allows all comments to be left on the side, with lines leading to the spot where the suggested change should occur. This is worlds better than trying to decipher highlights, strange short forms, and obscure symbols, which used to be the way edits arrived. I rejoiced the day my editor introduced me to this great tool.
Still, it is daunting to open the document and face a wall of red lines and comments, with not one millimeter of black showing through the barrage of suggested corrections. Often my first thought is to throw the computer out the window, curl into a small ball, and never dare offend the universe by putting word to page again—even if that page is only made up of ones and zeros.
It is more than daunting; it is demoralizing. The question that wriggles out of the storm of panic is ‘Where do I even start?’ and the answer might seem simple—start at the beginning. It would seem to be the most obvious answer but is it the correct one?
Editing takes a certain fortitude of mind, coldness of conscious, and a twisted creativity. You must be in the zone to truly pull off proper edits. So diving in, right at the start, may not actually be the right way. I find circling in on the issues works well.
I start scanning down the comments looking for the easy fixes: drop a comma, change then to than, add a period. I want to find all the stuff that I don’t have to think about to make the changes. There is no internal debate as to whether the editor is right, understands me, or can conceptualize the world in which my character resides. These fast changes start to soften up my brain, making it ready to accept ‘real’ change.
With the ‘track changes’ feature, I can easily see what the comments are (if they are long, it isn’t going to be an easy fix, so I skip it). Once I have completed an easy fix, I delete the attached comment and, before long, I see the wall of comments, that was so panic inducing, is crumbling.
After I do all the easy fixes, and delete their comments, I find the overwhelming panic is fading slightly. I am ready to move on.
It is now time to tackle stage two—the edits that need a moment or two of thought to figure out. These changes are still relatively easy, but I am asked to make a choice, or use a modicum of cleverness, to rearrange wording. Comments in this stage of editing are often of the type that read: ‘run-on sentence, any chance of making it three shorter ones?’ or ‘This sentence is awkward, can you change it up to make it read smoother?’.
It is still not taxing work, or too challenging even, but it is beyond the simple addition/subtraction that the first stage was. I get to use my head a little, plus a touch of creativity seeps into the process. This stage also gets rid of a surprising number of comments in the sidebar. The wall is turning into a ruin and the fear of it is disappearing.
I keep working this way, starting at the top of the story and working my way through, progressing in the difficulty that the edits require. Each read through makes the challenges put to me a little harder but, with each read through, I have also prepped my mind and honed my skill.
The final stage is the ‘real’ edits. These are the challenges and issues that make me wonder if the editor is crazy, or if I am, but if I attack these edits in the same manner as I have faced the whole process, I can get through them.
If I come to a comment that makes my brain start to freeze up, or gibber incoherently, I simply skip it. It isn’t that I can’t do that edit, it’s that I’m not far enough in the zone yet to see the solution. I ignore that problem and move on. I can leave it without worry, as the track changes option will keep it for when I start again.
Sometimes, I can start right in on these more challenging edits and cut through them. Sometimes, I only get one completed per read through. Either way, I start at the top, work to the bottom, and start again at the top.
It doesn’t matter how many times I go through, because each time I am unlocking my brain. By simply reading the comments, I am forming subconscious answers in my head. Eventually, I reread the comment and the solution springs forth, leaving me to wonder why I couldn’t see it the first time.
Now I am editing.
I am in the zone: thinking outside the box, with a fresh perspective, and a callousness towards cuts.
I am editing and loving it.
R. M. Ridley lives with his wife on a small homestead in Canada, raising chickens and sheep. He has been writing and editing stories for three decades, the themes of which range from the gruesome to the fantastical. Ridley’s short story “The Cost of Custody” will appear in Shades and Shadows: a Paranormal Anthology, slated for release October 31, 2013.
