Some of us, though... we take this too far and we just keep editing, and revising, and tinkering because it's not perfect yet. But there comes a point where there's nothing else to be done, and you have to put your knife down, stop cooking, and let the people taste what it is you made.
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| But what if I changed the opening... again... |
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More Than Three Times and You're Playing With Yourself
There is no hard-and-fast number of editorial sweeps that will guarantee your book is ready to go out to the public. Personally, I have a primary editorial sweep for fixing big problems (filling plot holes, shifting around scenes, smoothing out a mystery, and so on), and then I'll have a secondary sweep to catch all the loose grammar, spelling errors, and so forth. At that point I'll give it to my beta readers, and after I get their feedback I'll do a third sweep to tidy up as much of the housekeeping as I can.
And you know, there are still a couple of mistakes that make it through the process. A spelling error here, a mislabeled piece of dialogue there, but there's rarely more than a handful of them. And maybe I could catch a few of them with one more sweep... but there comes a point where you're blind to your own work. Which is why I highly recommend the services of a professional editor, but that's neither here nor there.
My point is that if you, as a writer, find yourself doing not just more editorial sweeps that I outlined, but significantly more, I would like to direct you to a bit of comedy by the very talented Iliza Shlesinger.
Pay particular attention to the bit where she refers to putting together a makeup look for a night out. There comes a point where it has been refined as good as it's going to get... and every moment past that point where she doesn't stop, it's just going to get worse, and worse, and worse. That is what happens when you over-edit your book.
Again, I wish to stress that editing is an important part of the process. And if you feel you need to take 5, or even 6, passes to clean up a particularly messy book, that's well within the realm of reason. But I have talked with people who've revised longer than the initial drafting process, some of whom have said they're on their 20th revision of their book.
That's not normal. That is not just part of the process. Maybe it's because you're afraid to take that final step, so you're putting off the actual publishing. Maybe you keep getting new hyperfixations and rather than writing a new book you want to put them into your existing book. Maybe you just don't want to let this baby go yet. Whatever is keeping you editing, take a deep breath, and let it go. Because when you keep holding onto it, that's when you start trying to add body glitter to your church outfit, and attempting to fit into those jeans you've had since high school that are never going over your hips again.
You aren't doing yourself any favors. Take a deep breath, let go, and let the book go be a book. You can always write another one!
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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
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