Editing, anyone?

 I love editing!

It is always possible to improve on grammar, spelling and everything else, for no first draft is ever perfect. The third, fourth and fifth draft can always be improved, too. 

I usually read over the previous day's work and edit it, before I begin the day's writing, but I always find better ways to say something once the plot line is established. If half my attention is on the plot, then I am not fully focussed on the editing. 

But once I have got to the end, the editing is a doddle. The plot line is established and I can relax, go back to the beginning and simply read with full 100% attention. Then it is easy to turn awkward  phrases and clumsy sentences into graceful ones, spot the double spaces and missing punctuation. The more time that elapses, the easier the editing seems to become. 

I am currently "improving" The Craigsmuir Affair, which I published seven years ago. I'm enjoying every sentence. 

Can't see the wood for the trees?

“Time is our enemy. Most people don’t have enough. This is why our writing must be tight, direct and hook early. Modern audiences have the attention span of a toddler hopped up on Pop Rocks and Mountain Dew. We can’t afford to let them drift.” So says  Kristen Lamb in Uncategorized, Writing Tips

Here are some of the  reminders I keep for myself –

1. Describing what a character sees can be overdone and more importantly, keeps the reader at a distance, makes her a mere observer and not a participant. Sight is possibly the weakest sense and doesn’t help pull your reader into deep POV. SO: Don’t rely on a lot of description.

For many, the sense of smell is the most powerful sense, followed by taste

Try to use a combination of all the senses.

2. Don’t have body parts doing things. You don’t need a character to raise his hand to reach for the door handle. If he makes it from one room to another, the reader will fill in the details.

3. Don’t State the Obvious

She slammed the door and cursed in anger.

We know she’s angry because she slammed the door.  Telling us she’s angry is redundant.

4. Don’t bring in too many characters too soon. If you have ten named characters by page one your reader will be confused.

5. Too Much Anything v Give Us a Sense of Time and Place

This happens with historicals as much as science fiction and fantasy. If the readers get lost in all the characters, places, clothes, prophesies, weapons, technology, dragons, ships and robots, it is bad. A few details are helpful to orient us where we are – maybe the smell of horse manure, the rattling of carriages or the whir of computers. The readers need to be grounded quickly and easily to become part of the world.

6. From page one, the reader should have picked up the basics about a character.

7. Tighten the Prose

Overuse of the word “was” is an indicator of weak writing and passive voice. If a writer does this on page one it is likely it will continue.

Sloppy and wordy construction

Editing the first draft of a story can be a revelation.

The day I discovered I had used "has/have/had" twenty one times on a single page and had my characters "sighing" thirteen times on another page convinced me of the need for editing.

Your problem areas may not be the same as mine, but here are some of the things I look for. They all come under the heading Sloppy and wordy construction.

Top of my list - Participle phrases. You know - things like "was waiting," "running," "crying"
was, were - passive words that should be replaced with active
had, has, have  - passive, dull constructions
it, there, here - vague pronouns, should be replaced with something more dynamic
that, but - overused and lazy conjunctions
preposition  such as:  
for
from
in
inside
into
like
minus
near
of
off
on
See if you can't replace them with one or two better, clearer words.
Unnecessary words such as: together, start, plan, almost, just, then, own, thing, began, reach, rather, instead, even, back, very, good, great, really, suddenly, finally, about, only, totally, eventually, almost, exactly, fairly, so, such.

I use the Find Box to see where the words are hiding and I spend a day going through each and every one. It tells you how many culprits it has found and if it lists only five or six in 75k words, I will let them stand -  as long as the are not close together in the text! 
The last time I did this, I edited out 10,000 words from an 88,000 word document. I've done this after each first draft, and the nice thing is that each successive novel has required much less work than the previous one, which means I am slowly erradicating my bad habits.

That dratted Comma!

If you've ever been confused by when to use a comma, then read Ginger Simpson's post on 29th Novemebr at this link: http://mizging.blogspot.co.uk/  If you are English* it may or may not help, since we use the wretched things differently to Americans and that just adds to the confusion. A friend who teaches English in America gave me these 5 comma rules that rule the world

1. Use a comma after an introductory phrase or clause
2. Use a comma before and after a parenthetical phrase or clause  (Lynne Truss calls this a weak interruption in a sentence. They can usually be lifted out whole without destroying the grammar)
3.Use a comma to separate two independent clauses linked by a coordinating conjunction  (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) (If you omit the conjunction and keep the comma, this becomes the splice comma. Personally I don't care for the splice comma)
4. Use a comma to separate items in a series (but do not use one before the and at the end of the list unless you want to be guilty of using the Oxford comma.)
5 Use a comma before a quotation when an introductory phrase with a word like say or reply precedes the quotation. (I don't think I ever knew this rule)
6. DO NOT PUT a comma between two verbs or verb phrases in a compound predicate. (Evidently I sometimes do this. My excuse is that I do it in the old-fashioned, time-honoured way we learned to do when we read aloud at school or wherever. It's simply a pause for breath, or for emphasis, perhaps to heighten tension as you make your audience wait for the next bit) 

There is also the comma used before direct speech though this seems to be dying out with some writers. Either way sits happily with me, as long as it is consistent throughout the piece or novel I'm reading.

I love some of the examples of sloppy or careless use of commas:
Leonora walked on her head, a little higher than usual.
The driver escaped from the car before it sank and swam to the river-bank

But of course, you know exactly where the commas should have gone, don't you?

* I've begun using English as my descriptor since the other partners in the United Kingdom began insisting on declaring themselves Scottish or Welsh or Northern Irish.

English UK

Strange things are happening in the editing world. A friend has recently come up against her present editor changing every ‘on to’ to ‘onto’. Many years ago a copy editor would not allow ‘onto’ in any circumstance and replaced them all with ‘on to’.

Naworth Castle courtyard

It is rather like the 'in to' and 'into' argument. There is a difference. The window was open so the cat climbed in to get his milk and fell into a bucket carelessly left there. I’m sure you can all see the difference.

Something my American friends are always correcting in my chapters is when I use 'different to'. They insist it should be 'different than.' Now, if enough people tell you a thing, you begin to believe it. So I looked up the grammar books and found that typical British usage is 'different to' when it introduces a clause and 'different from' when preceding a noun or pronoun. British usage doesn't include 'different than' at all.

I know it is unwise to generalise, and it is possible that all editors are not a) American or b)young twenty-somethings, (as if that is somehow a reason or an excuse, though I’ve it put forward as both!) but it is a shame that British English seems to be slowly caving in to American English. Why do British newspaper journalists and tv presenters think it is ‘cool’ to use the language of another culture? Why have I used the shorthand language ie ‘cool’, rather than think out a phrase that will describe what is meant by the slang phrase ‘cool’? Can it be that I am a) lazy or b)already indoctrinated?

Is grammar not taught in schools anymore? Have the teachers themselves got confused? Or is it the herd instinct, the reason that the less confidant follow the more confidant by adopting their style, their way of speaking? Food for thought, I think.

Flying Body Parts

There’s a lot being said today about flying body parts. Before you turn aside in dismay, let me assure you I'm thinking in literary terms. For example, how many times have you read the sentence ‘her eyes flew to the door’ or ‘her hand flew to her throat’?

They're both classed as culprits.

Yet the phrases are so popular they could be challenged as clichés. We all know what they mean and we pick up all the nuances of fear and surprise that the author intends. Why, then, are so many editors, authors and critique partners busy telling each other that her eyes didn’t really fly to the door, did they? Suggest re-word the sentence.

Is it because readers are so literal-minded these days? If I write ‘her eyes turned to the door’ is that acceptable? It may be, but it is also unexciting. There’s no implied urgency, no feeling of any kind; the sentence is bland. If I write her eyes turned fearfully to the door, is that going to bring the criticism that eyes can’t turn fearfully? They can’t turn in fear, either, but isn’t all this a bit unnecessary? if the reader will understand, what's wrong with bringing a bit of creativity to our writing?

An idiom is, according to the dictionary, a group of words established by usage and having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. Such as: over the moon, see the light, kick the bucket, lay one’s cards on the table. Are these expressions classed as idioms? They’re very close to it. Certainly they meet the first part of the definition. But we can deduce what is happening when we say her glance flew across the room, so perhaps these aren’t idioms, but merely idiomatic use of language. If such a subtle distinction exists!

Perhaps it comes down to all things in moderation. I read a sentence once that claimed a young lady tossed her chin over her shoulder. Another claimed that her two legs took her down the street. Now I know what the authors intended, but it was a clumsy way of expressing it. Some expressions work, and others don’t. In trying for originality, laudable in itself, it is easy to come up with an expression that may well make readers splutter and giggle.

So if your flying body part has been tried and tested down the years, if it works, then use it. If it doesn’t abandon it. It would be a shame if we became constrained in our use of such a rich, multi-faceted language.

Forgot something and Oxford commas

I despair, Ireally do, when I see twenty foot banners inside Tesco with the legend 'Forgot Something' leering over the check out counters. They've also got Jackie Collins and Dean Koontz in the books section under a heading Childrens Fun for the second week running.

Then there's the weather person after the lunch time NE BBC NEWS who tells me "it could be a bit more drizzlier."

I'm tired of the grammatical errors that creep into everything. Does no one under the age of fifty understand the rules of grammar? I console myself with the thought that at least they got the new signs for Hadrian's Wall Country correct. I know it is easy to make mistakes and the paragon who never makes a mistake does not live - but if I was going to pay good money for a banner the size of a double decker bus and plaster it up in public, I'd make very sure I got it right. And perhaps the worst thing of all is that younger people don't see it, don't feel their hackles go up, don't know what the problem is. And who works in advertising agencies? Grrr.

I read of something called an Oxford comma the other day. Do you know what this strange creature is? No, I didn't either, in spite of having a degree in English Language, so I thought I'd better find out. So here goes - in the sentence The flag is red, white, and blue the Oxford comma is the one after the word white.

In Britain, standard usage is to leave it out. In America, standard usage is to leave it in.

Arguments can be made both ways. Some sentences seem to need it, and others do not. So then it becomes a matter of personal style and choice.

My critique group has a lot of fun with commas. Some take them out, some put them in, and some take no notice. Both the sentences below are correct:

It was a dark, stormy night.

It was an endangered white rhino.

The rule is that you use a comma where and would fit, as in a list. ie The night was dark and stormy.

But the second sentence is not a list. In other words, the rhino was not endangered and white.

(Thanks to Lynne Truss (Eats, Shoots & Leaves) for the example)