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| Photo credit: Wiertz Sébastien on Flickr |
Regardless of where your feelings stand on the matter, after you've given your first draft sufficient time to cool, there does inevitably come the first read through that is necessary if you ever hope to turn that first draft into a polished novel. But what exactly should you be looking for in your first read through?
I know for me, the system of my first reading has changed drastically over time: with my very first draft I fell into the trap of doing line-edits (which I don't recommend unless your first draft is very tight to begin with), with later drafts I started developing a system of marking future edits as I progressed through the reading, and finally, with this latest read through, I made color-coded notes.
The difference between this first read through and many of my previous first readings was that this time, I had a pretty good idea of what needed fixing ahead of time. I already knew I had to pay special attention to the timeline, and that there would be many scenes and tidbits of information that would need expanding. Knowing this ahead of time allowed me to create a color coding system that would emphasize those notes as well as other edit notes in an organized way that was catered to this WIPs needs.
To give you guys an idea, here was my color coding system:
Note: I work primarily with Microsoft Word, and while I have in the past printed out my first draft (which is helpful, if you can afford the ink and paper), this time I made notes directly into Microsoft Word.
Any mention of time, I highlighted in green.
Anything that needed expanding, I highlighted in orange.
Anything that I really liked, I circled in purple (and added hearts and smiley faces).
Any emotional indicators I needed to fix, I highlighted in blue.
Any time I came across a sentence that could work as a chapter title, I underlined in light blue.
This, combined with Word's commenting feature allowed me to make some basic notes throughout the story and get a pretty good idea as to what I'll need to focus on during my edits, which is largely the goal of the first read through—you don't want to try to fix everything in your first reading, you just want to get a good idea as to what will need fixing.
While I'll soon be going through chapter by chapter and making more detailed edit notes, I've found that the first reading can really help you grasp the story as a whole—it's not about the line edits or the awkward sentences yet—it's about what you can do to improve your WIP, to take it out of the depths of the first draft and start to push it towards a polished work.
I know, however, that many people view the first reading differently, so I'm curious— what do you focus on during your first reading? Do you have a system that you use every time, or does it depend on the WIP? I'd love to hear your tips and techniques.
24 comments:
This is a great topic and very timely for us as well. My writing partner and I do our edits a little differently in that since we team write. The first time through we read it seperately and make our own corrections. When that is finished we print the whole thing out and read it out loud together to find any continuity issues, mis-used or over-used words, etc... it has worked well for us but it is interesting to see how others do theirs. The color coding idea looks very user friendly, thanks for sharing.
Reggie Alexander (along with kasi Alexander)
Becoming Sage and saving Sunni (through Omnific Publishing)
Clifftop Fantasies (as cassidy browning through Siren Bookstrand)
I find it very interesting to see how various people approach editing--there are so many different techniques and processes and it's great to be able to learn from each other.
That being said, I imagine one of the advantages to writing with a partner is having two sets of eyes to edit the work--naturally, you'll both be equally close to the writing, but I would think that being able to edit together is probably eye-opening and extraordinarily helpful for the both of you. :)
Thanks for sharing your editing process, Reggie!
I like your color-coding process for editing! I use the highlighter feature in Microsoft Word, but not to the extent that you outline here. I'm a fan of color-coding things for organization in general, so I may have to develop a more detailed highlighting-for-editing format for myself. Thanks for the tips and insight!
Sure thing, Grace! The bonus about color-coding is that you can zoom out of your manuscript and see the colors that you have most--thus, the issues that you have most. There are many ways to do it, but I found it especially helpful (and pretty enjoyable--I like colors) as I completed my first reading.
Great post. Thanks for sharing!
Of course! Thanks for commenting! :)
>> ...with my very first draft I fell into the trap of doing line-edits (which
I don't recommend unless your first draft is very tight to begin with)..."
How true, lest killing one's darlings become required...
I don't think my aged eyes could handle that many colors, but the technique seems sound. I use Word's comments, highlighting, font colors, strikethru, etc., to denote various things. Bigger things (overall comments regarding plot lines, timelines, characters and such) become text at the document's start.
I won't start the next iteration of edits until all existing markup has been eliminated. This forces me to make the big decisions sooner rather than later--something that I recommend.
Thanks for posting this because I really don't know what my technique is. I'm basically writing my first real WIP and I'm about halfway through. I guess I can find out what works and what doesn't! At the moment what works for me is printing my work and, yes, colour-coding (which has helped me in school too).
Sounds like you have an awesome system! Definitely taking note of this for when it's time to pull out my WIP. I'd love to do something similar and on the computer rather than just mark with a big, red pen on plain old paper. What's your typical purple to other colors ratio, btw? I'm thinking mine might be .5 to 10! LOL
Although I used to dread getting out the WIP, I'm actually kind of excited now. That's the good thing about giving it plenty of time to stew. It's been almost a year now!
I'm bookmarking this for when I takeout my manuscript to read.
I like your idea of color coding different types of issues you want to address. I've gone with the single color highlight and attached a comment to remind myself what I wanted to do. I picked up Cory Doctorow's method for a few things including DIB (do it better) and FCHK (fact check).
You are so much more organized than me. My manuscript edits go like this . . . . . I make notes all over the place WHILE I'm writing about things I hate and need to improve and scribble them haphazardly into my writing do that no one can understand what they are reading except for me. And then once all those notes disappear, I know I am done editing and that it's time for beta readers (because often as I read through, more notes get added and I know I'm done when all notes disappear instead.)
It's definitely a good idea to try to make all of those big decisions early on while editing--that way you don't end up fixing something minor only to have to throw it out or change it entirely later, because it's affected by the big thing you had to fix (which is also the issue with doing line-edits early in the editing).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Jeff!
My technique will probably continue to evolve as I go along, but in my experience the best you can do is try various techniques until you can create something that works well with you. Sometimes that turns out to be something you read about and sometimes it's a compilation of many different techniques (and sometimes it depends on the WIP).
I wish you the best with your first WIP! :)
I think so far (I'm going through more carefully, chapter by chapter now) I've marked three or four pages with purple out of...200 some-odd pages. So yes...not very much. :D
Wow, a year! Letting your manuscript cool for a full year should give you great distance. That should really help with your editing. :)
Wonderful! I hope it helps! ^_^
I don't think I've heard of Cory Doctorow's method before. What does that entail?
Oh wow, yes your method is very different from mine. :)
I like to separate the two processes (editing and writing), but I find your method very interesting--it almost sounds like a card game (get rid of all of your cards!). How long does it typically take for you to cross off all of your notes?
This is brilliant, and I wish I'd thought of this. What an awesome idea! Thanks, Ava. This is probably the most useful post I've ever read on your blog (and that's saying a lot, actually)
Wow! Thanks, Dan! I'm really glad to hear you found this post so helpful. :)
I spent my first draft just reading through and mostly fixing the timeline. I made some notes but nowhere near as comprehensive as you did. I love the idea of different colors for different things. And you are right about that not getting hung up on line edits on that first readthrough - can't miss out the forest for the trees.
The problem with line edits early on (as I discovered) is if you need to rewrite something or change something major later on, chances are you're going to have to toss those line edits. So yes, no need to worry about those early in the editing process.
The color coding was helpful for a couple of reasons, and as an added bonus it made the experience even more enjoyable IMO (although I suppose I am at times easily amused ^_^).
I love the colour coding idea. I don't know if I will be excited or scared when I come to read my first draft! Both I assume.
I think both are appropriate reactions. I've found that it helps to remember that the story can only get better from here. You now have a full manuscript--the fun (and challenging) part of turning it into a cohesive and layered story is about to begin! :)
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