Self-editing for authors

[StillStunned]

Even after nearly three decades of professional editing, I still discover things. This is one that crept up on me a few months ago.

If you're listing multiple things - you know, "A, B and C" - try to put the longest one at the end. "An apple, the old blanket from the shed and a horse" sounds awkward; "an apple, a horse and the old blanket from the shed" has a more pleasing rhythm. "Go home, draw yourself a nice hot bath and relax" isn't bad, but I think it works better as "Go home, relax, maybe draw yourself a nice hot bath."

I'm pondering whether this goes for each element in the list, i.e. that more syllables means further along. I don't think so - see the horse and apple above, for instance - but so far I'm undecided.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Even after nearly three decades of professional editing, I still discover things. This is one that crept up on me a few months ago.

If you're listing multiple things - you know, "A, B and C" - try to put the longest one at the end. "An apple, the old blanket from the shed and a horse" sounds awkward; "an apple, a horse and the old blanket from the shed" has a more pleasing rhythm. "Go home, draw yourself a nice hot bath and relax" isn't bad, but I think it works better as "Go home, relax, maybe draw yourself a nice hot bath."

I'm pondering whether this goes for each element in the list, i.e. that more syllables means further along. I don't think so - see the horse and apple above, for instance - but so far I'm undecided.

I'm forever changing the sequence in lists. I have no method - if I did, I'd write them in the correct sequence in the first place. It's all down to the beat of each phrase within the sentence.

 

[Bryan_C]

Even after nearly three decades of professional editing, I still discover things. This is one that crept up on me a few months ago.

If you're listing multiple things - you know, "A, B and C" - try to put the longest one at the end. "An apple, the old blanket from the shed and a horse" sounds awkward; "an apple, a horse and the old blanket from the shed" has a more pleasing rhythm. "Go home, draw yourself a nice hot bath and relax" isn't bad, but I think it works better as "Go home, relax, maybe draw yourself a nice hot bath."

I'm pondering whether this goes for each element in the list, i.e. that more syllables means further along. I don't think so - see the horse and apple above, for instance - but so far I'm undecided.

I think this applies to descriptions as well - not necessarily so much based on length, though that is probably still sometimes true, but often one ordering just sounds more natural than another.

"[...] a knee-length, pleated, loose skirt" seems awkward to the ear, compared with "a loose, knee-length pleated skirt."

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

try to put the longest one at the end.

Yup, that seems to work. Worth considering/remembering, and it will work for most lists. I was wondering about the bath example. With that one, it might be best to place "relax" at the end because, in terms of timing, you're only going to relax once in the bath. On the other hand, a list of items like "a loose, knee-length pleated skirt" in Bryan's example, the correct order is the one that sounds/reads best.

 

[OldKenDoll]

Most of the tips in here work for any prose, which is grand. But this is an erotica site, so here’s one that’s only about the sexy bits.

When you edit a sex scene, check that the narrator hasn’t changed.

It’s the fault I catch most often in my own drafts. The first half of a story has a voice. The narrator notices particular things and cracks the odd joke. She has opinions. Then the clothes come off, and she quietly turns into somebody else: a blander person whose entire vocabulary is “thrust,” “moan,” “wet” and “incredible.” The character we’d been enjoying has wandered off, and a generic erotica voice is doing the typing instead.

Readers notice. They might not be able to say what’s wrong, but they feel the scene go flat. The bit that should be the high point ends up duller than the conversation that led to it.

The test takes two minutes. Read the last ordinary scene and the sex scene one after the other. Same person telling you both? If your narrator was funny a page ago, is she still funny with her knickers off? If she’d been clocking the chipped mug and next door’s telly through the wall, is she still noticing things, or has the whole world shrunk to a few body parts?

A sex scene is that same character having an experience, in her words. Not yours, not the genre’s. Hers.

This is the one rule I actually keep. I’ll let the odd typo slip past me, I’ll leave a comma somewhere it has no business being, but if my narrator disappears the moment the action starts, the draft goes back. It’s the thing I care about most. Which is fairly rich, I admit, coming from a fellow who spent the better part of forty years in a box, but there you are. Get the sex sounding like her, and you’ll do more for your reader than any number of fresh synonyms for “gasped.”

I’ll go back in my box now.

 

[CowFolk]

For what it is worth. I am a narrator also. I do a reading aloud. Sometimes I come across awkward dialog or descriptions that make me (in narrator mind) laugh.

 

[SkyBubble]

First you draft, then you craft.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

 

[anthrodisiac]

Most of the tips in here work for any prose, which is grand. But this is an erotica site, so here’s one that’s only about the sexy bits.

When you edit a sex scene, check that the narrator hasn’t changed.

It’s the fault I catch most often in my own drafts. The first half of a story has a voice. The narrator notices particular things and cracks the odd joke. She has opinions. Then the clothes come off, and she quietly turns into somebody else: a blander person whose entire vocabulary is “thrust,” “moan,” “wet” and “incredible.” The character we’d been enjoying has wandered off, and a generic erotica voice is doing the typing instead.

Readers notice. They might not be able to say what’s wrong, but they feel the scene go flat. The bit that should be the high point ends up duller than the conversation that led to it.

The test takes two minutes. Read the last ordinary scene and the sex scene one after the other. Same person telling you both? If your narrator was funny a page ago, is she still funny with her knickers off? If she’d been clocking the chipped mug and next door’s telly through the wall, is she still noticing things, or has the whole world shrunk to a few body parts?

A sex scene is that same character having an experience, in her words. Not yours, not the genre’s. Hers.

This is the one rule I actually keep. I’ll let the odd typo slip past me, I’ll leave a comma somewhere it has no business being, but if my narrator disappears the moment the action starts, the draft goes back. It’s the thing I care about most. Which is fairly rich, I admit, coming from a fellow who spent the better part of forty years in a box, but there you are. Get the sex sounding like her, and you’ll do more for your reader than any number of fresh synonyms for “gasped.”

I’ll go back in my box now.

This is really solid advice. You're right in that a lot of erotic stories drop voice in favor of hotness and we lose the sense of the character (if they're the POV character as in 1P or close third). However, I think it's good to cavet this by saying that people have different headspaces, so depending on the story, the tone might shift. Somebody who's super awkward and unsure might find that dropping away as they lose themselves in sex. But you're right in that it should still have their voice, it's just that the focus and some of the language might shift.

For example, the current story I'm working on, the MC (me) is very anxious and awkward, even during sex, but once it finally happens, I lose myself in it, a lot of those worries drop away, but still resurface, just not to the same degree, due to narrative calculations around preserving awkward anxiety vs. not impeding flow/hotness. Same tone and voice, but priorities and emotion has changed, and that will impact how the story is being told (especially true for first person and close third, less so for omniscient). A voice that never changes despite events around them changing is a narrator who doesn't have a lot of emotional range or reaction, and it's that change in tone that really helps a character pop.

 

[old_prof]

Most of the tips in here work for any prose, which is grand. But this is an erotica site, so here’s one that’s only about the sexy bits.

When you edit a sex scene, check that the narrator hasn’t changed.

This is really solid advice.

I want to second or third this. I did this big time in my third story I ever wrote (Movie Night). There is a strip scene in it (I still like that scene). The rest of the story is 1P with teh Lisa, the FMC, being the POV. She was stripping seductively for her husband. I was in her head enough that I dropped into 2P, thinking about him. My wife pointed it out when she was beta reading for me. I've been much more careful about voice and POV since then. I really hadn't been intentional, just wrote what sounded right in my head.

 

[RonEhrs]

Reading grade level.
If you're using Word and run a full spell check at the end, you will also get "readability" scores, including one that indicates grade reading level. Since stories tend to include a lot of dialogue, the reading level scores are likely to be lower than you expect, but that's fine. I find most of my stories come in somewhere in the 4th-grade range, which seems about right for easy reading.

 

[BBonFire]

Wonderful introduction. I will add that my first submission is being written in OpenOffice Writer V4.1.14. This is a free and wonderful and reasonably full featured program that can spell check.

 

[Duleigh]

So, given how difficult it is to find a volunteer editor, how about we collect all our tips for becoming better editors of our own work?

Like so much else, my word processor now comes with AI. I used to use ProWritingAid until it started charging for services that were once part of the subscription. I fired off an email to PWA and said "If I'm paying $120 a year, but I have to buy credits to get the software to function, what am I paying a subscription for? I didn't get an answer so they didn't get a check.

Microsoft word comes with CoPilot, an AI that is so damn stupid. Do not let AI touch your documents without firm instructions. I have shut off CoPilot when I'm writing and only turn it back on when it comes time to edit. When I edit I give CoPilot these instructions:

Review this document for the following errors
Spelling
Punctuation
Grammar
Check for clarity and style
DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES
Highlight any of these errors so I can determine how best to correct them

Without these instructions the AI will rewrite the entire document, so make a backup copy first! However it is working. It's catching errors that PWA would ignore, leaving my editor to wonder if I got my degree from a box of Cracker Jack

 

[XerXesXu]

For those who wish to explore how AI could help to self-edit, this is an instructive video by a professional editor:

He also provides a structured arrangement of prompts he uses:

Prompt builder for writers.

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

When I edit I give CoPilot these instructions

It sounds like Grammarly would work better for you.

I discovered an interesting thing about Copilot.

I've been setting my laptop up to use Linux Mint. When done, I'll shift away from Windows. I've only got Windows 10, and it can't upgrade. I do banking using this computer, and if MS is not going to support that version, then I'm out. Anyway, I've been seeing a few errors. Actually, I've been using ChatGPT to help out with my 'upgrade'. I'm going to have a dual-boot setup. Sorry for not getting to the point.

Here it is: I looked at the errors. I don't generally use Copilot, but MS keeps downloading files in the background that are used when you install Copilot on your computer rather than using the web version. So, as I don't have it installed all these little files or bits of software didn't have anything to run against and caused errors. ChatGPT said the errors can safely be ignored. Good. But they are there. So, what is MS doing, I wondered. It turns out that when you install it on your computer, in addition to Copilot answering your questions against its big model, much the same as every other AI assistant, it will have the ability to look inward, too. You might well be able to ask it things like, "Open the PDF file on F1 winners I was looking at last week," and it will scan all the PDF files on your computer and find the document for you and open it. I have to admit, that could be handy. The number of times I've saved something and subsequently taken ages to remember where I put it. Or, you might ask, "Find all the emails I have with the tax department and summarise them for me," and off it goes and does it. From what I understand, it's early days yet, but that's what MS is aiming at.

I have a free account with ChatGPT, and it retains a copy of my conversations. I used to think those conversations were held on my computer. No, ChatGPT holds them. So, it knows my stuff. Fortunately, I don't give it anything sensitive.

So, with Copilot, if it goes down this path, you might ask it about something in Outlook or files you have on your computer, and Copilot has a look, it transfers the various files to its big cloud processing centre somewhere, does the analysis, and sends it back to your computer to read just like any other answer in response to your prompt. The thing is, the information went onto their system. Will it evaporate when you log out, or will MS have it forever?

I'm pleased I'm shifting to Linux, where none of those MS Copilot files will ever end up, and even if they do, they will be like hieroglyphs to my new OS.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

The MSWord audio read through has become my most important editing step. It catches stuff that I miss after three editing passes.

I have always found this an invaluable step in the editing process.

My only issue is that I find myself having to wait until I have established section and chapter breaks so that I can easily listen to only chunks of the story at a time. Writing longer stories, as I frequently do, listening to them can take hours. This needs to be broken down into manageable periods or it loses a lot of its value for me because my ears become as numb to the words as my eyes do reading it.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I have always found this an invaluable step in the editing process.

My only issue is that I find myself having to wait until I have established section and chapter breaks so that I can easily listen to only chunks of the story at a time. Writing longer stories, as I frequently do, listening to them can take hours. This needs to be broken down into manageable periods or it loses a lot of its value for me because my ears become as numb to the words as my eyes do reading it.

I quite agree. So, what I've come up with is— after my wife and I have caught up at the end of our workday, while she is cooking, I continue my read through and monitor my progress on a note pad next to the keyboard. It breaks it up into smaller blocks of time, but it still gives me that feeling that I'm accomplishing something during on a weekday when I don't do much writing. Mrs. Royale isn't much of a chatter while she's cooking, so it's a perfect opportunity that is mutually agreed upon. On weekends though, I will do more of the read through but break it up with writing another story if I feel I need to.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I quite agree. So, what I've come up with is— after my wife and I have caught up at the end of our workday, while she is cooking, I continue my read through and monitor my progress on a note pad next to the keyboard. It breaks it up into smaller blocks of time, but it still gives me that feeling that I'm accomplishing something during on a weekday when I don't do much writing. Mrs. Royale isn't much of a chatter while she's cooking, so it's a perfect opportunity that is mutually agreed upon. On weekends though, I will do more of the read through but break it up with writing another story if I feel I need to.

After a time my writing bores even me.

 

[lekt0r]

I write and rewrite stuff like 9 times and still somehow miss typos, simple ones too, like nice instead of nose. My last story I had a lot of software miss these issues. I want to be a better writer not just on here but in real life as well it would help with my work.

 

[StillStunned]

I write and rewrite stuff like 9 times and still somehow miss typos, simple ones too, like nice instead of nose. My last story I had a lot of software miss these issues. I want to be a better writer not just on here but in real life as well it would help with my work.

The easiest way to make a big improvement and eliminate almost all those typos is with text-to-speech, like the Read Aloud feature in Word.

Sit and watch the highlight jump from word to word as the program reads your text to you. You'll hear (and see) what you actually wrote, not what you think you wrote.

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

I write and rewrite stuff like 9 times and still somehow miss typos

Another technique that works is to read your text, sentence by sentence, starting from the last page and working toward the beginning. That's the most boring thing you can imagine, but it forces you to look at each sentence without being distracted by the story. It focuses you on sentence structure, grammar, and so forth.

 

[Adamsub]

This thread helped.. All ten of my stories I've found mistakes despite proofread and hit submit. Including screwing up character name.

I think I get little better each time

 

[Stay_Curious_G]

I must admit I hadn’t thought of using MSWord audio to help edit text. However I do recognise the impact of listening to the written word thru a recent addiction to audio books. I love walking and as part of that I started listening to audible and it’s amazing how much the narrator’s voice affects the experience as much as the words . Needless to say although they’re certain voices that could read a phone book and sound good they still have to use the words they are given. So when I picked up a story series I loved as a Teenager and listened to it, it was brutal to hear so many ‘saids’ in the dialogue to the point it was painful to listen to . Lesson being even published authors can write terribly and I’m no where near getting paid for writing

 

[TheLobster]

So when I picked up a story series I loved as a Teenager and listened to it, it was brutal to hear so many ‘saids’ in the dialogue to the point it was painful to listen to . Lesson being even published authors can write terribly and I’m no where near getting paid for writing

I think that's just the fault of the medium. In reading the 'saids' are largely invisible, so it's rarely the case that authors actually overuse them to the point of drawing attention to them and making those dialogue tags grating. I can't even say that I'm reading speech tags, most of the time, as much as I'm perceiving the names for a blink of an eye before moving on to the next piece of dialogue.

Once adapted into an audio book, however, all those small tags are actually being spoken in full, and not by your own voice. I believe this is why you suddenly notice them all the more and may think they're redundant or excessive.

 

[Stay_Curious_G]

I think that's just the fault of the medium. In reading the 'saids' are largely invisible, so it's rarely the case that authors actually overuse them to the point of drawing attention to them and making those dialogue tags grating. I can't even say that I'm reading speech tags, most of the time, as much as I'm perceiving the names for a blink of an eye before moving on to the next piece of dialogue.

Once adapted into an audio book, however, all those small tags are actually being spoken in full, and not by your own voice. I believe this is why you suddenly notice them all the more and may think they're redundant or excessive.

In response, I believe you are making the point of the OP who suggested using MS Word Audio as an editing tool, as you are right in the sense that these dialogue tags are largely ignored by the brain when reading just as long as it understood who's speaking. The story rattles along as your eyes skim the text and you can be swept along in the tale to great enjoyment, however when relayed aurally these minor flaws become very manifest and lessen the enjoyment and perhaps the power of this as an editing technique is to emphasise passages which are jarring to hear and thus may have issues when reading also. This is in the end a 'horses for courses' opinion and any audio rendition of the written word is impacted by the narrator. As an example of one that I find excellent in terms of character voice, check out The Expanse series read by Jefferson Mays. Stephen Fry & Rosamund Pike are also extremely easy on the ear and definitely fall into could make a 'phone book' interesting category.