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.

 

[dirk2024]

 

[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.