Larry Brooks on When Not To Edit

[deborahjross]

Larry Books over at storyfix.com has been posting a series on novel planning for NaNoWriteMo (or however those letters get assorted; I get them wrong half the time) and offers some interesting thoughts on editing-as-you-write:

There are two flavors of editing.

The advice to avoid one of them as you write during November is absolutely spot-on accurate, with a couple of caveats. The other… will send you spiraling into that pile of rocks like a chorus of sirens.

The first type of editing, the one you should probably avoid, is copy editing. Literally correcting typos. Fixing grammar mistakes. Polishing your words. Trying to make your prose perfect.

The advice to avoid doing this is solid. Unless you are fast – which you might just be if you’ve planned your novel well, and completely… in which case you will have the time to fix all this copy-level stuff in the last few days of November. Or, if you get ahead of pace (1700 words per day), at the end of each writing day.



The other level of editing — the one you absolutely shouldn’t ignore – is story-level editing.

That is, seizing the opportunity to optimize story physics (dramatic tension, character empathy, vicarious reader experience) through tinkering with your scenes as you go (again, this only becomes valid advice if you’ve planned your story and are ahead of pace)… and, to make story-level course corrections

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I find Nano a bit scary, but that's excellent advice.

[deborahjross.livejournal.com]

November is never a good time for me to commit to something like that. I'm just coming off the murder anniversary and need to be extra gentle with myself. I figure that when I can manage fasting for Yom Kippur, I'll be ready for a novel in a month, but not before.

So far, not yet.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Absolutely.
Take care: I will be thinking of you.

[tanyareed.livejournal.com]

I always approach Nanowrimo as an exercise in spontaneous creativity. I'm what is termed a "pantser" (writing by the seat of your pants) and, unless something goes terribly wrong, whatever I write as I go stays in there. Of course, I handwrite too, so that makes it harder to tinker with scenes after you get them down. (Though I do make notes for changes that I want to make in December when I'm editing in the margins.) Of course, I don't write with any aim of being published; I just do it for fun, so that probably makes a difference. For me, the best part is at the end of the month seeing how I got to the end from the beginning when I had no idea what my course was going to be.