Self-editing for authors

[StillStunned]

A thread with useful examples of how to punctuate dialogue.

 

[FrancesScott]

A thread with useful examples of how to punctuate dialogue.

I feel like I did a good thing (“For a change,” came loudly from the peanut gallery).

 

[StillStunned]

I feel like I did a good thing (“For a change,” came loudly from the peanut gallery).

I feel the same way about my two stickied threads, after nearly 9000 posts.

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

It can be tedious using direct speech and having to add quote marks continually. Solution: leave them out in your early drafts. Start each piece of direct speech on a new line starting with a dash. Perhaps dash & Letter to indicate who says what. Exclude the tags as to who says what. They can be added later as the chapter is developed. Who knows, you might end up deleting heaps, and to have spent time with quote marks and tags would have been a waste of time. I also find that different font colours help make things clear during the early editing stages. Particularly if there are more than two characters speaking.

 

[StillStunned]

It can be tedious using direct speech and having to add quote marks continually. Solution: leave them out. Start each piece of direct speech on a new line starting with a dash. Perhaps dash & Letter to indicate who says what. Exclude the tags as to who says what. They can be added later as the chapter is developed. Who knows, you might end up deleting heaps, and to have spent time with quote marks and tags would have been a waste of time. I also find that different font colours help make things clear during the early editing stages. Particularly if there are more than two characters speaking.

If this works for you, then that's great. But how does adding quotation marks require any effort? And most of the time, for me at least, the dialogue is embedded in paragraphs, with action to denote who's speaking.

That said, I can imagine this working very well if you're dictating your story instead of typing it.

 

[FrancesScott]

As @StillStunned was kind enough to add a link to the thread I made punctuation comments on, here is a link to the short essay I published based on these same comments (with some additional input from @Laurel herself):

How To… Punctuated Dialogue

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

I've edited my post to make it clearer.

I wasn't advocating the exclusion of quotation marks from the text. They serve a purpose, after all. What I was suggesting, was that during the early developmental work, when pen fist hits paper, so to speak, that you consider skipping them. It's easier and quicker to type. Fingers don't need to leave the keyboard to add a dash, but they do when adding quotation marks. While ideas are in one's mind, if a light bulb moment strikes you, getting the idea down is more important than troubling one's self with punctuation. Punctuation issues can be corrected at any time. Later, in subsequent drafts. In my case, usually close to the final draft.

It's not my own idea. I picked it up when reading Cry The Beloved Country. Check out the link. Direct speech starts on p. 8. https://www.google.com.au/books/edi...AQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover

When I first read this I thought the style was kind of weird, but quickly became comfortable with it. It's rather unconventional, to be sure, and I doubt I'd ever use it, but for a draft it is useful, and that reason I suggested it.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I've edited my post to make it clearer.

I wasn't advocating the exclusion of quotation marks from the text. They serve a purpose, after all. What I was suggesting, was that during the early developmental work, when pen fist hits paper, so to speak, that you consider skipping them. It's easier and quicker to type. Fingers don't need to leave the keyboard to add a dash, but they do when adding quotation marks. While ideas are in one's mind, if a light bulb moment strikes you, getting the idea down is more important than troubling one's self with punctuation. Punctuation issues can be corrected at any time. Later, in subsequent drafts. In my case, usually close to the final draft.

It's not my own idea. I picked it up when reading Cry The Beloved Country. Check out the link. Direct speech starts on p. 8. https://www.google.com.au/books/edi...AQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover

When I first read this I thought the style was kind of weird, but quickly became comfortable with it. It's rather unconventional, to be sure, and I doubt I'd ever use it, but for a draft it is useful, and that reason I suggested it.

Depends on your keyboard. For me dashes are way up by the numbers, whereas quotation marks are right by my pinky.

 

[StillStunned]

It seems I've been harping on about this topic for a long time: StillStunned's collection of useful pointers for writers. A 6-page thread with a lot of nonsense but also some tips and tricks from various forum members.

 

[GrantBricksly]

I recently helped a friend out by reading their story/book/not sure what she is calling it yet.

She has tried to get several people (including her wife) to read it, I was the first that followed through.

And while her story was good, the writing was a bit of a mess. I know this thread is about self-editing, but I figured some of the things I did while editing her story would be helpful here as well.

First thing I did, was have a notepad open and every time I found any sort of issue at all (spelling, grammar, etc) I made a note. In order, starting from chapter 1, all the way to the end. If something didn't make sense, but there was a chance it MIGHT get explained later, I still noted it, just in case. (obviously that part is less likely to be of use here when you are editing your own stuff, you know what you did and didn't write later in your own story.)

Some of the things I noticed a lot of:

Repetitive wording/phrases:
There were several times that a word or phrase was repeated several several times. sometimes it was in quick succession. Sometimes it was over several chapters. But when it's a phrase, even several chapters apart, if it's said often enough, it doesn't matter. "They didn't say anything. They didn't have to." Was something she wrote at the beginning of almost every morning that she wrote about. Chapter 3 had it, chapter 6 had it twice, chapter 8 had it, chapter 9, chapter 12, etc...it got old...real quick.

Inconsistencies in the story across chapters:
In one part of the book a character mentions that she had found something when she was 15. Then two chapters later suddenly some random unknown man had brought her there when "she was young" and then a bit later, she had come there off and on through out her childhood...

Timing:
Her timelines were hard to follow. There were times that it felt like there was a time jump, but there wasn't...but maybe there was...things got very confusing..lol

Labeling:
She had 2 chapter 15s. 2 Chapter 19s. A chapter 13, and a chapter 13 1/2.

Anyways...I found the process of editing her book, brought some clarity to my own writing. And I liked the way it worked out. So I think That's what I will start doing for myself. I'm going to give it a day or two (maybe a week) and then sit down and read it, with a notepad open to take notes. (no editing as I read) This way, I can then go back and look through my notes the next day, and decide if the notes make sense or not, and then begin editing.

I'd love to do the text-to-speech read-aloud thing, but I have kids, and rarely do I have opportunities to do something like that when it would be appropriate to have the things I am writing being read out loud.

 

[StillStunned]

Anyways...I found the process of editing her book, brought some clarity to my own writing. And I liked the way it worked out. So I think That's what I will start doing for myself. I'm going to give it a day or two (maybe a week) and then sit down and read it, with a notepad open to take notes. (no editing as I read) This way, I can then go back and look through my notes the next day, and decide if the notes make sense or not, and then begin editing.

I'd been a professional editor for more than 20 years before I started writing. It definitely makes you more aware of *what* you're writing, and *how*.

A translator I know tells her colleagues to try editing, to as a way to becoming a better writer and so a better translator.

 

[GrantBricksly]

I'd been a professional editor for more than 20 years before I started writing. It definitely makes you more aware of *what* you're writing, and *how*.

A translator I know tells her colleagues to try editing, to as a way to becoming a better writer and so a better translator.

This had been my first time ever doing it. Other than my own work of course. It was...interesting... And at times painful..lol

My biggest problem (which is one of the benefits of this thread) is finding someone else to edit my work. My wife will always read/edit my work...but she is just as biased of my work as I am. She loves my writing. She will find spelling errors...and she loves to kill my commas (I love commas....a little too much to be fair...but she kills them )
But she is NOT a writer...so when it comes to whether or not the story flows well...and things like that...I really need another author, or a editor to do that..

 

[TheGreatOz]

Never publish in a hurry. Read it. Read it in the cold light of the following day. Then read it again. Read and re-read it until you've detected every inconsistency or awkwardness, every typo, every flaw.

If you're doing a multi-part read all the parts in every reading.

Then leave it the fuck alone for a few days then read it all again.

 

[StillStunned]

Never publish in a hurry. Read it. Read it in the cold light of the following day. Then read it again. Read and re-read it until you've detected every inconsistency or awkwardness, every typo, every flaw.

If you're doing a multi-part read all the parts in every reading.

Then leave it the fuck alone for a few days then read it all again.

I'm not telling you not to do this, but have you tried text-to-speech? It reads aloud the words that are there, not what you think is there. You have to sit and watch the highlight skip from word to word, and it's tedious, but you'll catch more typos, inconsistencies and awkward phrasing this way than you ever will be reading the story yourself.

 

[RagnarHairyBreeches]

text to speech is the best. If it sounds good, it probably is good.