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.