Self-Editing: Share your tricks

[snowy ciara]

I print it out, double spaced, and stick in a drawer for as long as possible. School papers generally only get to sit for a week or so due to the time constraints. Stories and stuff sit for at least a month. I go and work on something else, or several something else's during that time.

After it's been sitting for a while, I take it out, go somewhere else to read it, and sort of scan it, marking everything in purple pen. I like to go to the library, or a grotty little nasty coffee shop that serves the best breakfasts ever, 24-7. When I'm feeling really film noir about the whole thing, I wear a Fedora and trench coat and sit there with a pen sticking out of my mouth like a gangster's bad ceegar. Then I read it again, (with a change of venue, if it's super long) marking it up in a different color pen. I don't know why, but purple is always for the first read through, and I don't care about the colors for the rest of them as long as it's not red. I save red for my students.

After I've shamelessly murdered my baby, I scrub off the blood, er ink, sanitize the crime scene, pay off the witnesses, er waitstaff and take it back to my lair for the autopsy, er re-write.

 

[EveAnna]

I usually put my stories through two different spell checkers just to make sure then read them out loud a couple of times, proof reading as I go.

Doesn't always work though - I had one story rejected 4 times because of the way I was spelling blonde/blond - took me a while to pick that one up but by the time the story got posted, it had been edited to within an inch of its life but I'd also added to it.

 

[slyc_willie]

I've recently tried a new tactic that seems to work for me. After I've finished the story (during which I obsessively self-edit as I go), I save it, then change the font and point size for the whole document and read it. I've caught quite a few errors doing that, because, as JBJ said, the story looks different from the original.

 

[cantdog]

I gave up on editors, for reasons I have detailed elsewhere. Long story.

Basically, they just don't care the way I do.

But having decided to do that, I admit, I have a problem. I love my prose! I love to swing with it. I dig the texture. Man, I find myself just awesome.

So I need to get distance. I don't have the film noir thing with the ratty diner, but I do let them sit, as so many here have suggested.

I go over them a dozen times, combing out the kinks. I polish. I slice. Man, I guess I can't in conscience recommend what I do, because it's basically obsessive. Sorry.