Monday, August 17, 2015

Write = Edit

How many hours should I spend on editing? 

heh. Well, it's a good question. It's one to which many writers don't want an answer... But it's still a good question.


Edit Mode



There's no easy way to answer this question. Editing is so similar to writing that it truly depends on the writer and on the piece in question, but I do have a little "formula" that I use for my own work, to make me feel like I'm doing better.

1. By the whole


This is the part we don't really want to look at. If I were to count up the amount of time I spend editing, I might cry.

But if you really want to know how many hours you should spend on editing, you should first ask yourself how many hours you spent writing. In all honesty, they're about equal. It's hard to say, sometimes we don't want to hear it, but it's the truth.

If it took you two years to write the book... It's probably going to take that much time to edit it (on your own, that is -- editors can and do speed the process). 

2. By the chapter


Ahh... Now we'll get into the easier to swallow part: my formula.

Here's how I work:

I write two chapters a week.

Let's say my books are thirty chapters (arbitrary number there, by the way)

That'd be approximately fifteen weeks to write a novel. (not a lot of time, is it?)


Now, if I can write two chapters a week, I should be able to edit three. Why? Because I find that editing takes a lot less energy. I don't mind cutting things, and usually it ends up being a lot more reading than anything else.

So for editing, I'll try to do three chapters per week.

Calculating for the same thirty chapters...

Ten weeks.

But notice that I'm spending more time per week on the project. It's not that I'm working less, it's that I'm actually taking more time out of my week to edit. I find that it works better if I edit quickly, so that I'm more likely to catch any mistakes (because I wait at least six months after finishing a book before I edit, which generally means it's new even to me).


Really, to answer your question, the time is the same. But you'll want to lay it out differently, depending on your editing style. The important thing is that you go through your story with a fine-toothed comb and mend any broken fences along the way.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

No comments:

Post a Comment