WRITE

Different people, different ways to write:

• Writing as a race: Go from start to finish without rereading, editing, critiquing, complaining, or stopping – e.g. NaNoWriMo in November
• Writing as mountain-climbing: Plan your route. Write/climb your route. Set up waypoints. Then climb a better route in your next draft.
• Writing as sewing: Write some, reread and edit what you wrote, then write some more… backstitching over your text to make a solid seam.
• Do what works for you!

EDIT

You’ve finished writing the book, novel, memoir… when you reach the end. Up to then, even if you were back-stitching like me, you were the writer. Now you’re going to be an editor:

• Wait – 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years… (time to turn yourself into an editor instead of a writer)
• Then EDIT

STOP

• First you were a Writer, creating your work of staggering genius.
• Then you were an Editor – a different person – telling the Writer
  what they missed.

How do you know when to stop editing?

• STOP trying to turn it into the best work you can write today.
• START turning it into the best work the YOU OF YESTERDAY could do.
• The YOU OF YESTERDAY is the author, NOT the YOU OF TODAY.

Intrusive and Invisible Editing

There are lots of different types of editing, but Sheila wanted to look at them differently. Rather than Developmental editing, Copy editing, Line editing, Proofreading etc. she talked about:

• Intrusive editing
• Invisible editing

Visual example

Sheila showed us a tea towel as a visual example of these two types of editing. The towel was split into three, for three playgroups (think pre-pre-preschool, so mostly two-year-old students), and the plan was to include “self-portraits” from every student. So… Images of  2-3 yr-old kids, Must fit on the paper, and No photocopiers, no technology available. How would we do it?

BUSY BEES (left) – teacher holds student’s hand and “helps” create stick figures, ’cause that’s what’s expected.

LILLIPUT (center) and LITTLE PEOPLES CLUB (right) – Kids draw pictures, then some kind person transcribes them, making them smaller, trying to copy exactly what/how the children drew themselves, ’cause that’s the artists’ intent.

Both methods were “right.” The Busy Bees employed intrusive editing, and the other two groups used invisible editing.

INTRUSIVE

Intrusive editing changes what you (the YOU of YESTERDAY) originally wrote: It’s important for

• First draft edits (where you see what went wrong with the story)
• Articles for a website or magazine (which might have rules about how things are referenced)

You, the editor, collaborate with you, the author, to create a better or more acceptable version.

INVISIBLE

Invisible editing makes minimal changes to what you (or someone else) wrote: It’s important for

• Final draft edits (when the story’s ready to go)
• Editing for a client whose novel is ready to go
• Editing for our anthology

How do you Edit?

WAIT 3 days/weeks/months/years. Then READ like a READER.

INTRUSIVE EDITS

• YOU OF TODAY collaborates with YOU OF YESTERDAY to make the INTRUSIVE EDITS that turn a first draft into a readable book.

When you can read the “book” without hating the “author,” you’re ready to switch from intrusive to

INVISIBLE EDITS

• YOU OF TODAY edits YOU OF YESTERDAY’S book invisibly.

You’re not trying to make this the most perfect book the YOU OF TODAY would write. You have to respect your previous self, just as much as you’d respect a paying client.

And then you STOP.

Examples of Intrusive edits

• First draft of your novel – maybe you should have introduced this character in more detail. Can you show this scene instead of telling? Is this the best place to start the story…? How?
  • Read like a reader – you’re not the same person you were when you wrote it. Make suggestions to yourself. Then the you of today becomes the co-writer and fixes things.
• Article for an Amazon bookseller’s blog –
  • all book titles must be in the form Book Title by Author Name (http://amazon.com/…).
  • No paragraphs longer than three lines.
  • No long sentences…
• Recipe book for the British Dairy Council –
  • all recipes must begin with milk.
  • Cheese comes before eggs.
  • All units must be metric.
  • All first sentences must mention the benefits of milk…

Invisible Editing

Invisible editing takes place in two parts:

BOUNDARIES

This is like making the kids’ images fit between the lines. “Boundaries” make it possible for your text to “fit” and follow a standard “format” – makes it possible for a publisher to use it. Nothing changes except fonts, indentation of paragraphs, etc. The edits are invisible.

Use Word styles – e.g.

• Heading 3 for headings (leaves Headings 1 and 2 in case you want to add sections and subsections later).
• Normal for text (simplest choice, even if it’s not the best).
• Create a style (and give it a name – e.g. indented) for notes that go after the heading, attributions that go with images, left-margin or centered poetry…
• See https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/help-2/using-word-with-style/ for more info.

Remove irregularities

• Paragraphs are indented with “Word Style” so remove extra spaces or tabs.
• Space after a period is determined by Word, so remove those double-spaces.
• Space between paragraphs is created with “Word Style” so remove those extra blank lines.
• Ellipses will be formatted by the publisher, so replace all “manual” ellipses with Word ones (^i) so the publisher can find them.
• Unbreakable spaces and manual line breaks should be used only where needed – look for ^s and ^l – e.g. World War II shouldn’t split across lines.
• See https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/help-2/tips-and-tricks-with-word/ for more details.

CONTENT

This is where you “polish” the text, removing typos, replacing wrong words, and making it look how the author intended it to look (but remember, even if it’s your book, the YOU OF TODAY is neither author nor co-author now – the edits are invisible).

Remove typos, wrong words, accidentally repeated words… this should be obvious. Aim to fix problems like:

• speakers who’ve already left the room
• dialog where you’re not sure who’s speaking

But what about enforcing obedience to “rules” you learned in school?

• new paragraphs for new speakers
• “correct” use of commas, em-dashes, en-dashes…
• run-on sentences

The author’s voice is more important than the rules.

See https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/help-2/writers-mill-anthology-style-guide/ for more info, and develop your own style guide (though your publisher’s may be different).

How can you practice invisible editing?

Sign up to be an editor for our anthology!

Your job is to polish each piece of writing to most perfectly represent the author’s intent, whether the author is a stranger, a friend, or YOU OF YESTERDAY. Your (YOU OF TODAY’s) opinion, your style, your preferences are just as irrelevant as they would be when someone’s paying you to edit. YOU ARE NOT THE AUTHOR!

THE EDITOR (at this stage) is (supposed to be) invisible.

We’re expecting four different types of content for our anthology, and you probably write (and therefore self-edit) in one or more of these styles:

• Poetry
• Essay
• Chapter from a longer work
• Short story

Editing Poetry

There are lots of different styles of poetry:

• All lines start with capital letter, or no capital letters anywhere in the poem
• All lines combine into complete sentences, or lots of partial sentences
• All lines rhyme at the end, or loose (maybe no) rhyming scheme
• All lines fit a standard rhythm, or loose (maybe no) rhythm used
• All stanzas of equal length, or random (maybe no) stanzas …

Do not change the author’s style (even when the author is yesterday’s version of you)

• If something is confusing, make a comment to the author.
• If a rhyme is awkward, make a suggestion.
• If the rhythm slips in one line, make a suggestion.
• If a rhyme only works in American…?

You make suggestions. The author is free to accept or reject your ideas.

EXAMPLE

His farm is neat

His fruit is sweet

He grows tomatoes

Carrots and potatoes  

Ask the author, would you consider “He grows potatoes/ Carrots and tomatoes?” to clarify the rhyme for English readers. The author is free to say no.

Editing Essays

We all write essays differently too:

• Intro paragraph, followed by 2 or 3 content paragraphs, followed by conclusion
• New topic for each paragraph
• Stream of consciousness, story-style essay with lots of well-spaced dialog …

Again, don’t change the author’s style.

• If paragraphs are split by topic, and one paragraph contains a section of dialog, don’t try to split out the dialog into new paragraphs, even if you do “know” that’s the “rule”.
  (But do suggest adding dialog tags if it’s not clear who’s speaking, for example.)
• If the spelling is consistently British, don’t change it to American.

EXAMPLE

…When I was in high school the students argued incessantly. “Are you an Indian?” “No I’m not.” “Well, are you Mexican then?” “Korean,” “French.”

Ask the author, should Korean and French have question marks after them? Or is the narrator saying she is French? Offer choices:

“Korean?” Then I would tell them, “French.” or
“Korean?” “French?”

The author might make some different change,
but it needs something, so you can insist on some change.

Editing Chapters (presented as stand-alone stories in an anthology)

If the chapter opens with a paragraph referring to the previous chapter (and maybe characters who won’t appear in this chapter), you might ask the author to leave out that paragraph and maybe include a summary in a note at the start of the “story” instead.

If the chapter ends with a paragraph leading in to the next chapter (and maybe not relevant to the events of this chapter) you might ask something similar, for the benefit of readers.

EXAMPLE

After all the excitement of the contest, the announcements, the riot, and the imprisonment of Joe, David, and Griselda, Michael and Elizabeth set off for home alone.

The next day, Michael went to work as usual, leaving Elizabeth asleep in their four-poster bed…

If Joe, David, and Griselda are never mentioned in this chapter, maybe suggest the chapter start at The next day and have a note below the title saying

In the previous chapter some friends of Michael and Elizabeth were arrested and imprisoned. This chapter starts the following day.

The author might make a different change, but
some change is needed, for ease of reading, so you can insist on something.

Editing Short Stories

If the author never uses quotation marks, that’s fine. But if they use single instead of double quotes, change them to match American usage (because they’re visible to readers).

If the author doesn’t use Oxford commas, don’t insert them (they’re not very visible), but do make sure the use of commas is consistent. Suggest inserting commas where the reading is awkward or unclear.

If the author uses incomplete or run-on sentences, let them stand unless they’re hard to read, in which case you might make suggestions (but don’t make changes – let the author choose how to change it).

EXAMPLE

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” she said.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“I’m trying to read,” she said…

Maybe suggest another word instead of said, or suggest leaving out some of the saids or including an action… Might suggest:

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to read.” She turned another page…

But the editor doesn’t make the changes, and the author doesn’t have to agree, unless it’s really hard to read.

How to Finish Your Work of Staggering Genius

How do you WRITE, EDIT, and STOP

(and most importantly, how do you STOP editing)?

WRITE, in whatever way works for you.

• Race to the finish
• Climb the mountain and leave signposts to help with the rewrite
• Backstitch – writing and editing as you go

WAIT – 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years…

Start with INTRUSIVE EDITS

• Read it like an ebook (or a print book – print it out). Whenever the “author” (YOU OF YESTERDAY) drives you (YOU OF TODAY) crazy, make notes to advise the author on changes, then read the notes and (collaborate with yourself to) make the changes you want.
• Then wait, and reread it like a book. Repeat till the author (who is, again, not YOU OF TODAY) doesn’t drive you absolutely crazy. Then…

Then INVISIBLE EDITS

• This time you’re just reading to polish the author’s work – no big changes allowed – after which…

Then STOP!

It’s written.

It’s edited.

It’s done!

It’s a book by YOU OF YESTERDAY
edited by YOU OF TODAY.