Hello Scribblers. Another week has flow by. As several of you have probably noted, over the last several weeks I’ve been buried in the editing process. In fact, I just finished and sent off the first round (or pre-edits) to my upcoming novel the sequel to my duology of The Calling, titled The Called. The book should be coming out March 2021.
This particular around of editing has been long and arduous, not because it’s hard, but because this round of editing involves getting rid of overly used words, filtering words, filler words, etc. And I want to know what you think? What are you looking for in a properly edited book? Do you even care? Let me explain what these all mean and you can tell me your thoughts.
Now what are these Overly Used Words I mentioned? Some of them are:
Really
Actually
Very
Just
Shrug
Because
There are more of course (a lot more) basically overly used words are common words everyone uses all the time. So, when we write we tend to use them too much and have to go back into our works and remove them. Authors have to figure out ways to rework sentences to either eliminate or replace these words and phrases. Sometimes the change makes sense, other times the change doesn’t. Still the process takes times. One chapter can take several hours to edit. The outcome of these edits can make the story much better.
There are times when word choice is made for dialect reasons or to remind readers you are in a certain character’s point of view and the author is showing you their mind set.
Think about the words or phases you use all the time. For me I use “just” and “really” all the time, even when I’m thinking. If suddenly, those words were gone would I still sound like me?
Recrafting chapters and sentence structure to address specific words can be a slippery slope and needs to always be done with caution and for good reason.
Overused words aren’t the only item that needs to be addressed during editing. Filtering Words or Phases is something that all authors are asked to address in their writing. Filtering words include:
Saw
Heard
Thought
Could
Watched
And many more. These words, like the overused words, can slip up readers, or separate the reader from the story. Instead of saying; “Marc heard a loud bang off to his left.” The sentence may read better as; “Marc startled at the crash off to his left as his stomach flipped and his palms became damp.” With this change you have a greater sense of what Marc is feeling you are more in his point of view and the phasing is much richer and interesting.
Making these adjustments to one’s story tends to help the stories flow, however like with all editing, making these changes takes times and can dramatically change the story the author is looking to share with the world. In some cases, despite these changes making the story more richly worded, they can also increase the word count making the story longer than it may need to be.
Filler Words such as: was, that, and it always need to be addressed and edited out whenever and wherever possible. These changes will allow for a more descriptive story.
One of the big writing no-no’s is adverbs, basically anything ending with ‘ly’ nothing will spin an Editors head faster than an adverb, luckily for this round of ending I didn’t have anything that got dinged. However, there are still a few more rounds of editing to go.
So, when you are reading a book and you stop because you are hung up by some crazy turn of phase and wonder why the author didn’t write. “Said” instead of this long description about how the character reacted, you can rest assured that at some point the author did write ‘said’ but was asked to reconsider the words use and create something that offers the reader more description and detail. Or, to be fair, the author may have changed in on their own…we do that too.
Now that I explained these editing/writing ‘rules’ with you. What do you think? Do you care? Well, why you should care is because, as I said at the start of this blog post, this round of editing took me close to four weeks. This is the first round; their will be at least two more rounds of editing. Which leads me to the point that books take time to write and time to be properly edited, so keep that in mind when you wonder why a good author only publishes one or two books a year.
Want to learn more about the writing process? Interested in finding out more about the writing journey check out these posts:
Mother of Words – By Claire Buss Check it out here.
On Reading – by Joyce Hertzoff Check it out here.
Why I Write and How the Stories Come to me? Check it out here.
What are your thoughts on all this? What do you think about the editing process? Would you rather an author pump out a new book every month, to hell with the quality of the writing? Or, do you want to read a novel that is accurately edited and know that every effort to make the story its best possible self has been made? I would love to hear what you all think. Do filter words bother you when you read? What about overused words, do you notice them? What are your thoughts on adverbs? Please remember to drop me a heart/like letting me know you stopped by. If you want to help support me and my writing efforts please consider sharing this post on your social media platforms to help keep the conversation going. Until next time I hope you stay safe and have a great week.