Seven Rules for Effective Editing
I have the best editor in the world. I do! Dianne Blacklock edited Love at First Flight and I learned more from her than anyone else since I started writing. Here are the seven best rules that helped me clean and polish my book until it was sparkling. I hope you find them useful for your own writing.
1. Chekhov’s Rule.
Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.
This rule is great for cutting out irrelevant narrative descriptions that slow down the pace of your story. Everything you write needs to be there for a reason.
2. Chanel’s Rule.
The legendary Coco Chanel is famously quoted as saying "Always remove one thing before you leave the house. Less is more." This totally works for books if it’s changed to “Always remove one sentence from each paragraph before you submit your manuscript.” Less is in fact more with writing as well as fashion. Often cutting a line will give oxygen to what you’re trying to say, instead of loading it down with too much explanation, description, or even adverbs and adjectives. By paring back, often the point can become a lot clearer and the pace of the story will pick up.
3. Let characters speak for themselves.
When I was writing Love at First Flight, I felt a bit paranoid that I had too much dialogue in it and that it read more like a screen play than a novel. But each time it was edited, my editor asked for more dialogue and guess what, each time I added more dialogue, the story improved! This is because your characters come to life when you let them speak for themselves. Narrative can’t express what your characters can say in speech. When characters are allowed to speak, it’s when their true voices come out. It also brings the reader more into the moment rather than removing them from it by pulling them out of a conversation. So rather than recapping, summarising or alluding to conversations, make them actual conversations!
4. Show don’t tell.
I know, I know, everyone knows this one already but it’s way too important to leave out. There are several ways you can show not tell, but one sure fire way to do it is to lose some adverbs. Every single time you use an adverb it’s showing not telling. There is a use for those pesky words that end in –ly and you might not be able to cut them out altogether, in fact as I went through my editing process, there were many times where I felt that the adverbs were necessary but here’s a starting idea - cut out every second adverb you find in your story and instead show what the adverb was describing. For example cut out “I waited nervously” and replace it with “I chewed on a fingernail while I waited.” or “I held my breath while I waited.” See the difference?
5. Don’t announce what is about to happen, just make it happen.
Announcing something that’s about to happen is just a way to waste words in your story. I’ll show you what I mean.
“This led to a big fight.” – Just start the fight! We’ll all figure out as we’re reading that it led to a big fight.
“We started talking.” – Cut straight into the dialogue, no need to introduce it.
6. Say your dialogue out loud.
This is such a great rule for seeing how authentic your dialogue really is. When we write dialogue, we’re writing, not actually speaking so sometimes it can come across as awkward or not very genuine. If you read all your dialogue out loud, you’ll hear how it sounds and if it’s clunky, it will show. This way your characters will sound like real people when they speak rather than making speeches that are too formal or convoluted.
7. Kill your darlings!
Another oldie but a goodie. Don’t be precious about your work and when people give you feedback, telling you certain parts seem insignificant or random, listen to them! In the end, it is your book, and you have to be happy with it above everyone else but try to be open minded to cutting out parts of the story that aren’t serving any purpose except for allowing you to wax lyrical about things that hold special meaning for you. I’ve killed numerous scenes and lines when I read feedback from my editor telling me that they did nothing in propelling the story forward, no matter the personal significance they held for me. I’ve grieved, and still do grieve, the loss of my darlings (a long interchange about the Twilight series that I love and a conversation about Kate Middleton who I’m obsessed with are good examples!). I had to let them go for the greater good of the book despite their special meaning to me. Sometimes the scenes we are most attached to achieve nothing but slow down the pace of our story and break the narrative traction for our readers. So in the wise words of William Faulkner ‘you must kill your darlings.’
Good luck with your editing, may the force be with you!
1. Chekhov’s Rule.
Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.
This rule is great for cutting out irrelevant narrative descriptions that slow down the pace of your story. Everything you write needs to be there for a reason.
2. Chanel’s Rule.
The legendary Coco Chanel is famously quoted as saying "Always remove one thing before you leave the house. Less is more." This totally works for books if it’s changed to “Always remove one sentence from each paragraph before you submit your manuscript.” Less is in fact more with writing as well as fashion. Often cutting a line will give oxygen to what you’re trying to say, instead of loading it down with too much explanation, description, or even adverbs and adjectives. By paring back, often the point can become a lot clearer and the pace of the story will pick up.
3. Let characters speak for themselves.
When I was writing Love at First Flight, I felt a bit paranoid that I had too much dialogue in it and that it read more like a screen play than a novel. But each time it was edited, my editor asked for more dialogue and guess what, each time I added more dialogue, the story improved! This is because your characters come to life when you let them speak for themselves. Narrative can’t express what your characters can say in speech. When characters are allowed to speak, it’s when their true voices come out. It also brings the reader more into the moment rather than removing them from it by pulling them out of a conversation. So rather than recapping, summarising or alluding to conversations, make them actual conversations!
4. Show don’t tell.
I know, I know, everyone knows this one already but it’s way too important to leave out. There are several ways you can show not tell, but one sure fire way to do it is to lose some adverbs. Every single time you use an adverb it’s showing not telling. There is a use for those pesky words that end in –ly and you might not be able to cut them out altogether, in fact as I went through my editing process, there were many times where I felt that the adverbs were necessary but here’s a starting idea - cut out every second adverb you find in your story and instead show what the adverb was describing. For example cut out “I waited nervously” and replace it with “I chewed on a fingernail while I waited.” or “I held my breath while I waited.” See the difference?
5. Don’t announce what is about to happen, just make it happen.
Announcing something that’s about to happen is just a way to waste words in your story. I’ll show you what I mean.
“This led to a big fight.” – Just start the fight! We’ll all figure out as we’re reading that it led to a big fight.
“We started talking.” – Cut straight into the dialogue, no need to introduce it.
6. Say your dialogue out loud.
This is such a great rule for seeing how authentic your dialogue really is. When we write dialogue, we’re writing, not actually speaking so sometimes it can come across as awkward or not very genuine. If you read all your dialogue out loud, you’ll hear how it sounds and if it’s clunky, it will show. This way your characters will sound like real people when they speak rather than making speeches that are too formal or convoluted.
7. Kill your darlings!
Another oldie but a goodie. Don’t be precious about your work and when people give you feedback, telling you certain parts seem insignificant or random, listen to them! In the end, it is your book, and you have to be happy with it above everyone else but try to be open minded to cutting out parts of the story that aren’t serving any purpose except for allowing you to wax lyrical about things that hold special meaning for you. I’ve killed numerous scenes and lines when I read feedback from my editor telling me that they did nothing in propelling the story forward, no matter the personal significance they held for me. I’ve grieved, and still do grieve, the loss of my darlings (a long interchange about the Twilight series that I love and a conversation about Kate Middleton who I’m obsessed with are good examples!). I had to let them go for the greater good of the book despite their special meaning to me. Sometimes the scenes we are most attached to achieve nothing but slow down the pace of our story and break the narrative traction for our readers. So in the wise words of William Faulkner ‘you must kill your darlings.’
Good luck with your editing, may the force be with you!