I plan to spend the next month or so editing a novel. I wrote this novel during NaNoWriMo and my goal is to edit 10,000 words per week. Some chapters will need just slight tweaks, others will need total rewrites. For each day I work I will (briefly) record what I accomplished and share tips.

Monday

Started the week off right. I work the late shift on Mondays so I was able to spend most of the morning focused on editing the opening chapter. I’m was already fairly happy with it and didn’t have much to change. I just added some extra details and moved around which characters will be introduced when. Now that I’ve written the whole story I have a stronger understanding who is going to be important.

Tuesday

The editing was broken up into a few chunks today. I woke up around 4:30, got a solid amount of editing done by 7:00 and then got ready for work. Unfortunately I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to. However I met my editing quota in the car before my work opened and during my morning break. I purposefully stopped mid-sentence at a place where I know exactly where the story will go. I’m excited about tomorrow.

Wednesday

Today actually was a near total rewrite of an entire chapter, but it’s an improvement. The characters aren’t exactly doing what I imagined they would, but that’s normal at this stage. — My cat appreciates that I’m doing most of my editing in the early morning hours while sitting on the living room couch. He enjoys snuggling down next to me. (See above)

Thursday

Four chapters in! This was a hard day. However, I did succeed in breaking through and meeting my goal. The first half of the chapter is going to be (mostly) scraped with the vital information moved to another portion of the story. However, the second half is much more interesting. The characters are continuing to surprise me. — I ended up finishing my quota in the evening. I had more creative energy at night than I was expecting to.

Friday

I didn’t know exactly how to start this chapter (which is mostly new material). So I just started writing about what else is happening in the character’s lives outside the central plot. A lot (meaning about 500 words) will be trashed but it gave me a solid foundation for the rest of the chapter and I feel like including more detail about mundane elements makes the fantasy elements in the story feel more grounded. — I’m currently listening to The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig and feel like he does a very good job mixing the supernatural with his character’s “mundane” lives.

Takeaways!

• When you stop writing/editing for the day always (or at least when you can) stop at a section where you have a solid idea what’s going to happen next. Maybe even stop mid-sentence.
• Look at the beginning and endings of chapters to see where you can cut the fat. What is the latest we can enter a scene and earliest we can leave it.
• If you’re stuck, just write about what else is going on in the character’s life. What seemingly mundane crap are they living with that might (ironically) make them form interesting? You might end up cutting a lot but that’s okay, it’ll give you a stronger grasp on your characters’ personalities.