First Round of Edits is Complete (or is it “are Complete”?) · 2:56am Jun 7th, 2018
Anyway…it took me longer than I expected to complete my first round of edits. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. I know editing takes longer.
I was really hoping to get this story posted by the beginning of next week. You see, this week is the last week of school, which means the next nine and half weeks are going to be crazy. Summer, historically, is a low production time for me. I have kids to entertain, vacations to plan, plus the general mayhem that comes with swim lessons, play dates, and last minute trips to the beach. I try to jam pack my kids’ summer because adventures outside of the house theoretically mean less fighting and whining (Not always true, but I would go mad if I couldn’t leave the house. I was never much into the whole “stay at home” part of the stay-at-home mom label so I always have a list of out-of-the-house activities on hand).
Of course, this week is also crazy because this is the freaking last week of school! There’s extra parties, activities, and a mad dash of getting stuff done while the kids are still in school. No one really wants to drag kids around the mall while they shop for shoes for their sister’s wedding. They just don’t. Macy’s is not a kid friendly store, and you’ll wind up with cranky kids who really, really, really, REALLY want to go to Build-A-Bear and the Disney store. Then, because you said “no” fifteen million times already, you’ll agree to the arcade where you’ll drop forty bucks on games. All will be okay until the cheap prize they won breaks fifteen minutes after you leave. Tears will ensue.
Ask me how I know. Go on, you know you want to.
I think we’d all rather just do play dates and swimming lessons this summer.
So, yeah. I haven’t had much writing time this week, but I don’t regret my decisions. I have manage to fit in a little bit of editing sessions here and there, so it hasn’t been a total loss. (Let me take a quick moment to give a shout out to BlazzingInferno for taking the kids tonight so I can have a few hours at my favorite stays-open-late Starbucks. (Don’t worry, I’ll eventually come home.))
My finally word count for this round of edits is 11,017. The word count for my first rough draft was 8,956. That means I wrote and extra 2,061 words. Woo!
It’s actually pretty typical for me to add more words during the first phase of editing. I know Stephen King said that the second draft should be the first draft minus 10%, but I’m not Stephen King. It just doesn’t happen like that for me. I’m usually in such a hurry to get to a particular scene or to a special bit of dialogue that I rush, rush, rush. That means conversations are too short, situations need better explanations, and a character’s accent keeps changing from one scene to the next. It means it’s a mess.
Well, it just got a little less messy and I’m about to jump back in. Wish me luck.
How do you know?
I understand the adding words during editing bit. When it comes to my own stories, it's like you said—elaborating on certain things or people won't get it, forgetting a scene completely... When it comes to editing for others, it's a mixed bag. Sometimes there's too much explanation of something happening and it could be done in like, ten words (classic case of 'show don't tell'), sometimes I'm given nothing to work with and need to help add things so people know what's going on (and then they use too many words and have to be shown the 'show don't tell' rule also...), sometimes it's changing words and phrases completely because English isn't their native language.
I don't remember if I told you at EFNW that my initial career choice was to be a teacher (although that is kind of vaguely noted at the top of my profile), but either way, I spent two months teaching about 25 fourth-graders in one room. If half that class hadn't been neighbors, kids I'd babysat, or my friends' younger siblings, I swear I probably would've wanted to pull my hair out. Sometimes I still wanted to...
In other words, I have a smidgen of an idea of what it's like.
(note the 'smidgen')
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Any time with kids is a bit crazy. My sister is an eighth grade teacher and I have mad respect for what she does. Teachers definitely have to deal with the crazy.
I’m definitely going to need a pre-reader or two for this story. I have part of a scene I’m worried is too vague since I’m purposefully trying to avoid describing exactly what happened. I’m hoping the reader gets it from the context, but I’m worried I’m being too vague. We’ll see, I guess. That’s what editing is for after all.
Ahh, you're a "cool idea" writer. If you write that way, trying to get to the cool idea, then definitely there's lots of times you'll need to add more in later drafts instead of taking stuff out. For some writers, filling in the story is the challenge and that one moment it's all built around is the reward. That's a very different editing process than it is for someone who just writes and writes and writes until they end up somewhere.
Pedantism ahead:
It's "is complete" because the subject of the sentence is "First Round," which is singular. "Edits" is plural, but it's qualifying something about that first round rather than directly being the subject that "is complete."
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Yes! I’m definitely a “cool idea” writer. I usually work with an idea or phrase then build around from there. That probably explains why I don’t do as well with outlining.
And thanks for the grammar lesson. Glad to know my first instinct was correct and now doubly glad to know why.