editing process

Editing has turned out to be a tangled, complicated experiment. And my only defense is $5 worth of colored Post It Notes.

When I started Dismantling Spider Webs (DSW) last year, I had a fully fleshed out outline with all my sub-plots, character motivation and satisfying conclusion. It was condensed to a clever Excel spreadsheet and everybody fit nicely into their cells.

Darren of Wordsworth and editor extraordinaire, ate noodles with me and gave me all sorts of fun ideas on what could happen. He helped shape the ending and made several astute modifications to my original trajectories.

Prior to starting DSW, when it was still incubating in my mind, I took a writing intensive with novelist, Katrina Kittle. Her insight on dialogue, plotting, tension and motivation helped to poke holes in my outline. And I heard her voice as I wrote, guiding me towards less exposition and more authentic dialogue.

Writing DSW was effervescent! The characters ran willy-nilly across the pages, surprising me with thing they said and pranks they pulled. Three characters fell off the page, never to return again. One character begged to have her own book. (I am seriously considering her request.) And even in its sloppy, messy conclusion, I had a good rough draft.

But it is entirely prohibited from human consumption. Like uncooked puffer fish, it might kill you if you read it in its unfinished state. But there was promise there–buried under rudimentary words and cliche. With proper editing and several red pens, I dreamed it might be redeemed.

Enter the editing phase

I wish I liked editing more. When I am actually doing it, it’s not so bad. But the process makes me feel stupid.

I know these characters intimately. But I can’t remember if I referred to Lorelei’s adoption on page 12 or page 32. Is her nickname explained by Chapter 9 so can I use it in Chapter 10? Did the reader know her hair was long before I had her cut it off in a pivotal scene?

When I started DSW, Lorelei hadn’t been adopted. She did things with a certain lack of motivation. But after letting my brutal (but kind) friend, Jeanne, smack around my plot and characters, I realized she needed a defining reason to act the way she did.

So now there are new motivations, better designed characters, a few condensed characters, a reordering of plot points and more scenes to write. The only way I can keep it straight in my head is by diagramming it in Post It notes.

I am still holding onto the thread of hope that DSW is redeemable. And I sincerely hope this isn’t all just a “good learning experience.”

And I hope CVS doesn’t run out of Post It Notes.