1. Take it one sentence at a time. I take each sentence and I ponder it. Does it sound good? Can I make this word stronger? How would my POV character say this? Does this sentence fit?
2. Listen to music. Music makes almost anything bearable, at least for me. As long as it is just instrumental. Soundfuel is an epic website for finding music to write or edit to in almost any genre. As I write this I am listening to the Celtic Midsummer's Dance playlist.
3. When line editing, try not to dwell on the fact that you are sick of your story's plot. Believe me. I understand this. There are some books I can read over and over and never tire of it. Not so with my own book. I know my characters and my story better than anyone. I know how the hard to pronounce names are pronounced correctly, I know the darkest secrets of my character, and I have pondered over that one plot twist oh so many times. Again, one sentence at a time.
4. Remember that you are making your story better! No offense, but first drafts are almost always awful. They are full of butchered words, improper grammar, adjectives, dialogue tags, and other stuff that makes it not very good. Editing is what helps!
5. Get excited over that one fantastic line. There will probably be one line that you change or add while editing that will make you go, "Wow. That is an awesome sentence." Get excited over that milestone!
6. Edit with someone. Editing wars are fantastic! What is an editing war? Well, it is like a word war. You and another person (or people) start editing at the same time for a certain amount of time. At the end, you compare how much you got done. It also helps me to be able to tell someone who understands that I just wrote a fantastic line or ask them if something sounds all right.
7. Set goals. If you're like me and don't like editing, you are most likely putting off editing. So set goals for yourself like "I will edit every day for 15 minutes for a month."
Do you like editing? Do you have any tips! I don't have comments enabled on my blog right now, but fear not! They are hopefully coming soon! If you want to share your tips, feel free to do a post on your blog about editing!
While I am on the subject of editing, I will take a quick moment to update you on my book. First of all, I am not going to self publish it. I have also decided that the story would work best if I combined the first book (Death Like Sleep) and the second book (The Clockshifter) into one novel. I have finished the rough draft and have begun the process of editing. The third book in the supposed-to-be trilogy is no more. If you want to find out more information on this, you can go to the top of the blog and click the "My Books" tab. Or you could just click here. :)
