Introduction To An Editing Workshop
March 1st 2010 12:12
Today is the first day of March. It is also the first day of Nanoedmo, a month during which many writers work on editing and some reach for the goal of 50 hours of editing. In honour of these events, and considering the fact that I am also editing my novel this month, I decided at the beginning of this year that I would be doing an editing workshop in March.
Most writers experience some difficulties while writing their books, but for most of us, when we get past that point, we discover that writing is the easy part: rewriting is the hard part.
Those of you who have been reading for a while will have at least seen my Organization and Characterization workshops. Links to both workshops will be at the end of this post. These were designed to help you get ready to edit your novel. Hopefully by now you're ready to start editing.
First you need to have completely reread your novel. You need to have looked on it with fresh eyes, been able to dissect what worked and what didn't. Then you need to decide what you want to edit, if you want to make-or need to make-big structural changes, what you want your final product to look like. You need to get to know your story, your world, your characters, inside and out.
For this workshop you can work by yourself or with a critique partner. I highly recommend that you work with a partner-having someone to give you feedback on your novel, as well as having someone to kick your butt into gear when you aren't doing what you should be doing is incredibly useful.
For the most part, editing is much like writing that first novel. Nobody can tell you how to do it. You come up with your own method. So this month long workshop will not just be a series of exercises. There will be one short editing exercise a week, one post filled with useful links for editing a week, one prompt to get you working on something other than your draft, one pep talk each week, and one update on my work. You can see the post schedule here (clicky).
May this month be a productive one for all of us.
Organization Workshop
~Organization Workshop-Intro
~Day One-Reread
~Day Two: Questions About Tone
~Day Three: Questions About Style
~Day Four: Outlining Your Draft
~Day Five: Throwaways and Add Ons
~Day Six: Outline Your Next Draft
Characterization Workshop
~Characterization Workshop Intro
~Day One: Expanded Character Profiles
~Day Two: Dear Diary
~Day Three: Character Interviews
~Day Four: Final Prompts
~Characterization Workshop: The End
I hope you enjoy these workshops. If you have any comments or would like to do a pep talk for one of my workshops-including this one-please email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com
Most writers experience some difficulties while writing their books, but for most of us, when we get past that point, we discover that writing is the easy part: rewriting is the hard part.
Those of you who have been reading for a while will have at least seen my Organization and Characterization workshops. Links to both workshops will be at the end of this post. These were designed to help you get ready to edit your novel. Hopefully by now you're ready to start editing.
First you need to have completely reread your novel. You need to have looked on it with fresh eyes, been able to dissect what worked and what didn't. Then you need to decide what you want to edit, if you want to make-or need to make-big structural changes, what you want your final product to look like. You need to get to know your story, your world, your characters, inside and out.
For this workshop you can work by yourself or with a critique partner. I highly recommend that you work with a partner-having someone to give you feedback on your novel, as well as having someone to kick your butt into gear when you aren't doing what you should be doing is incredibly useful.
For the most part, editing is much like writing that first novel. Nobody can tell you how to do it. You come up with your own method. So this month long workshop will not just be a series of exercises. There will be one short editing exercise a week, one post filled with useful links for editing a week, one prompt to get you working on something other than your draft, one pep talk each week, and one update on my work. You can see the post schedule here (clicky).
May this month be a productive one for all of us.
Organization Workshop
~Organization Workshop-Intro
~Day One-Reread
~Day Two: Questions About Tone
~Day Three: Questions About Style
~Day Four: Outlining Your Draft
~Day Five: Throwaways and Add Ons
~Day Six: Outline Your Next Draft
Characterization Workshop
~Characterization Workshop Intro
~Day One: Expanded Character Profiles
~Day Two: Dear Diary
~Day Three: Character Interviews
~Day Four: Final Prompts
~Characterization Workshop: The End
I hope you enjoy these workshops. If you have any comments or would like to do a pep talk for one of my workshops-including this one-please email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com
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