Five things you should know before you start editing your novel or script

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Editing. Maybe you envision some proofreading, correcting a few typos, and trimming a few sections. But until you’ve actually edited an entire book or script you don’t really know quite what you’re in for. Here’s five things you should really know about editing before you begin.

1. Editing always takes longer than you think it will. Figure out how long you think it will take you to finish editing your project and then double it. Now double it again. Trust me on this one… no matter how much slack you think you’re building into your estimation, it won’t be enough. Until you’ve edited a full length project from start to finish, you aren’t going to be able to appreciate just how long it’s going to take you so don’t get frustrated when things take longer than you thought they would. Even after editing many books and plays I still can never correctly estimate how long it will take me to finish revising something which is really because…
2. Editing can’t be rushed. You can bang words out furiously and speed your way through a first draft. (This is, in fact, the only way I write first drafts.) But editing is a slower, more subtle process. Tweaking sentences, rearranging words and smoothing the piece until the flow is just right… making the project as good as it can possibly be takes time and that’s all there is to it. Because…
3. Editing is harder than writing. Making your first draft into a polished final draft isn’t going to be easy. You’ll be rearranging sections, cutting out whole scenes, and agonizing over individual words. You’ll end up having to change or cut some of your favorite things in the project to make it better. Hours of work may yield only one new sentence. But, at the same time, you’ll discover that…
4. Editing is just as creative as writing if not more so. If you think editing is just typos and proofreading, you’re in for a shock. This is the stage when you’ll find yourself needing creative solutions to the problems you created in your first draft. This is when you’ll come up with that better idea, that clearer metaphor, that funnier joke, that more dramatic scene. In fact…
5. Editing is when you make the book as good as it originally sounded in your head. Remember that feeling when you first started writing? How nothing you put down on paper seemed as good as it sounded inside your head? Well, that’s going to start to change the more you work on your book. This is the stage when you’ll make your writing the best it can possibly be and discovering the potential in your own work can be very exciting.