Step 1 of Editing a Novel

Apr 6, 2009 Posted by: Kelly | Filed under: Writing

In November, I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo. Yay me.

But since then, I haven’t touched the poor little bugger.

My problem is I don’t know where to start. Options I’ve considered include:

Read it straight through and write any edits that occur to me in 0.001 seconds but don’t get bogged down in the editing. Just mark what I like and don’t like, then fix it later.
Take one chapter at a time and pore over each paragraph in great detail. Firmly in the bogging down camp.
Outline the structure of the story and see where that takes me.

I’ve read the NaNoWriMo advice, but I still feel unsure of where to start. Help me?

What works for you? Or, what does your fave author blog have to say on the topic?

Emily

I would actually try writing out excerpts by hand - you might find the flow too be totally different than the typed version. It's worth a shot. The medium is in the message, right?

<abbr>Emily’s last blog post..Gender roles</abbr>

Kelly

I'm loving what I'm reading about layering. Sounds much less overwhelming than trying to look for everything all at once.

Emily, I honestly never thought of trying that before! Really cool idea. Have you tried it? What sorts of things did it help you find?

Random YA books from my library:

YAnnabe