Scrambled Randomness - The Need to Edit

While my boss is busy fixing the mess I just made on the computer (ah, another learning opportunity!), I'm thinking about editing.

First drafts are important, but they're not the story all by themselves. I remember the first draft of my first novel Sanctuary - I wrote it as a birthday present to myself, so that I'd have something to point to and say, "I made that!" Some people make quilts or chairs or houses, but I made a novel.

That was a monumental moment in my life, to write the last lines and say, "I did it!"

The next time I opened it, I could see it was really only the beginning...

Editing is a necessity if other humans will read your work. Maybe not as much in small forms, but once you write anything longer than a short story, it's a non-negotiable need. And it's one that can sometimes feel very far out of reach.

Editors aren't one size fits all - they do many different tasks. They take the long view of the story, propping up structure. A house can't be built without a framework. Writing a novel or a screenplay is similar - the structure is the bones, and then you add emotion and motivation and reaction and atmosphere, just as a body adds muscles and organs and flesh over the bones.

See? Right there? I've done gone and mixed my metaphors. I'm having a really hard time not fixing that, but I'm leaving it to prove a point. The world needs editors.

Editors then go in for the short view - word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph. Does this work? Does it belong? Does it move the story forward? Or is it like listening to Uncle John wander off the garden path when he tells that story about the wedding he went to and the bride fell asleep at the table from too many Valium, cause she gets cramps something awful and always has since she was a kid. And that reminds him of the florist, who he's known for decades, and the story about when he crashed his car...

You get the idea.

Left to our own devices, we ramble aimlessly. We leave large, ragged loose ends. We come to a brick wall and can't see how to get back. We see the beautiful baby that we meant to write, when our well-meaning friends and family see only a lump of dough with pages and a cover.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yes...the guest post!