What is editing though?

I think I may be guilty of using a single word to cover too large an area of activity. When I think of editing I imagine everything from grammar correction to scene ordering to characterisation fixes to basic truths about the world. That's a lot of stuff!

What I probably need to do is to do multiple passes over the work to keep an eye out for each of the classes of change. In particular, my reviewing style is based mostly on checking for grammar mistakes, and marking up egregious mistakes in the text while I go. Some of what I need to do is to think about different frames of mind, maybe even different hats or coloured pens to peruse the manuscript with.

Part of this is to make sure that I make the best use of the time that I have, part of it is to make me focus on one small thing so that I can make progress.

And on that slightly optimistic note, that's five minutes.

Posted by Dunx at February 5, 2009 06:40 AM