How to Edit a Book: PMA’s Workshop

I’ve been editing for two decades, whether for my own work (cut to commercial: You Can’t Save What Isn’t There, out now through Cemetery Dance Publications), as a teacher and a reporter, or — for a brief time — as Harlan Ellison’s editor on a doomed magazine.

My bona fides are such that I’m going to tell you two fundamental Truths about editing, with intended initial caps, right at the beginning:

1. Your editing process can be improved; and
2. Every single “rule” about writing, including editing, is subjective. Writers stumble and flail into a process that works for them.

So, let me walk you through how to edit your writing in a way that might just work for you.

“Editing” vs. revision vs. actual editing

For the vast majority of people, the term “editing” is associated with the clean-up work that English teachers foisted upon us, where we fix our spelling and remember that we don’t quite understand how commas work.

“Revision” and “editing” tend to be different things in academia, but in fiction we use them interchangeably. I have confused more than a few teaching colleagues because I take the “publishing” view of using these terms synonymously.

But to be absolutely clear, when I refer to editing in this piece, what we’re talking about is the revision/rewriting of a piece to hew it as closely as possible to the writer’s intended vision. What that means is taking a hard look at the pacing of a story, its consistency/continuity in terms of characters and plot mechanics, the relevancy of certain details, and its very phrasing.

What are your editing goals?

When you’re ready to edit, ask yourself… why?

If all you can manage is “to make the book better,” go outside and touch grass. Take a walk. Do whatever you want, as long as it’s not working on your writing. You aren’t ready yet.

However, if you’ve determined that you want to trim your book to a certain word length, make thematic elements clearer, strengthen interpersonal dynamics between characters, or hell, just make the climax as pulse-pounding as possible — then you’re in the right place.

Know your weaknesses — and don’t hedge

Part of this question comes from the necessity that writers know their weaknesses. 

Personally, I’m an over-writer. I originally pitched my novella, The Only Way Out Is Through, as a short story to an anthology. The pitch was accepted, and I started writing. And writing. And writing.

The first draft topped 20,000 words.

Now, why did that happen? A part of it was inexperience at knowing what a story needed to fully resolve itself. Another part, however, was that when I first tell myself a story, I need all the words in order to get the world I see in my head down on the page. I’m not just talking about excessive descriptions; I also mean characters doing things that help me understand them better, but add absolutely nothing to the key conflict.

So when I sit down to revise, my goal is to cut as much as I can — e.g., do I need to describe the interior of the car? I have the character nodding their head here, very much in a “get to the point” sort of way — do I need that, or does the phrasing in their reply speak for itself?

Remember: you can always cut for length

King, in On Writing, argues that anyone can cut ten-percent of their first draft word total (e.g., 200 words from 2,000). Knowing my own weakness, I can easily cut twenty or thirty percent without ruining the story — and I aim for that. I go into every first draft revision with cutting as much as possible in mind.

That said, I don’t try to run away from overwriting in the first place. I’m very much aware of it (honesty check: in first draft, right here, I’m sitting at 1,426 words for this article; it should be 2,000 at most, and I have a lot to talk about before I’m done). But if I worry and fuss about it while writing, I will clam up.

So when it comes to your weaknesses, don’t go out of your way to avoid them; instead, just focus on the damn story. Editing is where you can take care of those pesky weaknesses, and addressing them in the editing process will actually give you something to direct your focus onto — making the overall experience more efficient, possibly even enjoyable.

More than a few creators have said that they’ve “rediscovered” their stories and ideas in the editing process; the same could be true for you.

4 elements to address while editing

There are four key facets to consider when editing a book — and, depending on whatever weaknesses you’re focusing on, one or more of them will take center stage.

That’s fine, but generally — and I do mean generally — you want to keep tabs on all of the following aspects.

1. Structure/pacing

This has to do with how well you a) lay out your story and b) keep it moving. Ultimately, this is the spine of your book — or, if you like, the Christmas tree. Everything else I talk about here is going to hang off its branches. Weak tree = broken decorations. 

For starters, look at your conflict — how many times do your characters attempt to solve it before the climax? Typically, the Rule of Threes comes into play here: characters should attempt to solve the problem twice before finally succeeding. If a problem can be solved in two or fewer attempts, the reader comes away feeling there’s not a lot of tension; if it takes four or more, the plot becomes a slog.

And then there’s the question of where you stick your information. Readers need info to understand the stakes of what’s happening, or just to comprehend the bare mechanics of the event itself.

Skilled writers manage to convey this information through what happens in a given scene itself (loosely speaking, the writer Chuck Palahniuk would call this “using your little voice”). As much as possible, try to avoid taking a step “back” from the narrative in order to address something (what Palahniuk calls “big voice”).

Sometimes called Info Dumps, these chunks of text temporarily or even permanently remove the reader from the tension on the page. I once read a novella where every paragraph of action was intercut with a paragraph of Info-Dumping. I didn’t even make it through the first major scene before I chucked the book across the room.

So when you begin to edit your piece, you want to look hard at two things specifically — the construction of your plot and how you’re ensuring the reader stays with you.

2. Consistency/continuity

This is the basic nuts-and-bolts of storytelling: making sure you’re not contradicting yourself. 

Listen: books, even novellas, are long. Depending on how convoluted your conflict and how comprehensive your cast is, that’s a lot of minor — seemingly trivial — information to remember. What color was your main character’s brother’s hair? In what direction did the villain escape with the love interest?

I’m making this aspect sound pretty schlocky — and the writer, dimwitted — but the fact of the matter is that dumb mistakes happen all the time. Then they get nitpicked to death by reading groups on Goodreads.

Don’t let this terrible fate befall you. One way to avoid it: while writing your first draft, catalogue any important descriptive details and ideas in a notepad for later. What’s the time frame of the conflict? How many locations do you have, and how do they relate to in terms of direction? What color is the main character’s brother’s hair?

Remember, this element of revision isn’t just about making sure everything is consistent; it’s about avoiding future embarrassment. It’s the literary equivalent of ensuring your shirt is tucked in and your zipper’s zipped, so you don’t look foolish in front of those Goodreads groups.

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3. Relevancy

Speaking of your main character’s brother’s hair… are you sure you actually need your main character to have a brother? What do they bring to the story?

While editing, you need to look at every single component of your story: characters, settings, subplots, etc. Do they help or hinder in progressing the overall conflict and, ultimately, the entire narrative?

There’s a concept in storytelling that we’ll call “but-because”. Stories are engaging because they’re not a series of random scenes strung together with the passage of time and characters; instead, each scene is a reaction or response to the previous one.

For example: the main character was going to meet an important witness, but the antagonist killed the witness ahead of time. Because the witness was killed, our MC became panicked. 

In order for this concept to work and be satisfying to readers, all narrative detritus has to be cleared away. You can’t predict what readers are going to focus on, and you don’t want to accidentally mislead anyone. If your MC’s brother isn’t relevant to the plot, cut him. Otherwise you’ll get questions like: “Why was the kid brother there? He has nothing to do with the story.”

There’s also the notion of relevance in your narrative. Do you need to describe your characters in detail? Your locations? What can be implied, versus what’s important to make explicit in the story? Don’t confuse your readers — but don’t bury them in details when they are creatures capable of imagining.

4. Phrasing

Joe R. Lansdale (Hap & Leonard, Bubba Ho-Tep) once said something to the effect of: every word written has to be strong enough to carry the previous two. What Lansdale means is… don’t use three words to say something when you can be just as clear or clearer with two or even one.

This touches, lightly, on the concept of style. How you say something should be unique to you — it should reflect your writerly “voice”. You can’t read Stephen Graham Jones (or Joe R. Lansdale) without hearing, explicitly, Stephen’s (or Joe’s) voice.

After you address all three of the elements above — fix the pacing, correct continuity errors, trim irrelevant details — read the story to yourself, in a regular voice. Don’t get all dramatic about it, just read it. You’ll learn quickly if how you write matches how you want to sound — and if you stumble over something, or if your brain swaps out a word automatically, change the word on the page.

(For the radical, liberatory teachers in the audience, this is akin to Ira Shor’s concept of “voicing”, where the written language doesn’t hew hard to some utopian Standard form, but closer to the intimate, colloquially-inflected speech patterns of the writer.)

An ancillary effect of this is that you’ll also catch glimpses of small pacing issues you can fix, or details you messed up, that you glossed over when reading silently. This is why “editing for style” should come last: because it will also, effectively, allow you to give yourself a final proof.

Don’t get hung up on your mistakes

Editing, like storytelling itself, is personal and subjective. I’m an over-writer… but I know that about myself, so when I sit down to revise, I know what I’m looking to fix. 

I also know that, once I combat my initial weaknesses, I’m going to read a story aloud to make sure the word-pacing is correct and that it actually sounds like me.

So before we finish up here, allow me to remind you once more: sure, you should know your weaknesses when you edit — but let those weaknesses rest when you’re actually writing. Don’t get hung up on the idiosyncratic actions in the first draft or you’ll never finish.

Anyway, what are you waiting for? Get to it.

(P.S. This article, in first draft, topped 2,700 words. Through [multiple] revisions, it finished up at 2,000.)