Tag: rewriting

Editing and Proof Reading – Busting the MythsEditing and Proof Reading – Busting the Myths

So you’ve written a novel. Oh, okay, let’s not use the word ‘novel’. Say anything: short story, essay, just any form of writing. You’ve written the first draft. You think it’s good. You think it’s great. You think it’s wonderful.

But it’s not ready to be distributed or shown to anyone else yet. Before that, there is what some writers call the ‘mammoth’ task of editing/rewriting. To make sure that everything is perfect. No contradictory information, no confusing sentences, no over-used words, no kid-like grammar, and the like. Similarly, checking for spelling mistakes (typos) or grammar mistakes (called by some as grammos — I personally don’t use that word!) is known as proof-reading.

Many writers hate the task of editing or proof-reading. Why?
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No Method? No Problem!No Method? No Problem!

[Note: The title of this post has been inspired from one writing book, No Plot? No Problem! I haven’t read it though.]

Let’s say you’re writing a first draft of a novel. The dreaded first draft. And of course you are writing it very slowly — unless you are an exceptional writer. Then you read it again… and scream “There’s no method in it! No organizing at all! What have I been doing? This isn’t worthy of my time.” And then you close the book snap shut and don’t work on it anymore. Sad.

Many great ‘novel’ ideas have never made it into paper because of this.
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The Big Picture of a NovelThe Big Picture of a Novel

For me, writing a novel isn’t the same as writing the short story. The two are very very different, and that’s not for me. That’s saying for everyone.

Writing a short story of 1000-2000 words means you don’t have to worry about the big picture. You just write a gripping event which happened one day and that’s it. You don’t have to worry about the time span your story has either. Writing a short story is certainly easier in that respect. However… there are certain other problems related with it, about which I’m going to inform you in another post.

Back to this post, as I was saying, it’s all different with a novel. There are chapters in a novel, and you can’t write disconnected, disjointed chapters. Your readers will throw your book away if they find it’s very episodic. If you want to write in an episodic style, try the short story then!

So you have to worry about the Big Picture. Find where your chapters are leading to. Find whether they’re leading to the place you want them to lead, or whether they are disobeying you (for a want of a better word). And that is not as easy as it looks. But hey, if this is overwhelming to you, remember that all this stuff is not impossible! Thousands of writers have done this thing. If you like writing, you have to do it. I also have to do it. If there’s one thing that is important for a beginning writer, it’s this: whenever you find a thing that seems just way too difficult, take a break. And then determine to do it. After all, other writers have done the same thing too.

So is writing a novel as easy as it looks? Definitely not! What I have told you is only the teaser. There’s still a lot of stuff left to tell.

Which means this post will have to be cut in parts.

Read part two | part three

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