Give me enough time on the same material, and I we deliver some truely bizare ways of describing it. My latest discovery: editing by means of blasting--imploring the tank method, if you will.
So what is the tank method of editing fiction? That's stopping and firing at whatever you see as bad in a draft of what you're writing. Unfortunatly for me, that's just about everything. God may have created the world and everything we see in six days (don't let anyone say it took Him seven, because on the 7th day God rested from all His labors, come on know your scriptures--don't be a dumbass!) I am not God, creating a new world from me takes a lot of work.
And what I'm also finding is that most, if not everything that I write NEEDS to be edited. See bad writing here... BLAST!
"Fire in the hole!" Or run that sucker over, as is the case with the image to the right.
I guess in emploring the tank method of editing fiction I deserve a little credit, at least I'm able to recognize when there's a proble in the writing. The only problem with that, is right now I have A LOT of problems. My problems range from global choices, like at what point in the history of the world did glass panes start being used. To other more specific, technical questions like am I using too much simile and metaphors in my description of things in my prose. And of course their are typos and small stuff like that. Challenging the status quo when editing is the name of the game. And I am finding that I rely too much on simile when describing things. Simile: which is comparision using the "like" or "as", needs to be treated like precious stones and only grafted in sparingly for maximum impact. I think you can get away the use of metaphors more often than similes becasuse metaphors are less clunky, and by that I mean the use excessive use of "like" and "as" gets old after a while, especially when used too much an not spaced out. Again, the use of simliles should be treated like preious stones--don't use them too much, just at the right time.
Part of my problem right now is that I'm editing several chapters at once. Jury duty allowed me a lot of time to do redline edits. The problem is that I still need to key in most of those changes. And just keying in those changes leads my mind to want to rewrite EVERYTHING, and that's a big slow down. Sorry, just being real folks.
But it's not all bad, my editing tank is GOING through the pages and makes changes with are improving the writing. I'm seeing plenty of targets to fire at, and I'm not shy about pulling the trigger!
I think right now I just need to buckle down, and not try to do everything at once. That sounds easier than it really is, because I want EVERYTHING to be perfect, the ideal novel that I one day envision this project being.
The intial stages of editing a novel is like a messy battle field. (That's a simile right there, folks. See you DO learn some things when you come visit this blog) On on the battlefiend things are messy. It's smokey, the final victory is not secure and there are potential enemys all around.
So me in my proverbial editing tank and blasting away. Everyday I load the tank up with fresh artillary shells, and make sure the tank is topped off. The dillagent win this battle of atrition, and given enough time and life I am resolved to bringing this project to completion. I just need to avoid burn-out. Sometimes I feel like I hafta ride this tank from one end of Europe to the other to root out all those pesky Nazis. But if that' what I gotta do, that's what I'm going to do.
Why? Because I'm a writer and that's what REAL writer's do; they bring their writing projects to an acceptable state of completion, no matter how winding and grinding the battle is. And so I blast away, my editing tank ever ready to take down yet another vestage of bad writing, and prop up the flag of good writing in its place.
Sincerly, a suddenly patriotic feeling,
E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
Comments