I was spring cleaning my documents and found this editing checklist I made a while back, meant as a reminder of stuff I need to look out for as I'm revising. It's mainly full of things that I've noticed tend to be problematic in my writing (non-comprehensive, of course).
What kind of stuff do you keep an eye out for in your own work? What does your editing process look like?
I just gave your checklist a look – it's really fleshed out and I like it!
Usually the thing I look for when editing is pretty much most of what you said. I didn't really think about the "characters' voices" part. That's really interesting.
You have a lot of what I would look for in editing, so I can't say I keep an eye out for other stuff, other than what you already said.
But as far as my editing process goes, after I have my "word barf" all down on paper, I first go and check spelling and grammar (if that means anything) and then I try to make things just sound better and add in small details. And once that's done, I usually try to do some character type edits and stuff. It's hard to say what I do with character development and plot because I haven't gotten around to actually finishing my story, and it's tough to edit that kind of stuff when I don't know where things are going and I don't have the simplified plot down on paper yet.
But yeah, that's what mine kinda looks like. (It's rough because I actually haven't finished a story yet.)
oh I feel that. I'm also definitely at the point where I'm only editing small individual chunks of writing, where I have no idea how or why they connect to the bigger idea (if there even is one). so I guess that would add a whole new dimension to editing that I've only experienced very vaguely when looking at other people's stuff.
but in general your process looks really similar to mine! freshening up the "word barf" sums it up very nicely. how much time would you say you take to edit compared to time spent just writing?
(in my case, editing can sometimes take two or three times longer than the initial word barf. which I suppose is potentially concerning, now that I think about it)
Well, it honestly depends on how "barfy" the initial writing is. Sometimes it doesn't need much work, but sometimes it needs a lot of attention and changes. But also I don't keep track of time when I write, so that doesn't help either; it could be anywhere from 30 minutes to hours, and…. uh…. even days…. maybe.
Overall, though, I think you have it about right – two to three times longer than the word barf. (I love using that term….)