Bernadette Benda

So I was going to do a Father’s Day themed post, but then like all the father characters I could think of were like, Mando (I actually thought of a lot more, like Stoick, Hawkeye, Tony Stark, etc. But they were all from movies, and I was like, “do fathers even EXIST in books? Like good ones???” So I decided not).

I think one of the biggest pitfalls you can fall into while editing is, “not wanting to do the work.”

(Am I still editing Silver and Lily?? Hahaha. YES *eyes twitch*)

The Not Wanting to Do the Work Pitfall can happen when: when you know a scene needs help, when there’s an annoyingly small plot hole, a week character arc, a scene that needs to go, be totally rewritten, etc. These are the moments when it’s very easy to just feel like, “that’s too much work, The scene’s fine. No one will really notices that small inconsistency, will they?”

First off, yes, they will. Secondly, even if they don’t, stop being lazy.

I say this because I’ve been kinda feeling this way myself. I feel like it’s easy to get tired while editing and easy to just say, “eh, that’s good enough” Well, let me tell ya’ll something

This is NOT the same thing as deciding that you’ve taken something as far as you can go. Not the same as knowing you are done with a project or need to send it to someone to read.

This is when you feel tired, feel like you’ve been editing FOREVER and just – rewriting a whole scene or doing a big restructure or delete/add a character seems like way too much work and you want to go, “whatever” DON’T. If it’s a problem it need to be fixed.

If you have to, do it another day. Or just sit back and take a deep breath.

It’s just that man, editing can be exhausting. At the same time it can also be exciting, seeing your story actually come together, actually see it, you know, make sense. It’s exciting when you find brilliant fixes and other ways to just make the story AMAZING.

It’s knowing the difference between:

“I’ve been staring at this scene until my eyes are bleeding. If there’s something wrong with it, I can’t tell anymore.”

And:

“This scene is making my eyes bleed because it needs to be fixed but that will be a big deal and I just…” *collapses in exhaustion*

(I just have to stop and say how M O O D Y it has been out today. It’s been like dark thunderstorms in the morning and then some warm rain and then clouds and sunshine and clouds and W I N D Y and warm and cool and – )

How do you guys feel about editing? Do you like it? Hate it? Meh about it? (I feel medium. I don’t LOVE it like I love drafting, but I don’t hate it because editing is more than half the work and how the story actually becomes…like a novel)