We’re reaching the end of my of my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells. There’s just this plus a couple of useful word processor tips to come. I hope they’ve been useful. Here is “Creating distance for better self-editing.”
You’ve just spent some time editing the work of other writers, and perhaps found it easy to spot shortcomings. But if you’re like most of us, it’s far more difficult to see your own shortcomings with any clarity, if at all.
To self-edit with any success, create distance from your work to somehow separate your reading from your intimate knowledge of your vision so that the words alone do the work. With distance, it falls on the writing to evoke scenes no longer fresh in your mind. Not so amazingly, distance reveals holes in the pictures. And flat writing becomes visible for the first time, those lazy word choices or adverbs that got you through the task of getting the story down but don’t do diddly-squat to create the reader experience you need to provoke.
Once done with a draft, try not to go back for at least a month, though six weeks is better. However, unless I have other projects interesting enough to distract me, I find that very difficult to do. A few days go by and then, like a constant itch that needs scratching, I open the file and start picking. Compulsive, I know, but I don’t see how anyone could write an entire novel without a healthy dose of compulsive behavior to keep giving the wheel a turn when you have a tough day.
So I needed to find other ways to get around the fact that I refused to allow my book adequate time to chill. Here are some that might work for you.
You could do as George Carlin once talked of doing in the last stages of polishing his material—smoke a little pot. Failing that, what?
If you’ve been working exclusively onscreen, create a printout and go through a hard copy. That’s a must at some time anyway, and it can gain you a little psychological distance.
Read it aloud to yourself. For me, this reveals clumsy structure; unwanted repetitions and echoes; missing information; too much information; or other flaws. I don’t do this often enough, probably because I simply forget to.
Another technique that works for me is to reformat the narrative to look more like that in a book. Here are ways to do that using Microsoft Word (this is doable in WordPerfect as well).
1. Change the font
If you’re using Courier, it’ll never look like a book. Times New Roman is closer in appearance to a book’s text, but it’s a narrow newspaper font seldom used in a book. And it would be better to eye a different font anyway.
To change the font, type Ctrl+a (or Apple+a with a Mac). This should select all the text. Then go to the font window in your toolbar and change it to one of the book-style fonts: Garamond or Palatino or Georgia, if you have them. If you don’t, Times New Roman will do. Font size: 12.
Author M.J. Rose, The Halo Effect, prints her manuscript out in a different font and then takes it somewhere else to read—2 or 3 hours a day at a library, or on a train from Connecticut to Boston and back all in one day. I like that idea—your words have to overcome unaccustomed distractions. And a different environment can make you see things in different ways.
2. Make the text even more look book-like.
While you’ve still got everything selected (or do Ctrl+a again to select all), change the spacing to be more book-like as well, neither double nor single spacing. Click Format>Paragraph. In the Line Spacing box, use the drop-down menu to select Multiple. Then, in the “At:” box next to it, type 1.1 or 1.2 and click OK. Adjust to taste. Another way to do it is use point size. Choose “Exactly” and enter in a larger point size. For 12-point type, 15 will give you a more open, book-like feel than single spacing. But you’re not done yet.
Change the margins to create a bookish column of text on the page with about 10-15 words in a line. The margins I’ve found helpful are: top, 1”; bottom, 1”; left and right, 1.7”. This will give you a very different look.
3. Make it look like a book
It’s fun to really go all the way and see how it would look book-style by doing this:
1. Change the page size. Click File>Page setup and go to the Paper size tab. Change the paper size to Custom and type in 5.5” for width and 8.5” for height. Or 6” by 9”.
2. Now change the margins: top, .66”; bottom, left, and right to .6”.
3. Change the font and spacing as noted above. Might try a smaller font size, 11.5 or 11, depending on the font.
4. Justify the margins. Select all the text (Ctrl+a). Click Format>Paragraph. On the Indents and Spacing tab, go to the Alignment box, click the arrow to show the menu, and choose Justified. Then click OK.
I think you’ll find that the reformatted narrative reads differently, either onscreen or in a printout. I’ve even printed out a book on 5.5” by 8.5” paper, using both sides of the paper and formatting just like a book (headers, page numbers, justified margins, font, spacing, etc.), and had it tape-bound at Kinko’s, which yielded something very much like a perfect-bound trade paperback. Now, that’s fun to hold in your hands—your book as a real book! It’s educational, too.
Have trouble working in standard manuscript format?
These ideas on creating distance solved a problem I’ve never had for a writer named Janine. She wrote this after discovering my tip on reformatting.
I have a HUGE problem working in traditional manuscript format (12 pt courier double spaced ragged right margin etc.) I find it very distracting and get lost easily. I end up with these ENORMOUS drafts that are too intimidating to revise.
I decided I was just going to set up my working draft like a book page and “write the book” while I do the draft. It’s an amazingly powerful tool. I know right where I am in the story. No more guessing. I know that when I’m finally done I’ll have to reformat it for submission but hey, who cares? At least this way I might get a finished draft TO submit. Before, it was looking kind of hopeless.
For what it’s worth
Ray
Tweet© 2011 Ray Rhamey