A to Z: Editing Fiction - Setting

2017 THEME: Editing Fiction (Because that's what I'm in the middle of doing.)

What is the Blogging from A to Z challenge and where can I find more participants? Right here.


Fleshing out your Setting helps engage readers. No one likes a scene taking place in a white room filled with nothing. Well, unless that's really where your characters happen to be. Showing us the world they live in helps make the story feel more real. 

Some writers get this just right during the first draft. If this is you, you're a magical unicorn and the rest of us are in awe of you.

The rest of us tend of all into two camps. Those, like me, who write bare bones, and those who describe everything in detail. So, as you're reading along in edit mode, ask yourself, what exactly about this particular setting is important? Those are the details you should convey, preferably though the eyes of your character or their interactions with the setting itself.

Is there a particular smell to the room? Such as a smoke-filled bar.

What are they touching and how do they react to it? Their arms stick to the unwashed wooden bar.

What details do they spot and how are they important to that particular character? Maybe the shadows in the unlit bathroom hallway provide a handy place to stab someone.

Sounds provide yet another avenue for description. Your character may hate the throbbing techno music.

What about anything they are tasting? Let's hope no one is licking the bar, because that's utterly gross, but they may be enjoying a drink or a bowl of pretzels.

If the detail you've so carefully described isn't important to setting the scene or shows us something about the character, then we probably don't need to devote words to it. Filling the story with dense paragraphs of description can kill the pacing or cause readers to skim, thereby possibly missing the important details that were buried inside all that.

There have been a couple writers I've worked with that have basked in the history of the world they've created, sharing tourist-like details about buildings and places throughout the story. Maybe those are of great interest to some readers. Maybe not. Honestly, that's the kind of thing I skim or skip completely. Ask yourself what type of readers you are looking to attract and what readers expect from the genre you're writing. Those details might become part of that first draft archive that only you, the author, truly appreciate. Consider that those cut details might, instead, make an interesting series of blog posts when you're ready to publish.

How do you stack up on first draft setting description: too little, too much, or just right?

A to Z: Editing Fiction - Read It Out Loud

2017 THEME: Editing Fiction (Because that's what I'm in the middle of doing.)

What is the Blogging from A to Z challenge and where can I find more participants? Right here.


Reading out loud is one of the best way to catch errors. This may seem awkward if you aren't a reading out loud person or don't have a private spot to go hang out and talk to yourself, but there are ways around it.

When you read in your head your eyes will often skip over errors, especially if you wrote the words. You know what you meant. You've read these words probably half a dozen (or likely a lot more) times and you know the story. You may even find yourself skimming along to get to that favorite scene. None of these are helpful in catching missing or wrong words, repeated words, awkward phrasing, and choppy or massive run on sentences.

You can catch all this and more by reading out loud! (I feel an infomercial coming on.)

Will it help catch everything? No, but it's a big step toward the polishing for submissions or self-publishing. I wait to do this step until I'm done incorporating feedback from beta/critique and have moved past tweaking. So around the last step before submissions, a paid editor and/or preparing to self publish.

I find it works best to get out of whatever program I wrote in and work from a printed copy. Cheap like me and hate wasting paper? Print it in a small font, single spaced, two sheets to page an use the back side too. No one is going to see this but you. As long as you have room to highlight errors or scribble notes in the margins, that's really all you need.

Now, you could read this printed copy yourself, making note as you go. Maybe that will work for you just fine. I've tried it. I find I still fall into the problem of knowing what I mean rather than listening to the words I'm saying.

What works wonders for me is having someone else read it, specifically my computer. It can't skip anything and all the flaws in phrasing and sentence flow are abundantly clear in that computer voice. I currently use Word with the Windows Narrator to read for me, but any program that will read for you works. I put in my earbuds and sit at my desk (one of the few times I leave my comfy chair for writing) with my printed copy and have at it.

This may seem like a long process, but it really does catch so much more than eyeballs alone. I highly recommend taking the time and effort to listen to your own book.

Have you tried this and if so, did you find it helpful?

A to Z: Editing Fiction - Quit Tweaking

2017 THEME: Editing Fiction (Because that's what I'm in the middle of doing.)

What is the Blogging from A to Z challenge and where can I find more participants? Right here.


Quit tweaking words and get on with it! You may find all this feedback and fixation on making the story just right gets to you after awhile. Each word starts attracting scrutiny. Is this really the right word? Should I delete every instance of "very"?

My roadblock usually hits around the time I'm doing a final pass before sending the story off for critique/beta reading. That point where I've been fixing little things here and there for a couple weeks and I'm beginning to notice when doing find (Because I do a lot of editing that way when hunting down sections in a full novel .doc) that I've used certain words multiple times. Now, I know this doesn't seem like a major issue. Of course words are used more than once in a 80-120K word novel. But when you look for the word "push" and come up with five instances of characters pushing hands through their hair, you begin to doubt yourself and consider that just maybe you had that action on the mind more than you thought. Incidentally, this is also how I discovered that in one book everyone jumped up from their chairs instead of simply standing and a lot of other little nitpicky fixations.

So yes, some tweaking is a good thing, but when you find that you can't stop going over the first paragraph of chapter one to get it juuuuuust right, it might be beneficial to take a break, send it to those other eyes and get another opinion. You can't move forward if you keep picking at it. And its hard to publish anything without moving on.

This also applies to the another issue I've seen a lot of writers (including myself with one book) fall into early in the process. That part where you do get feedback and everyone hates your opening chapter(s). And then, instead of moving on to find the point in the book where readers do start connecting so you know how to fix it, you pull everything, and spend months re-writing those opening chapters over. And over. And then send them off only to find that they're still not perfect. So you pull them again. The next thing you know, you've wasted six months on three chapters and your readers are so sick of the many incarnations of the opening, its like pulling teeth to entice them to read the rest of the book.

Just write the damn thing the best you can, clean it up the best you can, and send the whole thing off to trusted eyeballs. See what they have to say about the overall piece before sinking your time and energy into a major rewrite. That feedback will help direct your efforts rather than banging your head on the desk while you second guess yourself into hating your own novel.

Do you get hung up on tweaking the little things?

A to Z: Editing Fiction - Point of View

2017 THEME: Editing Fiction (Because that's what I'm in the middle of doing.)

What is the Blogging from A to Z challenge and where can I find more participants? Right here.

If I haven't returned your visit in the past couple days, its because I've been busy finishing up another round of edits on The Last God so I can get it out to my lovely critique partners to rip apart while I finish out this blog challenge. Thank you for your patience. I should be back to my regular rounds today.


POV is yet another thing to keep your eye on. There are several aspects to watch for.

If you have multiple point of view characters there are multiple ways to go about it. Most commonly, switching characters at a scene break or chapter. Romance likes to flit back and forth with little to no signaling. I prefer chapters, myself, but whatever you do, be consistent.

Don't get caught head hopping. One of my major pet peeves is happily reading along in (first or third) Mary's head and then suddenly having reader whiplash when we're thrown into Susan's head in the middle of a conversation because the author really wanted to share Susan's side too. Pick which character gets the most bang for the buck with the scene and stay in their head.

Depending on the whether you are in third, first, or omniscient, you will need to keep a close watch on what details should or shouldn't be included. Are we deep enough into the character? Are we sharing thoughts? Are the five senses used to fully immerse the reader? This is where telling and showing can make a big difference in the reader experience. Does the character know things we don't, or conversely, do we know things the character doesn't and is either thing what you intend?

Do you have a preference for stories with a single point of view or multiple?

A to Z: Editing Fiction - OMG This Is Crap

2017 THEME: Editing Fiction (Because that's what I'm in the middle of doing.)

What is the Blogging from A to Z challenge and where can I find more participants? Right here.


Omg, this is crap. There comes a point in editing when this thought will probably enter your mind. For me, it's usually during the first pass when I'm discovering the plot holes, adverb nests, that corny filler scene that I breezed through late one night after a few drinks, and that long chapter where everything is dialogue. 

Take a deep breath.

You got the story written. That's a big accomplishment. Now we're here, knowing there are issues, and we're doing to fix them.

Admitting there are issues is the first step. That feeling of writing "The End" can be pretty intense.  All the words. They're so pretty! The first draft is done!

Enjoy that moment. Take a day or a week off.

There, now it's time to face reality. You have editing to do. Your story will be better, stronger, sleeker after you're done.

Depending on your stamina, an editing pass might take a couple days or just as long as it took to write the damn thing. Set a goal and do your best to keep it.

I find working one chapter at time makes those early passes more tolerable. Take notes of the bigger issues you'll need to conquer while you're fixing the smaller things, especially if those issues require tweaking or additions in chapters you're not currently editing. This will help keep you focused on getting this one part done rather than skipping around. Because let me tell you, that can turn into a depressing "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" adventure. There's no surer way to be overwhelmed by all the crap, than to visit the highlight reel by taking a speed reading trip through your novel. Not to mention, skipping around can cause continuity nightmares. Don't be tempted. It's not worth it.

Remember, it's not crap. It's a first draft. It's a starting point to something that could, with some time and effort, be pretty darn awesome.

How much downtime to you prefer to take between finishing the first draft and starting to edit?