A to Z: Editing Fiction: Timeline and Tags

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.


Double check your Timeline. We all like to think we know our story backwards and forwards. The problem is, the odds that we sat down and wrote the whole story in one day are pretty slim. If you're like me, you get interrupted by pretty much everything - the dogs, the kids, the husband, phone, unexpected visitors, work, the repair person...

Not only is it easy to forget what time of day it is in a scene that might span a couple days of writing, but somewhere between the beginning and the end, it's entirely possible that either two previously unrelated characters are doing something that doesn't line up later on when they come together or a secondary character is left stranded somewhere in time. The backstory of main characters might be off kilter with character developing scenes happening later. Did she run away at eight years old, but later on, she turns up on the street at twelve?

The easiest way to avoid this is to plot everything out and stick exactly to your plan. Not one of those people? Yeah, me either.

The rest of us may want to take some notes as we go along in our edits, jotting down ages and dates of important events or when those things are mentioned in the story and actually create a literal timeline to make sure everything corresponds.

You might think an editor will do this for you, and if they're super awesome, they might. However, your best bet, is to make sure your story is correct and possible before sending it off so you know it's right. After all, it is your story.

As a bonus, I'm also going to put in a word about dialogue tags, because they deserve editing attention too.  

• Use the simple: Said. It works. You may be tempted, but don't screw with it. This is one word it's fine to use a lot as it disappears from sight. A few deviations for flavor now and then are fine, but should be used sparingly, as should adverbs associated with them. I once read a book where one character "said quietly" almost every line of dialogue. It drove me nuts.

• Instead of those telling adverbs and constantly relying on tags, use action beats to help flesh out the setting, add visuals to a conversation, and express emotions.
Timmy slammed one of his blocks on the table. "I don't want to go to bed."
Jane scowled and her hands formed into fists. "I think you'd better apologize for that."

• Tags and beats can go before or after the dialogue, whichever works best for the flow.

• Avoid adding too many tags or beats, they can bog down a conversation. For example, if it's a longer conversation between two people, using a tag/ every third line to keep us on track of who is talking works just fine.

• Use beats and small doses of narrative to avoid talking heads. Conversations with no description can read like a monotone phone conversation.

• As you edit make sure it's clear who is talking, and try to make the dialogue sound natural for that particular character - they probably don't all phrase sentences the same or perhaps some use different words for things (think lords and peasants). It's easy for the voices in your head to all start sounding the same halfway through your novel.

What is the most distracting dialogue tag you've seen in a book?

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?