Two books over six months: one a novel, the other a poetry collection. It’s been interesting to see the difference in the process of editing one vs the other. I would have thought the experience of the two edits would have been basically the same, but as I ‘ve spent the last week doing final edits on the poetry collection, I’ve realized that the two experiences haven’t felt the same at all.
The process of final edits on a novel is rather daunting. Now, I’m not talking about major revisions here. I’m talking about when you get to the point when the book is done but for minor grammatical and spelling tweaks or fact checks. But even so…..The computer file lands in my inbox and I take a deep gulp, closing my eyes as I press ‘open.’ There are just so many words. Each time I’ve had to have a little chat with myself. “God, do I really have to read this whole thing again? The whole thing? Can’t I skim it. Give it a quick once over? Every time I read it I hate it more and more.” But then the question arises, if there is a typo somewhere (which there inevitably will be no matter how many times different readers read it) or a mistake is made in the layout, a section break is missed or an indent left out, how upset will I be? The answer is always: very upset. So then I make myself a cup of tea, close the door, sit down and read it all as closely as possible. I find it painful and I admit that I do end up skipping and hopping my way through some sections, but it must be done. When I then get the final okay, I give an exhausted smile and think, thank God I never have to look at that again.
But editing this, my first truly full-length poetry collection (my poetry play Dreams of May had 22 poems, Her Life Collected has over 60) has been….dare I say…fun. Yes, it’s true. It has now gone through 5 “final” edits and I’ve enjoyed each one. It brings out the geek in me. I love sitting and deciding whether I’d rather use a hyphen or a comma. I love discussing the merits of ending a line one word earlier or later. I love figuring out which poem looks best lying next to which other one and whether to use quotation marks or italics. Just a few minutes ago I sent what I believe will be the final version to my publisher, but first I said to myself, “Oh go ahead, give it one more read” and I did it happily. When I pressed “send” I was smiling, but not with relief that it was over. Rather, I was smiling with the excitement of knowing the poems will soon be bound into a book and I’ll soon be reading them out loud at my launch and then at as many readings as I can organize.
I’ve been trying to figure out why this is true and I haven’t come to any conclusions. It certainly can’t be because one work has been in progress longer than another. A Clash of Innocents took two years to write. Her Life Collected has been in the works, either on the back burner or front, for much longer than that. But maybe it has to do with the sustained concentration of focus required in writing a novel whereas I have found poetry to be more like a series of intense bursts of energy. Not exactly Alien vs Predator, but…..
Have any of you cross-genre types had a similar experience? I wonder.
Now of course this has nothing to do with A vs P, but forgive me, I just couldn’t resist.
It was so interesting to read this as I’ve been there with you all the way so I know exactly what you mean.
It really is lovely working on the edit of a poetry collection. It’s like doing the right kind of workshop and ending up with each poem just how you want it.
It’s true that working on the edit for a novel means going through so many words each time. I read a novel about 4 times closely while doing the final edit, in case any changes have led to errors in continuity, and also because each set of changes could lead to a mistake.
And editor needs to read the whole novel each time to see that it’s right. Well, that’s my view anyway – but it’s how I rewrite and edit my own fiction. I’m a perfectionist.
I’m glad you mentioned this, because it explains why publishers only want people to submit a novel when the writer has spent time on it and it’s as polished as they can get it.
Some people say ‘Take a look at it as this stage, then give me your opinions and I’ll rewrite it and send it back to you.’ In that case I’d be reading 80,000 words twice before selecting the novel, then I’d be reading 80,000 words about 4 times while working on the close edit.
So you’ve given me the chance to offer the best advice a publisher can give to novelists wanting to submit. Don’t ever submit too soon. There’s no rush with writing. You’ll be giving the editor way too hard a time. On the other hand, do submit at some time!
Yes, I find that editing fiction at that late stage is about improving it, getting rid of errors, with some (but not that many)aesthetic decisions. It feels like tightening a nut, then cleaning the wall around it. With poetry it felt more like continuing the aesthetic process right to the wire, both in the poetic order, and the minor changes to the poems. Because they were written over a long period of time – I had some consideration about a “house style” – e.g. punctuation and form, which in fiction tends to be more an ongoing task.
What a fascinating post, and comment, too.
Re novel editing (I havent done the other apart from single pieces) I ended up unable to ‘see’ the thing as a whole. I knew it too well, and was reading what I thought was there as opposed to what was actually on the page. It took other eyes, Maggie (mentor), Andrew (writing buddy)- and now my editor at the publisher – to find the parts that didnt work as well as I’d intended.
So far I have found poetry so hard to edit. A poem never ever feels finished. You can always change a dash to a dot, end a line here, change it to there. And it still looks fine, reads fine. Hmm.
– I really loved the thought that poetry brings out the nerd in you!
I’m just glad all authors tell me they enjoy the time we spend on the final edit. It does feel like a special time when all the focus is on your work I think. So long as you don’t have some dreadful editor who wants to turn your writing style into theirs. The same is true of creative writing courses.
What an interesting post, Sue. I find it fascinating to hear that the poetry editing was more pleasurable than the fiction and that it didn’t have to do with length. I’m wondering would the editing of a short story collection be more in line with that of poetry – perhaps because it is both a whole and yet also separate parts?
Short stories are different again in terms of what it feels like to edit. They would be a bit more like the edit of Noel Duffy’s novellas I also completed with him recently.
With short fiction you aren’t looking at the sames things you look for in poetry, where so many fine details of punctuation and how you like the visual layout of the poem need to be discussed.
With short fiction you do tend to feel you can go over and over a story though until it has that extra polish.
When editing short story collections for other publishers I’ve also advised authors on maybe changing the sequence of the stories, so that’s a bit like poetry. Sometimes you need to start with a strong one to win your reader over, then you follow up with more to draw them in, and once they trust your ability you can throw in your peculiar ones! Unless they’re all peculiar of course….
Order of stories is important as it is with poetry, and so is variety. Too many poems or stories that sound the same could become monotonous even if they’re all very strong when read alone. So you select poems or stories that chime together.
This could be misleading as, of course, a sequence of stories or poems could be on a similar theme and in a similar tone and work well. You just know when you need to vary once you see them all together.
So, in many ways short stories and poems are similar. The similarity between short stories and novels to edit would be that you don’t need to discuss each comma!