less is...more?

Writing a novel or a memoir is publicly spilling your guts. You've put it all out there, and now you're ready to ask someone to read it. Maybe even pay for it. But what can you say about your editing?

 When I was in college, back in the stone ages, one of the most useful exercises I did to perform was to write a two page essay. Big deal, right? But it came back with comments and a grade, and a mandate to cut it to one page, while retaining the essence of the essay. Okay. Did that with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. And then it came back again. This time with the tall order to cutting it by half again, without letting the content suffer. It was difficult. I did it. And I really learned something. I couldn't tell you what I wrote about, but I can tell you that I learned that a lot that we spill onto paper can be cleaned up. Cleaned up again, and then dusted off and polished. Writing without editing is the equivalent to crying without tissues. It's messy, less than discreet, and the people looking on are made vaguely uncomfortable.

So how do you go about editing your work? It's your perfect baby. Your baby's perfect. As an editor, of course I'm going to say that the first line of defense is to have an editor. It's always better to give birth with a doctor in the room, right? And asking friends to read and comment is roughly equivalent to asking your grandmother what she thinks of your baby. Even if she notices the a pointy head and odd ears, she's going to love it. It's yours, and s She loves you.

So, if you can't afford an editor, do what I'm doing here. Make the task slightly less daunting. Choose two pages, copy them into a new document, and start the surgery.

You are looking for extraneous crap. Things you don't give your reader credit for knowing from context. You wrote, "she had long, lovely hair streaming down her back that shone auburn in the evening light." Do you really need "streaming down her back"? I think not. Your readers know, or fervently hope, that her long hair is not streaming down her face. Try taking it out. Even if you decide to leave it after the exercise, you have made a decision. You have edited. And what about "lovely"? I'd opt for something more descriptive. Try a rewrite. "Her hair fell in a cascade of waves, shining auburn in the evening light." I think it's better. Oh. And now that I look at it, my original sentence has a weird construct, implying that her back was shining auburn in the evening light. Good to recognize. Better to take some time to edit. Best to excise the errors before some persnickety reader gives you a huffy review on Amazon.