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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48476
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48476
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

I like editing, because I like reading my story, and I feel good when I improve a passage.

However, I also edit with a specific list of things in mind. I want clarity, I want continuity. I don't want to say the same thing twice. I also want to appeal to senses, sight (including **color** ), sound (is there music anywhere), gestures and movement while speaking, smell, what things feel like, how the character physically feels.

I call this a "fully imagined scene", and we don't have to list all these things, but in cases like dialogue we **don't** want just a wall of dialogue. Nor do we want uninterrupted info dumps. A bar and an office have different atmospheres, sounds and smells, a conversation in a bar is much different than one in a cubicle.

> Badly worded sentences, sentences that are out of place, [continuity] errors etc.

Don't get exercised by these, they just confirm that you need to edit. I don't worry about mechanical crap, those are easy to fix. What I really want to know in editing is if the scene is the right scene, in the right place, and if I have included enough detail for the reader to imagine it, and not so much detail I have slowed the pace and will bore the reader. You have to be selective, and decide what can be cut, what can be assumed, what the reader doesn't _need_ to be told.

Focus on the bigger picture, this is like writing code: Bugs are inevitable. Fix 'em and forget 'em. The bigger picture is in whether you are aiding the reader's imagination of the scenes, and holding their attention with **tension** so they are looking forward to what happens in the next few pages, by the end of the chapter, the end of the Act, and at the end of the story.

Original score: 2