New skills

Editing. It's... It's hard.

Okay it's not hard hard, but it does require a bit more effort than writing does, because editing means concentrating and not dreaming. It means structuring and not just bullet-pointing. It means I no longer have a social life.

That escalated quickly. And also isn't true. If I didn't have a social life would I be going to Berlin in a few hours?

What I'm saying is I managed to finish that WIP I may have mentioned in a few past posts. I'm not going to link to them because I've come to the point where I realised this is NOT going to be the story I publish. Again. Sigh. The concept is just too grand for my brain at this stage right now. In a few years when I'm a bit more wordly wise, maybe I can go back to it and make it publishable. For now, I'm happy to use the completed manuscript for editing practice.

And boy, do I need the practice. Of all the millions of stories I've written over the years (see: five), not once have I gone back to any of them and given them a major makeover with my editing wand. So I'm new to the editing gig. And it's difficult. Especially those pesky plot holes.

I will never search "plot holes" in Google images ever again. The things I've seen... The above picture doesn't even make the trauma worth it... What was I saying?

Ah, right, plot holes. Yes. Before I had finished my WIP, I thought of at least two major plot holes that absolutely had to be addressed or the rest of the story would be laughable rather than believable (as believable as a story about a 14-year-old alien-human hybrid and his virgin adult cousin can be).

I did a little research and solved all my problems with two words: genetic repair. With that, I understood the exact motivations that should be in my story. I did more research and got to the essence of what I needed, and worked to incorporate it in. I learnt from this experience. I'm still learning, and will probably pick up on more plot holes as I go along. I may even get a friend or certain Sensei to read a chapter and get some feedback so I have an idea what that's like, too.

Ultimately, what editing has taught me so far is that I really need to keep asking myself "why" whenever I'm plotting and writing. "Why" is this character doing that? "Why" are they reacting that way? "Why" is this next move the logical one for them to take? "Why" don't they do something different? Somewhere in my brain I knew the importance of the "why" question and yet I never implemented it. I sure as hell learnt THAT lesson for future reference.

P.S Saturday's post will not happen because I shall be in Berlin. Next update will be the following Saturday - see you folks then!