Finding motivation through editing

[wordstitch]

 One of the things that I find really helps me to get back into a fic I've left for a long time is to do a nice, thorough edit of it.  I read through the things I've already written with a red pen and pare down the words, try to make the sentences as tight as possible.  Then I make the changes and read the bits aloud.  

I found that in making the fic better, I regain a bit of enthusiasm for working on it, and end up wanting to write more scenes, or expand on existing ones. 

Here are some of the things I check during edits: 

• Deletion of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.  "Really", "very," "slightly", "slowly", "quickly" are ones I watch out for most! 
• Deletion of repetitive words/names.  Find yourself using the same descriptor a whole lot?  I do!  I usually run my fic through something like this word counter that analyses which words show up most frequently in the text.  Specifics like "growls" or "replies" that show up too often usually get changed to something else, or something less specific like "says."  I also notice during editing that one of my characters says the other characters' names too much in a conversation, and I take those out too.  There's also a phrase frequency counter which helps too!  
• Abrupt scene endings.  This may not be a problem for most people, but I write in short scenes and sometimes those scenes end too abruptly.  
• Passive language.  Self-explanatory. 
• Unnecessary metaphors/similes, or silly ones.  This happens less and less often as I become more aware of it.  But everyone's had a period in their lives when they turned slightly purple in their prose, and it's good to remind oneself those bits don't always work.  
• Tense shifts.  Writing different tenses in the same fic happens, especially when you're moving from one tense to another between different works.  (contributed by rikym)
• POV/perspective shifts.  If you're in third person limited for most of the story and then suddenly shift to third person omniscient that might be weird for the reader.   (contributed by rikym)

Please do let me know what other things you check during your read-throughs that might be useful?  I can add to the list =D 

Comments

[wordstitch]

I'm not really familiar with the term "head-hopping" XD But possibly? I sometimes write stories (though not recently) where POV changes completely to another character, but I think that this is all right as long as it's not within the same chapter/section. For example, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver has chapters from the POV of three sisters (and their mother, too, I think!) but this isn't really third-person omniscient since each POV has its own chapter in the story.

Yeah, it's particularly difficult to keep from using names too much (or too little) in third person POV, unfortunately!

[silailo]

Head-hopping is when you switch character perspectives within the same scene, which more experienced authors warn against. I'm reading Lonesome Dove right now and the author likes to switch character perspectives in the same scene, but I think he does it well because it's not confusing. I just figured I'd better not do it anymore and stick with third-person limited, which is what you describe.

[wordstitch]

Oh, yeah, I'd definitely count that as third-person omniscient. I could never get the hang of that, possibly because I haven't read very many books in which it's been employed well? I admire those who can comfortably and effectively write in that POV!