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 would so much prefer that to be my problem! It's always easier for me to cut things out than to have to think of something to add to make a scene complete XD.