Editing without Screaming

That dreaded "E" word. The BIG YUCKO  of writing our brains out. 

Edit. 

Truthfully, I have multiple novels written, but not edited. They sit on a shelf, in a box or wasting away on the hard drive. Happy little stories, scary little stories, weird little stories. All just hanging out awaiting the edit. Every now and then I stumble across it and think it this was a good story. I should finish it. 

And yet it still sits in the drawer collecting dust. 

So, I recently made a deal with another writer to edit each other. We have a phone session every Saturday morning and beat each other up...er... I mean, talk about what the story needs. She reads my 3 or so chapters, I read hers and we do a basic spelling/grammar check but more importantly we talk about story structure and plot points. The building blocks of  fiction. 

Those structure/plot issues are the biggest. Did this make sense? Does the timing work? How could the MC not have seen that clue?  Some of this frustrates and we gently argue our points but mostly, in the end, the editing partner points out the weak points I didn't see in my head while writing. This is a big help. 

Got an editing partner?  How's it working for you?