by Youngbear Roth

Created on: March 24, 2010   Last Updated: May 24, 2010

Because the final edit comes at the end of a lengthy process of writing and rewriting, the most difficult problem you face will be your own boredom and an inability to view the work with fresh eyes and mind.  The voice of brilliant prose and cliff-hanging plot, after rewriting twenty times, is flat and without distinction.  For this reason the final edit should be strictly technical and involve no artistic judgment.  It must be enough to know that the style changes you make in grammar and punctuation will elevate your work in the eyes of others, who will read it for the first time with the advantage of seeing it at its best.

How does a writer put the polish on a piece of art without depending on exhausted artistic senses?  Rules and regulations – bringing proper form to the formless.  Fine art is a battle to make visible and communicate that part of reality that is invisible or indefinable.  At this point, the red pen should be allowed to march across the face of your prose like Hitler's troops swarming into Poland.

Being a writer, story analyst, and retired free-lance editor, and proofreader of other's works as well as my own, I've developed an editing system taking into account common mistakes writers make and correcting those mistakes with a minimum of artistic judgment.

Work one chapter or a single twenty-page section at a time using this polish guide.  Follow the numbered and lettered techniques in consecutive order.  If you've been writing for some time and know your weak areas add them here customizing the guide to fit your habits.  By using the same polishing steps throughout your work, you will automatically impart consistency to your style.

POWER EDITING FOR SYNTAX AND PUNCTUATION:

1.  Vary paragraph lengths.  Keep paragraphs of fast paced scenes short, while important scenes and subjects receive longer and more numerous paragraphs.

2.  Do not bury important paragraphs in the middle of the page.  Move them to the beginning or the end of the page.

3.  Check for smooth transitions between paragraphs.

4.  For emphasis, place the main point at the beginning or end of a paragraph.

5.  Vary sentence lengths and types.

 6.  Making the first clause subordinate or subordinate dependent emphasizes the independent clause that follows, and adds interest to your syntax.  Okay, that's English 101 mumbo-jumbo. 

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