The Ten Day Edit
A Writers Guide to Editing a Novel in Ten Days
Lewis Jorstad
The Ten Day Edit: A Writers Guide to Editing a Novel in Ten Days
Copyright 2020 Lewis Jorstad
The Ten Day Novelist Book Three
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form, or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and copyright holder except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or educational work.
Though the author of this book has done their best to ensure its accuracy at the time of release, neither the author nor the publisher assume liability for any errors or omissions, regardless of cause.
Published by The Novel Smithy, LLC.
Printed in the United States of America.
1st Edition, 2020
ISBN (print): 978-1-7332079-4-2
ISBN (digital): 978-1-7332079-5-9
https://thenovelsmithy.com/
It is perfectly ok to write garbageas long as you edit brilliantly.
C. J. Cherryh, American author
Contents
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Learning to Swim
Imagine yourself facing down a huge, dark wave.
You watch the water rushing towards you, and for just a moment you can hear the shouts of people coming from the beach. In an instant, the roaring wave blots out all other sounds, and even the cloudy sky on the horizon is wiped away by the looming mass of water. You can smell salt. Your eyes stingwhat have you gotten yourself into?
This is what it feels like to edit a novel.
As writers, we all understand that editing is important, and that properly editing our work can be the difference between our failure or success as an author. Agents wont pay a passing glance to unedited manuscripts, and readers will quickly put down a novel that shows a lack of polish.
Still, when you sit down to face this all-important process, youll soon realize the immense magnitude of what youre dealing with.
A novel is no small beast, and whenever you fix one problem, youll soon realize youve created two morelike a knight struggling to slay the Hydra. Youll flip through your draft and maybe even tinker with a few scenes, but eventually, keeping your head above water will consume most of your time. Its this feeling of overwhelm that dooms so many first drafts to a desk drawer, never to see the light of day again. Even though these writers overcame the task of writing a first draft, the follow-up blow of having to edit it proved too much.
In all likelihood, youre feeling this same sense of overwhelm.
Perhaps youve pulled out your first draft after a few months away, or maybe you only just finished it yesterday. Either way, now that youve had a chance to look through this massive collection of words and characters, youve started to feel that overwhelm prickling at the back of your mind. Its hard to imagine how you could possibly bring this story together, especially when you begin to recognize the many problems lurking beneath the surface.
However, that isnt the end of your story.
You see, that mass of water looming over you might cause you nothing but dread, but a surfer would get a thrill of anticipation from that same wave. Just like they learned to love the water, you can learn to love editing too!
Weird as it may sound, Im actually one of those people that prefers editing to writing. For me, editing is this wonderful opportunity to pull back and see the big picture of my novels. Instead of feeling pressured to get it perfect right away, I can slowly tinker with each individual piece until it all comes together as a finished story. Its truly exciting to take the rough framework I created in my first draft and sand down the rough edges until it feels complete.
Of course, no matter how much I might enjoy editing, that doesnt mean it doesn't come with its own unique challenges.
That feeling of overwhelm, of being swept away by the surf, is a reality even for those that thrive on the editing process. Editing a novel is a massive undertaking, and keeping yourself organized and focused is perhaps the most important thing you can do. Unfortunately, its hard to concentrate on the task at hand when you arent quite sure what that task isand thats where this book comes in.
The Ten Day Edit is here to help you stay afloat, guiding you through the editing process step-by-step. Instead of struggling to edit your novel all in one go, youll start by understanding what your story is to begin withwhat is your conflict, who are your characters, and what is the real core of this adventure? From there, you can tackle the bigger picture, smoothing out the wrinkles in your plot, fleshing out your cast, and ensuring your story follows its own rules. Only once you have this solid foundation will you be ready to focus on the smaller aspects of your story, ironing out problematic scenes, creating chapters, and polishing your prose and grammar.
This is the real key to a successful edityou cant face your novel all at once.
To that end, this book is divided into a series of chapters, each one covering one day along this ten day challenge. As you go, youll find a set of goals at the end of each chapter, giving you an easy way to measure your progress and stay focused along the way.
However, there is a catch. If youre familiar with the previous two books in this series, youll notice that this one works a bit differently. The Ten Day Outline and The Ten Day Draft both had easily measurable goals, whether that was scenes outlined or words written. Editing, on the other hand, is more nebulous. The time it takes to polish your novel may be very different from how long it takes me or any other writer to reach that same goal, because our first drafts could be in wildly different states. The process will be the same, but the amount of rewriting needed may not be.
Because of that, this book adds a few periods of rest into the mix, giving you the space to adjust the challenge to the unique needs of your first draft. This way, you wont feel like youve failed by giving your novel the time it deserves, while still knowing that youre making steady progress.
At the end of the day, all of this serves a single goalto help you manage the overwhelming task of editing a novel, one step at a time. While that initial realization of just how much work lies ahead of you can feel like a wave threatening to pull you under, I promise you can learn to stay on top of it. Perhaps youll even come to enjoy the ride!
So, if youre ready to take your novel to the next level, read on. Ill see you at the end of the journey.
Your Questions
How should I use this book?
This book is designed as a step-by-step guide, meaning each day of the challenge will build off the goals of the previous day. Fortunately, that also means each chapter will follow a similar format, so they should be easy to reference as you go through the editing process.
