♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #190
What did you edit out of your most recent book?
(or another book…let’s see those outtakes!)
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Very often the things I edit out aren’t swaths of writing, characters, or trajectories in the plot. I tend to focus on passive voice and overuse of certain words. From work to work, those overused words change. It may have to do with what’s stuck in my mind at the time.
The last book I have been working on is the final book in The Trailokya Trilogy. After reviewing the piece and my editor’s suggestions, I felt that something more needed to be done. The cadence was off. When going through another polish, I discovered that I had developed conjunction-itis.
What is conjunction-itis?
A lot of my sentences contained conjunctions with the word and. It stuck out so much I was alarmed. So what was my solution? I used Word to search and, then I reviewed and edited sentences to omit the use of a conjunction. There was so much work involved in that effort, but I think it was well worth it to make these changes. I’ll tell you why…
The conjunctions I found in most cases were unnecessary and many times indicated passive voice. The cadence of the reading improved immensely. The writing was much stronger, more specific, which made it clear.
Is this something that my editor should have caught in the review? My editor believes me to be a very strong writer. I’ve heard this from other editors in the past, and even agents. I’m confident that she did everything right. Sometimes, the cadence isn’t off for others. It wasn’t off for me when I had completed my writing on the work and was ready to have it edited. This only came to my awareness after doing a final proof and polish.
I can’t speak to what has changed, other than further experience, which is happening all the time, or should be, for writers. Hopefully, this is an improvement.
Do you write? What are some things you’ve edited out of your work?
Click on the links below to find out what other authors have edited out of their most recent works…
‘And’is one of those words that we don’t even notice half the time. Our minds just go right past it. Good for you for figuring it out in your book and fixing it!
I have to tell you, I was almost done with the edit, when I started to notice. That made for a lot of extra days. I felt so disappointed in myself, but this is how we learn.
Good, better, best – never let it rest. Like you, I don’t necessarily cut huge swaths of material. More often, I’m looking to eliminate passive voice or in search of stronger verbs. I have a few pet words I know to look for because I am aware I tend to overuse them. People reading my books don’t know that because they rarely are still there when the book is published. It’s not an easy task, but editing is important.
A beta reader pointed out over 700 uses of the word “HAD” in my last novel. That’s 1% of the total!!!!!
It is amazing how we let this get away from us!