On editing

Did this as a thread on bluesky and then realized that I should share it with our patrons as well! I'm also happy to answer any questions or discuss any part of this with you in the comments below.

A difficult thing with being a writer, especially one working on stuff you're releasing yourself or with minimal editorial guidance is: when are you done writing? When is it ready to release? With Night Vale, there are now three of us looking at every script which eases the pressure a little. But for instance with Alice Isn't Dead, I did not run those scripts by anyone. I worked on them until they were ready, and then sent them to Jasika who recorded them. I had to know that was a script was ready without any other eyes at all.

To address that, I've developed a consistent editorial practice for myself. it looks like this

1. Once I have a rough draft, I will let it sit for a while if I have time. It's always good to let a rough draft sit for at least a week. A month or two if you have the time. Distance helps a lot. Sometimes when we're on a tight deadline, I don't have time to do this, but it's better when I do.

2. I do at least one silent read through. This read through is mostly for big picture story and character stuff. I'm not that worried about the prose yet. There might be more rewriting and silent reads here, until I feel like the big picture stuff is in the right place.

3. I do an out loud read through. I do this because most of my stuff is going to be acted out loud, but I also do it for novels. It's a useful practice even for stuff that isn't for performance. This is where I start to get the language where I want it.

4. I do a second out loud read through. Now I'm getting the prose into basically its finished form.

5. I do a check of specific words. I search "just" and "very" to make sure that every use feels right to me, as they are easy to overuse. I also check "vast" because it's a word I tend to use too much. I check "sudden" if it's a longer work, because I find that word is rarely worth using. If it's a novel, I might do a run through checking if I like every single adverb. I don't tend to do the adverb thing for podcast episodes because it takes forever, and stuff for performance is different anyway.

6. Finally I do a third out loud read. I'm hearing how it sounds with the word changes from step 5, and checking for any last thing I missed.

7. It's done. I send it out.

Silent, 1st out loud, 2nd out loud, word checking, 3rd out loud. After that, it's done. I don't have to worry about "is it really ready?" It's gone through the process, it's as ready as I'm able to make it, send it out the door and start the next thing.

Is this the right way to edit? Good news, there's no right way. This is what works for me, and I encourage you to try some stuff and find out what works for you.

-Joseph Fink