Practices

If I ever get around to it, this page will detail my (Rick Austinson's) various writing practices and the procedures that go into finishing a book.

Editing

Cutting room aside, what is really involved in editing?

My process is as simple and straightforward as it gets. I open the file, I start reading, I make changes as I go. That simple. Novice writers sometimes think editing means taking stuff out, and sometimes it does; but usually it means adding to it. A word here or there, a paragraph, sometimes an entire scene. I’ve gone in and added multiple pages to the middle of a story when I felt it was necessary.

It’s also important to set a goal ahead of time. You may not have fully understood the story before you started, and you had to write it to figure out what it was for. Now’s your chance to go back and make sure the entire thing conforms to that goal. “The End” is not finished, it’s only the beginning. My method simply consists of reading, editing, then reading again until I stop finding things to change.

Just because a piece isn’t finished yet does not mean its too early to start editing, either. In fact, if you’re midway through a long project and you get stuck, this is practically a get-out-of-writer’s-block-free card. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve found my way out of plot trouble simply by going back and re-reading(and in the process, modifying) other parts of the story.

So never hesitate to make a change. You can keep modifying a story pretty much until you publish it. Then, once it’s out there, you can’t take it back.