Editing

Posted byChantelle GriffinPosted inEditing TipsTags:,

DSCF0106bEditing, that wonderful process that seems to get longer with more experience. It is like jumping over a never ending row of hurdles, where just when you think you have mastered it, you run head long into the next obstacle. This is by no means a bad experience it just means that I can see my work in more depth.

Layers

If I were to describe the process it would be like sifting through a multitude of layers, where some are only skin deep, and others lie far below the surface. When I first started I was focusing on the issues that were only skin deep, barely skimming the surface as I went. Now when I sit down to work through the process I can only describe it as one of the most boring things I have ever done. I find that the shallow issues are less, and the other layers have become more prominent. Hiding just below the surface waiting for someone to find them, and when I do, I wonder how I could have missed them before.

Practice

Yet this whole process takes practice, and I am not referring to the simple effort of doing several rounds of editing on the one story. When I first started I felt as though I knew so much, after all I had done a great deal of research. What I did not know is that the bar is a moving beast, at every level it challenges me as though taunting from the side lines. Waiting to see how far I have progressed.

Time

The most important elements of learning how to edit are time, and patience. I feel as though I have run a marathon, only to find that when I look back I see with great clarity what I missed. Perhaps this is a good thing, I will take a deep breath, and let out all the frustration so I can see it that way. When I first started it was like opening a door to a magical world of writing. Now that I have made my way along the path it feels incredible being able to look back, and wonder in amazement at how determined I was to be where I am.

Published by Chantelle Griffin

Chantelle’s mother remains one of the most famous witnesses in Australian legal history. The first large screen movie the author saw, at the age of nine, had an actress playing her as an infant when she was at Uluru on 17 August 1980 at the same campsite as the Chamberlains. She began publishing poetry later in life with the first release coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of the disappearance of Azaria. While most poems have been released in the volumes for the anthology, more than a thousand were written throughout a twelve year period. Chantelle has a Master of Environmental Planning and enjoys life at half pace with two cats. Her first fantasy book was released too soon, after a near death experience and a second edition was published four years later. She resides in Tasmania and continues to write as a past time in the evening.