Why is it so hard to edit your own work? I have several written but cannot seem to "get them right" for some odd reason. I have no problem helping other people but I can't help myself. Does anyone else have this problem?
Why is it so hard to edit your own work? I have several written but cannot seem to "get them right" for some odd reason. I have no problem helping other people but I can't help myself. Does anyone else have this problem?
Why is it so hard to edit your own work?
Because you know what you wrote, and you know what's coming. What I've found that works for me is to have a first reader go through to point out discrepancies and issues with the characters and actions, then just make the rest flow. I also read the story aloud to make sure it makes sense that way. And I also start at the bottom of the chapter and work my way UP.
Doesn't mean you won't still make errors, just reduces them. And then depending upon how you post, once you've posted the work, ignore it for six months, then go back through it. You'll find other errors, and you can fix those then.
Why is it so hard to edit your own work?
Because you know what you mean and your mind automatically fills in what you leave out when you read what you wrote.
When you read something another person wrote you do not know what they meant, only what they said, which makes errors easier to spot.
Because you know what you mean and your mind automatically fills in what you leave out when you read what you wrote.
I've learned to go through the dialogue in my stories to insert "He said" or "she asked."
I hear the voices. I don't need the attributions. (But you do.)
and your mind automatically fills in what you leave out when you read what you wrote
Everyone does that. Of course different readers will be doing it with different filters, so not every reader will get the same results from doing it.
That's why I do not spend a lot of time on a character's physical description as the reader almost always provides their own. If I push my description too hard I keep jerking them out of the story.
That's why I do not spend a lot of time on a character's physical description as the reader almost always provides their own. If I push my description too hard I keep jerking them out of the story.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it jerks them out of the story, but omitting details of descriptions allows readers to fill in the details based on people they know in real life, increasing their engagement with the story.
I often read stories where a character's height and weight are specified but qualified with 'but he wasn't overweight, it was all muscle' when BMI tables show the character to be morbidly obese and lucky to be able to walk. On the flip side, I recently read a story where a character was claimed to be 'skinny', yet BMI tables showed him to be borderline obese. Both these types of instances tend to reduce my enjoyment of the story. I don't know whether they're genuine mistakes by the authors or whether certain cultures have become inured to obesity.
AJ
I often read stories where a character's height and weight are specified but qualified with 'but he wasn't overweight, it was all muscle' when BMI tables show the character to be morbidly obese and lucky to be able to walk.
There is truth to that.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, at his peak when he was competing in the Mr Universe body building competitions, would have been considered morbidly obese if all you looked at was BMI. Muscle is much denser(heavier per unit volume) than fat is.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/421339-bmi-calculator-for-bodybuilders/
I often read stories where a character's height and weight are specified but qualified with 'but he wasn't overweight, it was all muscle' when BMI tables show the character to be morbidly obese and lucky to be able to walk. On the flip side, I recently read a story where a character was claimed to be 'skinny', yet BMI tables showed him to be borderline obese.
BMI is a terrible metric for any purpose beyond generating breathless, "ZOMG 112% of Americans are lardasses!" headlines.
It's just a height-weight ratio with an exponent thrown in as a sop to square-cube law. And the exponent is too small. When you scale height linearly, weight scales with the cube, but BMI only uses the square. This means that if you have two people of different heights with the exact same build, the taller one will have a higher BMI than the shorter one, just because the BMI formula is broken.
There's some justification for this, because tall people tend to have proportionately narrower frames than short people, but even still, the exponent should be more like 2.5–2.6 than 2.0. And that's just a tendency, not universal; there are people who are Just Bigger, and should be using the full 3.0... and BMI has no way to tell.
And that's not even the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that it has no means of distinguishing fat weight from muscle weight, so it just assumes that any weight beyond a certain very low baseline is fat and so Bad. But muscle does have weight — it's actually heavier, denser, than fat.
This means that the people who are in the best shape - athletes, or even just people who get regular exercise, because BMI is basically calibrated for sedentary couch potatoes - quickly build up more muscle than BMI assumes they have, and it assumes that's fat and therefore they are overweight or even obese. Someone like a linebacker or body builder who's a chunk of cut beefcake may even be rated "morbidly obese".
Which is not to say that everyone that BMI rates as "overweight" or "obese" is an athlete in excellent shape. Some of them are lardballs. The point is that BMI has no way to tell.
I have quite a few friends who have to maintain physical condition to remain in their jobs - military, cops, and the like. Every single one of them has to test out of the BMI rating every time they come up for their physical, because they're in excellent shape, but carrying a lot of muscle mass, and so BMI thinks they're obese.
Myself, I'm both fairly tall and built on an extremely broad-shouldered frame... I'm something like 78th percentile height, but 96th percentile shoulder span. Even when I was a scrawny teenager with no body fat to speak of, BMI thought I was overweight. Then I spent my weekends for a quarter-century running around in forty pounds of steel armor. These days, BMI says I'm well into "obese", and should lose about fifty pounds to get down to what it thinks is my "ideal weight". But while I'm carrying some middle-age padding now, if I were to lose fifty pounds, at least 35 of that would perforce have to be muscle, because I just don't have that much body fat on me.
So, yeah, in summation: BMI is terrible and no one should ever use it for anything ever.
What bothers me is when they give stats for women, particularly for tall women, which indicate that they're skeletons with beach balls mounted on their chests. Because for reasons that I'm not even going to begin to unpack, women are not allowed to have mass.
(Seriously, I actually dated a girl with E-cups for a while. Her boobs were heavy. She was carrying at least twenty pounds just in her breasts.)
And as a writer, it's annoyingly difficult to find good numbers for what women of varying heights and builds should actually weigh.
What bothers me is when they give stats for women, particularly for tall women, which indicate that they're skeletons with beach balls mounted on their chests.
Women like that actually exist. The boobs are almost always fake. Women that skinny would also tend to smaller breasts.
Yuck. My personal ideal for feminine beauty goes more to Ashley Graham. Give me a woman with the right kind of cures and a little meat on her bones.
ttps://www.foodsforbetterhealth.com/ashley-graham-height-age-weight-body-statistics-25936
Weight in kgs: 91 kg
Weight in lbs: 201 pounds
Height in feet: 5'9" (175 cm)
Height in cms: 5'9" (175 cm)
Measurements: 42-30-46 inches (107-76-117 cm)
Another thing to consider is bone density. The average male is 3.88 g/cm^2, with women in the 2.92 range for old school measurements. I believe the latest is in terms of a T-score where 1-5 is the normal range. BMI doesn't account for that very well either. In my personal case, I'm about 30% above the average.
Then there is the general skeletal size. That to can throw off BMI numbers. Here too I'm above average. For me to get down to the 'recommended BMI for my height, I'd look emaciated.
On the other end of the spectrum, a very low bone density can give someone a 'good' BMI number leaving them under the false impression of good health.
It is my opinion that the BMI nonsense has caused a lot of harm, especially to women.
It is my opinion that the BMI nonsense has caused a lot of harm, especially to women.
Any sane person presented with a "one size fits all" approach to classifying such a widely diverse group such as the entire human race, should laugh the idiot presenter.
As you say, given the harm done, ripping Mr Quetelet's balls off would be a better start. Shame it's way too late for that.
It's a good example of why you should never trust the word of anyone who presents themselves as an expert in several widespread areas of knowledge.
My 2c
Any sane person presented with a "one size fits all" approach to classifying such a widely diverse group such as the entire human race, should laugh the idiot presenter.
Tell my idiot insurance company! I continually get 'we can help you get healthy' based PURELY on BMI. How do I know that? Every single line item on my blood test is in the optimal range. My cholesterol is, in the words of my doctor, perfect. My blood sugar is excellent (even with the attempts to classify even normal blood sugar in the higher range as 'pre-diabetes' to sell more drugs). My EKG is perfect. My resting heart rate is in the 'athletic' range (i.e. low). I've had stress tests and passed with flying colors. Colonoscopy was clean. Yet, despite having all of THAT information, the insurance company thinks I'm 'unhealthy' because of BMI.
Tell my idiot insurance company!
For extra discount, just declare that you identify as a woman...
For extra discount, just declare that you identify as a woman...
For auto insurance that works some places, but not all. For health, the insanity that is insurance in the US (or at least my little corner and my plan) requires pregnancy cover for all women (the biological XX group) until age 55. That despite the hysterectomy (medically necessary) which they paid for at age 52. 🤦🏻♂️
Then I spent my weekends for a quarter-century running around in forty pounds of steel armor.
Were you in the SCA?
I have no issues at all today saying that, at nearly 58 years old (!), I'm overweight by about 30 - 40 pounds. What was funny was when I went into cardiac rehab (I had to have a biscuspid heart valve replaced - birth defect, NOT a heart attack), the folks at the rehab center had issues with my BMI. They kept trying to lump me in with the people who had bad eating habits, high salt, all sorts of things, without taking into account some minor details.
First, I'm 6'2", and built like a weightlifter or linebacker. Early in college, while I was in the military, my normal body weight was 220. That's qualifying for all things military. But ... while also in college, I got cancer and had (literally) half of both my small and large intestines removed, which means that my body simply does not absorb nutrition like other people do. So I literally have to eat about half again as much as a normal person, because it's almost like I have a colostomy bag. Food goes in, my stomach digests it, then it starts through the intestines and, unlike a normal person who takes about 24 hours to absorb nutrition before the body expels it as waste - I'm lucky to keep it in for 8 hours.
Net result, in 1989 I weighed 250. Now in 2019, I weigh 280. My cholesterol level is quite normal, my sugar levels are normal, and by every blood test measurable, other than one vitamin level (B12, I take folic acid daily for that), I'm quite healthy.
Yet they kept pushing me as if I were morbidly obese and having all sorts of underlying health problems. Even though - again - I didn't (and don't) have high blood pressure, or anything else.
FYI, a bicuspid heart valve means it only has two valves instead of the usual three. The way they normally find it is when they're doing the autopsy to find out why you died from a heart problem at such a young age. About 5% of the population has this issue.
It does not get any better when you are speaking to them face to face.
According to sources which I consider real but have long lost track of; a person with normal hearing only gets 40 percent of what is said to them and fills in the rest.
Before I even think about doing an edit on any of my works I leave it a minimum of a week and spend a lot of time working on another story to clear my mind of the content of the first story. However, what I find works best is to send it off to one of my volunteer editors for them to go over. When I get it back my mindset while considering their edits is very different to when I do my own edits or writing, so any edits I do while including theirs end up being a more critical and better edit than ones on my own.
However, what I find works best is to send it off to one of my volunteer editors for them to go over. W
My editor reads 'over my shoulder' - I get edits and corrections while I'm writing a chapter. And also good suggestions. And some pretty harebrained ideas! :-)
I won't repeat what has been said in other replies because I agree with them. However have one additional thing to add that makes my self editing more effective.
I found that when I start at the top of the file and edit to the end, I "gain momentum" if I don't find an error for a paragraph or two. Then I read over the errors because I recall what I wrote in the next paragraph. My solution is to edit the last paragraph first and then move toward the top one paragraph at a time. That prevents the momentum problem and because it is difficult to remember what was said in the prior paragraphs, I tend to see errors that I would have overlooked.
I go over the previous day's work and check it before I start today's. This also helps me get back into flow. I fix blatant errors as they occur.
Once I finish the first draft which is in screenplay format (I know it's weird but it works for me). I start on the final draft. This is done in chunks or chapter's as the case maybe. I now have speech software so I can hear it spoken. It is then put in a notepad type program and checked for grammar, misspellings, open quotes, etc.
It is then put through a second program that checks it for overly complex sentences and unnecessary words. The chunk is then ran through a third program that allows me to remove redundant phrases and choose more powerful and descriptive language. It is then transferred to the final master copy in Scrivener. Once the Final Master Copy is completed. I copy and paste it into a text file and add what ever formatting tag's are needed. Save it to it's folder then upload. That's how I self edit.Everything but Scrivener is free. Ywriter is a free alternative. It doesn't have the bells and whistles, but I wrote a book on it. If you're strapped for cash or just prefer a simpler tool it's a good choice.
I go over the previous day's work and check it before I start today's. This also helps me get back into flow. I fix blatant errors as they occur.
Ernest Hemingway did that. Except he re-read from the beginning (I'm too slow a reader to do that). He did it for consistency. And when he found an error, he fixed it on the spot.
Why is it so hard to edit your own work?
It's not for me.
Sure, sometimes I read what I intended to write, but most times I catch it. How? I'm a slow reader. I failed the Evelyn Woods Speed Reading class in the 70s. If you read slowly, like each word, you'll catch a lot. It's sort of why reading it out loud works. You read slower when reading out loud.
And as much as people bash Word, it catches a lot of spelling errors. What slips by my self-editing the most is when I spell a word wrong that's a real word. So I might write "peek" when i meant "pique" because I didn't know the spelling of "pique" and spellcheck doesn't catch it because "peek" is a word.
I don't agree with you on this. The effect being discussed would only apply to gaps you leave in a character's description.
They'll only be jerked out of the story if you introduce new elements to the description later in the story after they've known the character long enough to start filling in a description of their own.
Provide a somewhat complete physical description early (within the same chapter the character is introduced) and stick to it throughout the story and there should be no such issues.
I don't agree with you on this. The effect being discussed would only apply to gaps you leave in a character's description.
They'll only be jerked out of the story if you introduce new elements to the description later in the story after they've known the character long enough to start filling in a description of their own.
Provide a somewhat complete physical description early (within the same chapter the character is introduced) and stick to it throughout the story and there should be no such issues.
In my opinion, it is impossible to effectively edit your own stories. Being too close to the subject ranking number one on a long list of reasons.
On the other hand, traditional editors are not a necessity. They can do as much harm as they can do good; subjective to the editor in question.
Someone or a small team you trust needs to read behind you regardless. That can be friends and family or it can be a traditional editor. In either case, trust is important secondary only to ability and sometimes not even that.
My .02
They can do as much harm as they can do good; subjective to the editor in question.
When I first started writing and posting to this site, I decided to use one of the volunteer editors. The quality of what I wrote was terrible, and the editor helped me identify and correct my problem. Unfortunately, the editor also tried to push me into writing stroke stories, which is what he liked to read and edit. When I resisted, he dropped me as a writer. That experience turned me off editors for a long time.
I tried the services of another editor about two years ago and this time found a good match.
You're not the first person I've heard state such a thing. In times past on other sites, I've experienced that same problem myself.