How do you edit your work? -- Writing Discussion 25 by Jan Coad

I tend to be a little on the reserved side so I just attended my first writer's conference. It was a fabulous one for me to start at. There were only a total of 40 people in attendance (including the 4 speakers). I hope to share much of the info here at No Whine, Just Champagne over the next few weeks.

At the tenth annual Writing It Real Conference in Port Townsend, Washington (June 26-30, 2008) I gained many gems that I hope will improve my writing.

For this first discussion I wanted to share some editing information that I learned.
My first few drafts of any MS tend to have many issues. Because I'm fairly new at writing and don't have anything published I'm often timid about sharing my work. I think so fast that I get mixed up getting the words down on the page. I have found by reading my work out loud I can usually catch most of the problems with tense. But I am so close to the work that I often don't see when it is falling short of telling the story I want told.

This information is from Sheila Benders book Writing and Publishing Personal Essays.
Sheila calls this a Three-Step Response: when ever developing drafts and revisions, she suggests asking a trusted reader to respond to your work in three separate stages. This helps ensure that you receive the kind of feedback that may facilitate your writing.

From Sheila's Book (ISBN 1-893067-05-X):

STEP ONE: Velcro Words
"After you read a draft, your listeners first repeat the words and phrases that stuck with them. They do not tell you why the words stuck or even say, "I liked ...." They merely repeat your words back as closely as they remember them. It will feel wonderful to you. All of us write to be heard, and there is no better way to affirm that you've been heard than to hear your own words from someone else's mouth. Not telling why the words stuck keeps the focus on your writing."

STEP TWO: Feelings
"To warm up for this step, listeners can list as many emotions as they can think of. The more emotions they list, the more versatile and articulate they will become in responding to writing: gentle, harsh, lost, discovered, nostalgic, thankful, in mourning, grief-stricken, at odds, panicked, bored, surprised, thankful, sentimental, fearful, glib, successful, defeated, frustrated, warm, joyful, happy, well-grounded, disappointed..."
After they feel confident that they can name many feelings, listeners might hear your draft again and then name feelings elicited by the subject and subtext they hear in your draft.
Listener and reader responses help all writers keep from spinning their wheels and meandering from their real subjects. If listeners feel ripped off, if they feel batted around in different directions, the words are causing confusion, that theft, that assault. If the emotional journeys do not serve the author's real subject, the author must change the words. It's a self-correcting exercise.

STEP THREE: Curiosity
Finally, listeners tell the writer what they want to know more about and where in the writing they want to know it. These specifics indicate where more writing is required. When others want to know more, writers get insight into their real subject and where and how they may have skirted it.
Receiving response in these three steps will open up possibilities for your revisions, leaving you not only empowered to continue developing a piece of writing but eager to do so.

For those interested, The Writing It Real Conference Faculty:
Sheila Bender - is an award winning and widely published poet, author and writing facilitator. She publishes Writing It Real, an online magazine for those who write from personal experience, whatever the genre. A past contributing editor to Writer's Digest Magazine, she has written eight popular instructional books on writing from personal experience, including Writing Personal Poetry: Creating Poems from Life Experience, Keeping a Journal You Love, and her most recent Writing and Publishing Personal Essays (Silver Threads, San Diego). She has also written instructional prompts and writing tips for LifeJournal for Writers software (Chronicles Software). Her newest instructional book, Perfect Phrases for College Application Essays is forthcoming in March from McGraw-Hill
Meg Files - is the author of Meridian 144, a novel; Home Is the Hunter, a collection of stories; Write from Life, a book about using personal experience and taking risks in writing; The Love Hunter and Other Poems; and A Hollow, Muscular Organ, a forthcoming novella/story collection. She is the editor of Lasting: Poems on Aging. Her poems and stories have appeared in many publications, including Fiction and Crazyhorse. Her awards include a Bread Loaf fellowship. She was the James Thurber Writer-in-Residence at Ohio State University. She teaches creative writing in Tucson
Jack Heffron - is editorial director of Clerisy Press, and has been a professional editor for more than 18 years. He has edited three national bestsellers and a number of award-winning books, garnering prizes such as the James Beard Award (cooking), CEO Reads' All-Time Top 100 (business), and the Agatha Award (women's mystery). He is the author of three books for writers The Writer's Idea Book, The Writer's Guide to Places, and The Writer's Idea Workshop. A founding editor of Story magazine, he is a two-time winner of the National Magazine Award for Fiction and editor for the critically acclaimed Best Writing on Writing series. He has published short stories in many literary journals and twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His nonfiction, which has appeared in numerous publications from the Oxford American to ESPN Magazine to the Utne Reader, has won an SPJ award for sportswriting and been noted in Best American Travel Writing. He is currently a contributing editor to Cincinnati magazine and is developing a series for The History Channel.
Susan Rich - is the award winning author of two collections of poems: Cures Include Travel and The Cartographer's: Tongue Poems of the World; the latter which won the PEN USA Award for Poetry and the Peace Corps Writers Award. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to South Africa, an Artist Trust Fellowship and GAP grant; Rich's international awards include a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland, a Ruben Rose Award from Israel, and poet-in-residence at the University of Sarajevo. Her poetry and prose appears in journals and anthologies such as the Alaska Quarterly Review, Best Essays of the Northwest, New England Review, and Quarterly West.. She is an editor at Floating Bridge Press and active board member at Whit Press

So my question to you all is how do you edit your work? Do you read your work aloud? Do you have others read and give you feedback? Do you hire editors? How do you feel about the Three-Step Process of editing?

The group No Whine, Just Champagne will be discussing this article during our Live Chat on Thursday, July 17 at 9:00pm ET. Hope to see you there!