The Editing Process

I'm making good progress on my second edit of Tremorgan's Gift. I'm now working on chapters five and six.

Just for fun and because I enjoy seeing how other people have edited their work. I thought I'd share a before an after shot of some of my own editing.

The first piece is the before shot. It's from the beginning of chapter four.

It's over written and even though the character's father has just been murdered it is a bit OTT (over the top!).

Tremorgan dropped her head against the cold stone feeling dizzy. Realising she held her breath, she forced a deep gulp of air into her lungs. The effort to breathe took all her concentration.

Da is dead. They killed him. The silent scream echoed in her head, growing louder and louder. Squeezing her eyes shut, she choked on a sob. “No!” She shook her head, clawing at her hair as if to tear the hideous truth from her mind.

Her fists pounded the stone as a wave of grief rose inside her, filling her with it's fire. Agony gripped her heart, twisting it, tearing it; as if someone was brutally ripping it from her chest. A keening wail exploded past her gritted teeth in a strangled scream.

She shuddered as her keening died away. She felt nothing. The fire inside had burnt out leaving her feeling cold and void of emotion. The nothing was worse than the agony. She scrubbed her eyes, willing herself to cry, but her tears were frozen in a burg of ice that pressed against her chest and made breathing painful.

Now that is pretty horrible!!!
It is obvious I seriously let myself go when trying to capture Tremorgan's grief in this piece.
So how am I going to fix it?
Well, I moved stuff around and cut quite a lot out.
Here it is again with the chopped bits highlighted.

Tremorgan dropped her head against the cold stone feeling dizzy. Realising she held her breath, she forced a deep gulp of air into her lungs. The effort to breathe took all her concentration.

Da is dead. They killed him. The silent scream echoed in her head, growing louder and louder. Squeezing her eyes shut, she choked on a sob. “No!” She shook her head, clawing at her hair as if to tear the hideous truth from her mind.

Her fists pounded the stone as a wave of grief rose inside her, filling her with it's fire. Agony gripped her heart, twisting it, tearing it; as if someone was brutally ripping it from her chest. A keening wail exploded past her gritted teeth in a strangled scream.

She shuddered as her keening died away. She felt nothing. The fire inside had burnt out leaving her feeling cold and void of emotion. The nothing was worse than the agony. She scrubbed her eyes, willing herself to cry, but her tears were frozen in a burg of ice that pressed against her chest and made breathing painful.

Right. Now we have a clearer picture of what we need to get rid of. But it is a mess. If I was just to remove those bits half the sentences wouldn't make any sense. So I had to do a bit a re-writing. I also had to change this from third person point of view to first person.

The final shot.
So here it is again with all the bits I thought were too over the top removed. The grief is still there but it's no longer going to over whelming the reader. I hope.

I dropped my head against the cold stone and forced a deep gulp of air into my lungs.

Da was dead. Murdered. Squeezing my eyes shut, I choked on a sob. I clawed at my hair as if to tear the hideous truth from my mind. A strangled scream exploded past my gritted teeth.

I shuddered as my keening died away leaving me feeling cold and void of emotion. The emptiness was worse than the agony. I scrubbed at my eyes, willing myself to cry, but my tears were frozen in my chest.

It is shorter, tighter. It's still not perfect but it's much better than it was (in my humble opinion). So there you go, a little insight into my editing process.