: Re: How to survive editing I am currently trying to edit a one my most recent novel. Trying is the keyword. I asked a few people to read my book as beta readers, but all of them have been

@Goswami879

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I've been editing what I hope to be my first full-length fiction book for the better part of two years. The main thing that helps is distance. Whenever I am stuck, I do something else for a couple days or weeks. With some distance to what I wrote, I see what needs editing and how to edit it much, much clearer.

I've also gone over and over everything many, many times. I've read the book a dozen times, and I've read it to my wife in simultaneous translation to english (not the native language of either of us). Every of these steps has helped to identify problems and solutions.

Instead of fixating on individual problems, which I agree causes writers block, I'm using the notes and highlighting features of my writing tool (Scrivener, in my case) to jot down quick notes of what I notices or want to change, then continue on. Then I go through the notes and do the actual editing. I found that seperating reading and identifying problems from the actual editing process helped me a lot. It also helps me to focus on one problem at a time. So when I am editing story points, and I notice some bad style, I just add a note and continue editing story. When I am editing style and notice something wrong with the story, I just make a quick note of it and continue focussing on the style.

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