Monday, March 5, 2012

Editing in the Digital Age

I know that some of you are writers who have not yet been published, so I thought you might be interested in what line editing looks like circa 2012.  Here I have reproduced the first two pages of the What Boys Really Want manuscript with line edits from David Levithan, and my responses. I love working this way, with lots of room for comments and changes. Sometimes a manuscript will go through several rounds of changes, with all of the interactions recorded.

(Click to enlarge)




2 comments:

Daughter Number Three said...

Having spent some time looking at the revisions of YA manuscripts in archives like the Kerlan or the University of Wisconsin, I can't help but feel sad that all we'll have for the future are a bunch of MS Word files.

But I know it's much easier to work this way.

Pete Hautman said...

In theory, these e-files should be archivable. I have on my computer, for example, at least twenty versions of each of my recent novels, including notes, research, outlines, editorial comments, etc. The challenge will be to reformat accurately as the tech changes.