#9: The Triage Technique

Until now, the Editing Lessons have reviewed the broader aspects of the editing and reviewing phase of story writing. Now we're going to take a story through the editing process, just like we took "Biker Mice From Mars: Domestic Bliss" from idea to finished product.

The Story

I decided the perfect fanfic for this treatment is Legends of Hyrule: The Hyrueliana. It is the first story in my sequel series to my Legend of Zelda fanfic series, which focuses on the next generation of heroes.

The Hyrueliana is set three years after The Legend of Zelda: Destiny. This story is the romantic climax for Zoe and Orden, together with letting me have fun with the creation of Hyrule. It's also the introduction of a villain who has been so much fun, I've got four more stories with her planned. I finished writing it in 1995, and just added HTML coding to it in 2004. I encourage you to read this original version. It won't be the same once this is done.

The Technique

To have a cohesive technique to follow, we're going to use Sol Stein's Triage Technique with a few additional exercises pulled from other sources that I have found helpful. Stein calls it "triage" because like medics who perform triage, you should evaluate the problem areas that will need the most time to correct before tinkering with word order. It's supposed to be a more efficient use of time instead of trying to find all the errors at once, but we'll see by using. Here's a brief synopsis of everything we will delve into more deeply in the coming Edition Lessons.

The Triage Technique

1. Judging characters
   
   
   
   1. Protagonist
   
   
   2. Antagonist
   
   
   3. Minor characters
   
   
   4. Credible conflict between protagonist and antagonist
   
   


2. Evaluate scenes
   
   
   
   1. Most memorable
   
   
   2. Least memorable--usually end up cutting
   
   
   3. New least memorable
   
   


3. Test motivation
   
   
   
   1. From memory, jot down the three most important actions
   
   
   2. Are these actions motivated in a credible way?
   
   
   3. Look at other significant actions
   
   
   4. Reread Chp 15 until this step is easy
   
   


4. First page test
   
   
   
   1. After a break, read just the first page as if it were coming from a contemporary writer you admire.
   
   
   2. If you don't want to keep reading, go back to Chp 2 to revise opening
   
   


5. General Revision - if in doubt about a change, don't make the change.
   
   
   
   1. Cut anything that doesn't seems absolutely necessary--especially where attention flags.
   
   
   2. Watch out for the between-the-scenes material
   
   
   3. Watch for same length of sentences
   
   
   4. Places where story bogs down
   
   
   5. Watch for author talking and shifts in POV
   
   
   6. Are the characters under increasing stress
   
   
   7. Cut out every unessential adjective and adverb
   
   
   8. Watch for repetition
   
   
   9. Mark cliches for excision
   
   
   10. Change the order of the words
   
   
   11. Look out for purple prose
   
   
   12. Look for imprecision
   
   
   13. Put a small V in the lower right corner of every page with something visual on it. NV on pages with nothing visual
   
   
   14. Check dialogue for following:
       
       
       
       1. Grammatic perfection
       
       
       2. Is there enough
       
       
       3. Is it sufficiently confrontational
       
       
       4. If statements go longer than three sentences, break it up
       
       
       5. Are some responses oblique
       
       
       6. Mark any exchanges that seem weak or wrong compared to others
       
       
   
   
   15. Put "said" instead of other speech tags (only "told, replied", and "asked" are the exceptions)
   
   


6. Wait a few days


7. Read through looking for anything that will destroy the reader's experience.