Is Fiction a Type of Fabrication? Part 9 of 10
To those of you who just came, welcome. Feel free to leave a comment, if you are wondering what this series is about, check out part one which has the email that started this series. This series is almost complete, but take the time to read all of the series, I hope you’ll find it interesting. Also check and add comments to what the next series should be.
Fiction writing is a great art. There are so many things that an author has the freedom to work with. Editing and Publishing complete this art. Of course as most might argue, editing anything to make it better is a talent unto itself. Editing is a talent I lack in but I’m hopeful that with effort it will get better.
I’d say that editing fiction takes a talent and a courage that needs to be worked at. In non-fiction, you correct for facts, or to make a fact more “readable” or cut something that confuses the point the author is trying to make. Fiction means editing your own creation. I’ll repeat it again, fiction editing means editing your own creation.
Not so much fun, I usually get someone who is far away from writing to read my fiction. Then I can make the changes. It is not that I can’t it more that it is hard to edit my own work to make it better and readable. Ego, I suspect. Perhaps it is because as author and creator of the manuscript I don’t like to rip it apart, even if it will make it better.
Then there is publishing the works/manuscripts/series. I think to get fiction published takes effort. Mostly because if you’re writing genre fiction, there is the established authors to deal with. Often non-fiction is easier to publish since you write “what you know.”
My question is this: is it easier to edit and publish fiction than non-fiction?
3 Comments
PrettySiren
I definitely think it’s harder to edit and publish fiction than it is to publish nonfiction.
You said it very well when you said writing not fiction is writing “what you know”. You’re absolutely write about that.
These days with the abundance of SEO articles, practically anyone can get nonfiction published one way or another.
Fiction is more of an art, so to speak. Nonfiction requires people to believe your facts — fiction requires them to believe your opinions. That is a far more challenging task, since you’re literally asking them to believe things you’ve pulled out of your own mind.
Editing fiction is difficult. When I edit my non-fiction stuff, I’m checking grammar and making sure my facts are correct. But editing fiction is more than editing grammar, it’s editing content and style.
I tend to be too vicious while editing my fiction. It’s taken me far longer to edit my novel than it has to write it.
Rebecca
how true this is.
If anyone hasn’t been to writing prompt… you should, check teh link on the right!
Jennifer Roland
For me, the hardest part of editing my fiction is that I know the story too well. I know the characters’ motivations, so I have a big blind spot for when the big plot holes. I currently have two readers helping me: a good friend who is into my genre and a critique partner who is also a writer in my genre.