Writing.Com General Discussion

Where do you start editing? Like I know this differs from author to author but I don't even know where to start to figure out how to start editing.

I could just, start at the beginning, but then I'm only really editing for grammar and understanding-ability and like, continuity errors.

I could start with a single thing in mind like looking at sentence length to see if it can't be used for what I want, but in the process of fiddling with sentences I'm probably wrecking something else. Like ruining your process on a rubix cube in your attempts to get a new square into uh, I don't, I'm blanking on what the word for like, the thing, that a thing goes into.

I could do an overall edit, start with making sure the whole thing is in line for what I need as a whole; what counts as "the whole?" because technically things like sentence length and mood and stuff are included in that, so is general plot.

And so what happens is I stare at it for ten minutes, tear up like five sentences, and then bang my head on a desk as I move on to a different activity.