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Adventures in Editing
Nov. 17th, 2009 01:36 pmI'm deep into the edits on AFTERLIFE now (I know! Time is a-wasting, but they insist on keeping me trapped in this insidious day-job!) and I'm realising a few things.
Firstly, I'm very lucky in that the majority of the edits are format changes. Changing UK spellings to US, for example, or altering punctuation. Quick and simple.
Secondly, it pays to turn in a clean manuscript the first time round. The first draft of AFTERLIFE was about 7k shorter than the finished version, was missing a plot thread or two, and had lots of logical errors. How glad am I that I fixed all that before submitting to Damnation Books? Extremely. Leaving aside the fact that the original draft probably wouldn't have been picked up in the first place, having dealt with all these big issues early means I'm only dealing with little issues now - rephrasing, polishing up sentence structure, etc.
Thirdly, you never know it all. I'm amazed at how many passive sentences Kim Richards (my superstar editor) has picked up in the manuscript. I'm amazed that I didn't notice them myself, as I'm very quick to jump on other people for passive constructions (as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laburton could tell you). It's brilliant how much difference tiny little adjustments to a sentence can make to a whole scene, how much stronger they can make your characters' voices.
Fourthly, writing is not all wild parties and cocktails. I mean, don't get me wrong. I feel incredibly lucky to have made such massive leaps forward with my writing career this year. I'm in a place now I didn't think I'd ever get to this time last year, and I can (hopefully) only go forwards from here. But there is a lot of minutiae and nit-picking work that goes into producing a finished book, which I hadn't fully appreciated before. I knew on an intellectual level, but now I know first-hand, and I'm absolutely in awe of the work that goes on that we as readers never see.
Fifthly (sp? Is there such a word? See, you never know it all), you're never finished. As soon as the edits for AFTERLIFE are done, I'll be working on SILVER KISS. Yes, there's lots going on there that I'm not yet at liberty to discuss. I've got to put together a blurb and an author bio before anything else, and there will soon be edits, marketing, and promotions galore to deal with. That's before I even think about any forthcoming edits for MOTHS, writing the sequel to AFTERLIFE, not to mention writing the sequels to SILVER KISS. Seriously.
But I love it.
Firstly, I'm very lucky in that the majority of the edits are format changes. Changing UK spellings to US, for example, or altering punctuation. Quick and simple.
Secondly, it pays to turn in a clean manuscript the first time round. The first draft of AFTERLIFE was about 7k shorter than the finished version, was missing a plot thread or two, and had lots of logical errors. How glad am I that I fixed all that before submitting to Damnation Books? Extremely. Leaving aside the fact that the original draft probably wouldn't have been picked up in the first place, having dealt with all these big issues early means I'm only dealing with little issues now - rephrasing, polishing up sentence structure, etc.
Thirdly, you never know it all. I'm amazed at how many passive sentences Kim Richards (my superstar editor) has picked up in the manuscript. I'm amazed that I didn't notice them myself, as I'm very quick to jump on other people for passive constructions (as
laburton could tell you). It's brilliant how much difference tiny little adjustments to a sentence can make to a whole scene, how much stronger they can make your characters' voices.Fourthly, writing is not all wild parties and cocktails. I mean, don't get me wrong. I feel incredibly lucky to have made such massive leaps forward with my writing career this year. I'm in a place now I didn't think I'd ever get to this time last year, and I can (hopefully) only go forwards from here. But there is a lot of minutiae and nit-picking work that goes into producing a finished book, which I hadn't fully appreciated before. I knew on an intellectual level, but now I know first-hand, and I'm absolutely in awe of the work that goes on that we as readers never see.
Fifthly (sp? Is there such a word? See, you never know it all), you're never finished. As soon as the edits for AFTERLIFE are done, I'll be working on SILVER KISS. Yes, there's lots going on there that I'm not yet at liberty to discuss. I've got to put together a blurb and an author bio before anything else, and there will soon be edits, marketing, and promotions galore to deal with. That's before I even think about any forthcoming edits for MOTHS, writing the sequel to AFTERLIFE, not to mention writing the sequels to SILVER KISS. Seriously.
But I love it.
