Editing

Spreadsheet of chapters with arcs and editing notes

Remember I'd made some editing notes from a read through? Well, I've been working on them. I created a lovely spreadsheet (seeing a pattern?) into which I copied my chapter arcs and word counts as well as the notes I'd made. Then, starting from the beginning, I set about rectifying the issues I'd identified in my read through.

I got to about chapter 16 (round of applause please) when an issue that's been hanging around in my head for nearly a year loomed large. I won't tell you what but an early reader felt some of my character motivation was flimsy so I mused and hacked at a few chapters and, when offered a feedback slot, submitted my newly edited chapter (now more than one and incorporating other bits culled from neighbouring chapters). I continued with my chapter-by-chapter edits and engaged with the Bank Holiday weekend (aka family birthday barbecue) then listened to my writing group's comments via Zoom.

They agreed that I'd solved the original problem and said some very nice things but all had something to say that they thought could be improved. Some echoed doubts I'd been ignoring and some reiterated issues they'd mentioned about chapters in the past. After the meeting I let their feedback stew for a day or two then added them as comments into my chapter (positives and the negatives) before methodically going through and actioning.

Or not actioning. Some of the feedback, despite being very valid, didn't fit the way I wanted my story to look. That doesn't mean I ignored them but this is my story and nobody expects me to slavishly re-write exactly what they suggest, especially as they often contradict each other. All they are telling me is how things look from their point of view, so my job is to decide whether that's a problem to me.

One piece of feedback was that too many changes of perspective created something akin to travel sickness; one character running around spliced in with another who sat and talked. I decided to action this and worked on it again (and fixed a few other issues including length).

This post was going to be titled Distraction because I was distracted from researching publishing by doing some actual writing and I thought that was funny given it's usually the other way around. I have, however, also had a couple of interesting chats with potential publishers/distributors and signed up for Jericho London to see if I can have some useful conversations there too (networking is not my strong point).

So, upcoming tasks are to finish editing, schedule a meeting I was meant to have with someone this week about how to navigate self-publishing, and upload my edited book to Libraro. Oh, and I'd better try to put in some hours on my day job as none of this is putting food in my mouth.