So the second edit is going well so far. I’ve edited a few chapters and sent them to the editor to make sure I am going in the right direction. He says it is exactly the sort of thing he was looking for so that’s pretty cool.
What is fascinating, as I work through the book again, is how true the comments my editor made were. For example:
- My characters very rarely use contractions. This was weird one because I use them all the time in texts or when chatting online, but still they did not. Really makes the dialog sound unnatural but luckily an easy fix.
- Repetition of information all the freaking time. One of my characters will mention something and then they, or someone else, will repeat that worded ever so slightly different a little while later. Again not too much work to address this issue.
These are mistakes I probably shouldn’t be making, but then this is the point of editors, to help get a story into shape. It is also a very useful learning experience and will make my writing better when I start work on the next book.
I’m also enjoying being deep in the story again, and I’m seeing plenty of places to improve and add more depth to the book. The hope is now get to this second round of edits by the end of the month and then back to the editor. It’s a big ask, what with the book being 112,000+ words long, but I think it will be possible thanks to a long holiday that is coming up.
Bright and early on Tuesday morning me and Clare will be flying over to America for my best friends wedding and for a holiday of our own. It’s an 8 hour flight and I can get plenty of work done in that time, as well as quite a few internal flights in the US which are a couple of hours long each.
So feeling very confident with how things are going and a lot of work for me to do to get this book done. Early in the year I was hoping to get it out before Christmas but that is unlikely now. I’ll post an update on when I will be aiming to get it out once this second round of edits is done. There won’t be any posts whilst I’m in the US so should be an update when I’m back.