Editing is where it's at!

 

Last night I sent a novella off to my editor. 

Such a simple sentence, but it represents SOOO much work! LOL. I'd promised to get The Novella From Hell to her by the end of the month (of February) and over the weekend it dawned on my that the end of the month was NOW. I was about seven thousand words shy of where I wanted it to be, and the thing needed a solid edit before anyone - let alone an editor - could read it.

When I'm drafting, I'm likely to do thinks like change a side character's gender, decide I want to cut Character X and use their name for Character Y, change the point of view (POV) from first to 3rd (or the reverse - either way is not recommended) or make sundry other major modifications. 

Once I changed a book from m/f to m/m after I couldn't get past the first chapter of the m/f version. (The m/m version is Aqua Follies, which worked out pretty darned well, if I do say so myself.)

Basically, during that first draft, anything is fair game. I throw a bunch of words at a document and see what sticks. Creating the first draft is fun, because I get to see where the story is going to go, but I really love the editing process. Once I can see the bones of the story, then I can make it pretty.

There is a method to my madness. When the first draft is complete, I'll do a re-read, leaving comment bubbles and highlighting the things I need to fix. I'll sometimes leave the last chapter undone, because the process of cleaning things up might show me how the story actually ends. If it's a full novel (or a novella where I have the time lol) I'll make an excel workbook with a page for the story calendar, a page for the outline, and a third page for the punch list.

The calendar is pretty self-explanatory and the punch list is something I create toward the end, to show me what still needs work. For the outline, I track the chapter number, the word count, the POV (if there's more than one), first line, last line, a chapter/scene summary, the plot threads it hits, the romance arc, and any notes. 

Here's a screen shot of my first couple chapters of The Lighthouse Keeper, coming to you sometime this spring.

Sometimes I'll add an additional column for scenes, if there are more than one in a chapter. Word count is important because I think there's a rhythm to chapters, and I want them to all be more-or-less the same. If there's more than one POV, I want to make sure each character has about the same page time. I also like to look at first line and last line, to make sure they're not all the same. 

For example, the outline for my book Lost & Found showed me that the POV character stormed off in anger at the end of at least three chapters, maybe more. It wasn't a good look (lol) so I changed a couple of them.

Creating the outline is slow work, but I learn so much from it that for me it's worth the time. It shows me "scenes" that don't actually accomplish anything and gaps that I need to fill in. My "rules" about chapter length and POV word count are malleable; if I can think of a good reason why Chapter X needs to be twice as long as any other, I'll go with it. I just want it to be a conscious decision. Once I start rewriting, I sometimes add another column with a summary of how the scenes actually end up, or how I think they should end up, especially if I end up doing major surgery.

Because yeah, sometimes surgery is required.

Writers spend a lot of ink (e-ink?) debating whether they're plotters are pantsers, but I think there's almost as big a divide between drafters and editors. My writing partner Irene Preston and I are a good illustration of that divide. Irene sweats over each word, carefully placing them exactly where she wants them to go. I just want to get the words down so I can get to fixing them. She spends a lot of time pondering her characters' motivation before she starts, while I get to know my characters as I go. 

We could not be more opposite, and tbh editing our shared projects can get a little tense.

We've survived six books (and counting), so we're making it work. It's been good for me to learn someone else's process, and I think she's learned from me, too - even if she does want to wring my neck a lot of the time.

At any rate, this weekend required a fairly streamlined approach to getting The Novella From Hell ready for the editor. Saturday I wrote 1100 words, Sunday I wrote 5000 (!!!) words, Monday was a wash because Life, and yesterday I sat down at the computer at 0630 and sent the email to my editor about 5:30 pm. It was a looooong day, but I'm pretty happy with the outcome. 

Until she gets back to me with all the stuff I need to fix.

But hey, it's editing, so I'll have fun!