How I Edit

A lot of people liked my post about fast drafting the other day, so I figured I would write more about my process. Specifically, editing! Even more specifically, making editing fast, easy, and fun.

If you haven't read the last writing post yet, you can find it here: How Long It Took to Write Each Book

So, editing used to scare me. When I wrote the Lilac Jones stories, my editing process was to go from start to finish several times, cleaning up different issues I hadn`t previously caught and generally trying to polish the work.

It was slow and mentally exhausting, and it made me hate my stories and my writing abilities.

Then Rachel Aaron saved my life. (Again.) If you haven't read her writing book 2k to 10k, it is, without a doubt, a lifesaver. It revolutionized the way I wrote, edited, and even interacted with my books. You can buy it here.

Seriously, any advice I give you will be fractionally less fantastic than hers, and she has more full length novels and more years of writing under her belt than I do, and has been traditionally published in the past. (Shoutout to hybrid authors, because they're like superheroes to me.)

Anyway, after implementing her advice and and toying around with different takes on editing and looking at different aspects of my own process, I came up with the process I use now.

The one that makes editing actually feel. . .refreshing, if I'm being honest. Fun.

I'm editing Shadows right now, so I'll give you a glimpse at my editing sheet as an example.

Once I finish a draft, I let it sit for a time while I draft something else. Then I come back to it, do my read through (without changing a word) and make a list of the book's most pervasive problems as I go.

I list problems in rank of their importance, with Sky & Hunter's relationship being the biggest issue, to the representation of the Seelie court as more minor. As you can see, I include space below each to write about the problem in detail, how I plan to correct it, and where it pops up in the novel, which chapters I'll have to work on the most to cure the issues.

Using this guide, along with my timeline (another Rachel Aaron advice bit that saved my ass while writing this book) and my chapter outline, I can jump around in the manuscript, correcting one problem at a time, instead of reading through my draft several times from start to finish.

Problems in books aren't linear, and it simply makes no sense to edit linearly, from start to end, when a problem might first appear in chapter one and not rear its head again until 12 chapters in.

Once I've got my list down, I start to flesh out each item on it. I won't show all of them, because, you know, spoilers (I do actually want people to read Shadows of Ourselves when it comes out, after all!) but here's an example of a full item:

As you can see, I include the actions I'll need to take in order to fix problems, as well as the chapters in which I they're most present.

Using the list as a tool, I can jump around in my book, fixing issues as I see fit, until I feel I have a stronger draft all around. This is my first round of edits, going through my list and fixing big problems.

Once everything on the list is crossed, though, it's time to start my first line edit. This is where I read my draft start to finish, again, without changing anything (at this stage I usually make an epub copy and read on my kobo) taking detailed notes of each scene.

These are rough, bulletproof notes that I'll use to do my chapter-by-chapter edit, and they look like this, jotted down in a notebook I keep beside me as I read:

• Expand conversation with Riley at the bar, they should catch up more.
• The change in the atmosphere has to be a sharper transition.
• sky should latch onto mention of "others."
• Examine Hunter further in office.
• Riley should be rolling her eyes at this.
• Sky should be making barbs about toxic masculinity.
• Make Riley grab Sky's arm.
• Lucie and Destiny should be featured more here.

And so on and so on. I go on like this until I have at least five or six chapters worth of notes, and then I sit down and implement those edits. These aren't large-scale things though, just little moments and details that I feel could be sharpened or made stronger. I also focus on language and word choice here, cutting small things and readjusting awkward phrasing.

Now it's time to send your book out. I have a core group of people who are allowed to read at this point, and I specifically ask for their opinions on certain elements of the story and try to implement their feedback. I pick and choose which criticisms I think are most valid and do my best to make changes that reflect them. Always remember, other people's eyes catch things yours won't!

Once this edit is done, the manuscript is almost ready to be formatted and published for real. I just need to do one more read through, not changing any prose or plot points, not writing anything new - just doing a copy edit, cleaning up spelling and grammar as best I can.

And then, well, then I'm done. It's time to ready your book for publication, sending it either to your agent or sending out arcs to book bloggers, finalizing cover designs, if you haven't, all the nitpicky business side of stuff that will lead to your book sitting on the Kindle Store, you know?

So that's my editing process. It's made it a lot more fun, a lot faster, and a lot less likely to see me pulling my hair out in bunches.

Resources:

2k to 10k

Let's Get Digital (Free!)