"When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest." ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
The First Round
So the manuscript I sent to my publishers was 100,000 words and the ending wasn't even complete. In fact one of my editor's comments was that she thought she was missing the last chapter. Which she kind of was as the story now has an epilogue - while at this stage in the process that was definitely missing.
It wasn't like I hadn't tried to edit the novel before. The Stephen King quote above is very true as I'd read my manuscript countless times, I'd changed little things here and there, and I'd tried my hardest to make it the best, most polished version I could. But I needed help to see the forest.
Enter my editor.
I received my edit letter in March and was then given a six-week deadline to make changes. The edit letter was around ten pages long and, naturally for that length, was very detailed. It mostly focused on the world-building, plot and pacing. I also received my manuscript with comments from my editor and another member of the editing team marked throughout. Both sets of feedback were extremely helpful. For the letter, it opened up questions of what I could do to develop the magic system, how I could amp up the pace and what in particular wasn't working with the ending. The comments on the manuscript itself likewise got me thinking as it showed which parts came across as potentially confusing to the reader. Of course they did highlight sections which were exciting and working well, but it was really the moments of disconnect that were the most helpful to see at this stage.
After I read through all the feedback, I got on a call with my editor. Some obvious advice for any type of editorial call is to have prepared some solutions to the problems brought up in the text. We discussed what my plan of action was going to be for this first round and it was very much an open discussion. Nothing was set in stone, but my editor could tell me which ideas she liked and what questions she still had that needed answering.
At the end of the six weeks (yes, I made the deadline!) I had reduced my manuscript from 100K down to 75K. This still shocks me as I added in a lot of new scenes. But of course I cut a lot of scenes too. Surprisingly, I don't have any regrets about the things I scrapped but that doesn't mean I was right to cut everything I did, which was something that did crop up in the second round...
The Second Round
The second edit letter came at the end of May and this one was five pages long but still very detailed. My new deadline was two weeks. Eeek! And I did end up needing a couple days extension.
The focus was mostly on expanding on the changes I'd made from the first round. For me, this was adding in more tension, fine-tuning the added layers to the world-building, and looking at how the character relationships needed altering based on some of these new plot developments. And it was in this round that I gave some time to my side characters and looked at how I was potentially under-utilizing them.
I also had comments from my editor made throughout my manuscript and here I saw that the relationship between two of the main characters had suffered from some of the cuts I'd made. It didn't mean I had to add those scenes back in, but it did mean I had to look carefully at the dialogue and still create relationship-building moments.
By the end of this round my manuscript had gone from its skeletal 75K to a much healthier 85K.
The Third Round
The third edit letter came at the end of June and this one wasn't actually a letter but simply a bullet point list along with the marked up manuscript. The focus was noticeably different on this round as a lot of the comments were on how characters and their emotions were coming across in a scene. I had one week to make these changes and although there were some moments I had to really think about, this was undoubtedly the easiest round so far.
The Copyedits
It's not done yet! The copyedit round was a really exciting round for me as it was the first time I was reading my manuscript from start to finish. I received the copyedits towards the end of July and this was given as a marked up manuscript, as well as a style guide that detailed things like character information, unique terms used in the text, as well as grammar and punctuation guides. The comments on the manuscript were from the copyeditor as well as a couple additional ones from my editor.
Reading the copyeditor's comments was very different from my editor's feedback. This was far more objective feedback and was fairly easy to amend. Although I didn't agree with every change, and it's okay to say when something doesn't feel right with the edits, a lot of the things being pointed out were embarrassing because they were the kind of things that would jump out at readers for inconsistency. Such as a rain of arrows coming from the sky when that chase sequence had been cut!
Still to go...
I still have First Pages to read through which I should be receiving around mid-August. This will be a similar process to the copyedits as it will require me reading the manuscript from start to finish, looking at the text line-by-line to ensure it reads correctly. The plot, pacing, characters and world-building are all locked in at this point.
Overall
I'm so grateful to all the detailed feedback I received. My editor actually had some awesome world-building ideas as well as character relationship dynamics that I wished I'd been able to fully implement. I think if I was a more seasoned writer, or if I'd started the editing process with a stronger manuscript, then I would have been able to explore the intensive and more nuanced suggestions. That said, I am really happy with the changes I did manage to make. Especially the ones that made chapters I saw as incredibly exciting in my head becoming favourites of my editors by the end of the process. Which just goes to show that you might fail at realising that awesome scene from your head to the page the first few times, but with help and guidance, you can get to somewhere very close.
My book is so much stronger from having gone through this editing process. The most notable change is probably the pace. To me, it reads super fast, not because there's whiplash action in every chapter, but because so much redundancy has been cut. It now just focuses on the characters, with a few crazy twists along the way!
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